[vincent]

I have a confession to make. I have kept a secret. An embarrassing secret. A real degenerate gambler moment.

It happened about a month ago. As I have mentioned in these forums, I have been playing some really good poker this year. I have been steadily climbing the ladder, winning regularly, and building a nice little bankroll. I had one blip that I shared with you all because I thought it was illustrative of a common problem that poker players share, an inability to manage their overall bankroll even when they are very good poker players.

Well, that is exactly what makes my confession so embarrassing. While I was in the middle of proclaiming my newfound ability to manage a roll and play “macro poker”, I was taking the biggest gamble of my poker life.

My bankroll had just hit $2600. I was rolling. I was four tabling $100 NL tables and cleaning up nightly. I was the bomb. The real deal. A poker god.

I decided that someone with the frickin’ amazing skills I was demonstrating should be willing to put those skills to the test. So, I went and found the biggest online NL game on Party. $1000 NL Hold’em. I quickly won money, accumulating $1400 on the table. I was up $400 and it was like I was on drugs. I would have to grind out a 3 hour session of four tables of $100 NL to score like that and I had done it in less than 10 minutes. It was exhilarating and I needed more. The smart thing to do would be to have quit there, but I didn’t. I kept playing. I lost back a little bit, then a little bit more, won a hand or two and then got sucked out on and suddenly I was down to $700. I had lost more on that one table then I had lost in a single night since I started my remarkable climb up from $22 and I was only 35 minutes into the session. I lost one more small hand, but a small hand on that table is huge compared to my roll and I was down to $500. I had lost half a grand! It was crazy. Common sense took over and I quit before it got to bad.

Thank god, I had caught myself. I had truly gone down into the depths of becoming a degenerate gambler. But it was over. I was never going to do something that stupid again.

…well, not exactly.

The next day, I lost a little bit on the $100 NL tables and was down about $700 for the two days. I was pissed. I am a better player than all of these fish, I thought. And, with that thought, that little demon came back up from its depths. I hit the $1000 NL tables again. I was going to lay low, catch a monster and take someone’s whole stack. I was going to double up and put this little blip behind me. Sure enough it didn’t take long till my potential monster hand came along.

I catch 99 on the button. There is one limper. I raise to $35. SB and BB fold and the limper calls. The pot is $75. The flop comes 678 rainbow. I have an over pair and an open ended straight draw. The limper bets $35 into the $75 pot. I come over the top, $120. The limper re-raises to $250. Did he catch a set? Probably not. If he did, his re-raise would have been bigger. Maybe two pair. I know he can’t have over cards because I would have expected a pre-flop raise with bigger over cards. It’s the size of the raise that gets to me. It’s a bad raise. It’s not big enough. He doesn’t have a real hand. I am sure. This is where the problem starts. I start to over think this. These guys at these high limits are real sharks, I think. They see a new face and they think they can just out muscle the new guy. I am not going to be played with, my degenerate mind continues. I am going to outplay this prick and take this pot down.

I re-raise, to $700, the largest bet of my life. The adrenaline is pumping through me and my heart is pounding out a drum roll in my chest. I have just wagered 1/3 of my remaining bankroll on a pair of nines. I am confident I have this read right. I don’t think that he is that strong. He will lay down. Sure enough, he goes into the tank. I have him. He is going to fold.

He uses the entire clock before he calls. Oh shit! That’s not good. I am devastated, but I have outs. He’s either got a set or two pair. 9-10 isn’t that likely since I hold two nines. There are 8 straight outs. 2 set outs. Maybe 3 more outs if he’s got two pair. I might be ok.

The turn was a 2. I was dead. He bets my last $300 and I had to call. But I knew I was destroyed.

The river is a blank and the cards are turned up. I am beat. What did he have? An unbelievable KK. OMG! This is 5/10 NL hold’em? He limped frickin’ kings. I had completely discounted an over pair because he limped but that is what he had. Un-frickin-believable.

I lost $1000 on one hand!

Did I play this hand badly? I don’t know. I think I made a bold play that he was pretty foolish to call. I had a great read on the weakness of his hand. If I were him, I would have been laying down those kings to my $450 raise. But he was right and I lost. If I were at my right limits, this wouldn’t have been that big a deal. But I wasn’t. I was WAY OVER my head.

So, that’s the confession. I lost $1500 of a $2600 bankroll in about 40 minutes combined. Since I did this in the middle of a slight downturn at my regular limits, I was left with $800 total in my account.

How do you feel when you have done something like this? I can tell you that it has been almost a month and I am still sick about it. I was devastated. Completely and utterly devastated. My stomach was turning in knots for 4 days. $1500 lost in 40 minutes. I couldn’t get it out of my head and I still can’t. It was by far the worst moment in my young gambling life. Not only was I sick about it, but I was embarrassed. I had gone against everything that I was espousing. Bankroll management. Playing within your limits. Not playing over your head. Taking a step back when you are losing. Controlling the game and not letting the game control you. I was a liar. You might notice that I stopped documenting my bankroll at about that time. Well, that’s when it happened. That’s when I made the biggest mistake I have ever made playing poker.

It’s funny. The last time I made one of these confessions, I was in the middle of my comeback. I gambled over my bankroll and was down to $22 in my account. This time is no different. I have comeback and comeback strong. I started by getting back to my bread and butter, $100NL tables. I quickly built that $800 back to about $1500. The other night I won $200 in less than 10 minutes playing the rings and decided to take half of that profit and take a shot at something big, the $100+9 NL tournament. I finished 3rd in that and scored $3870. So, I was rich again, I had over $5300 in my account.

The money has been distributed. I took $3000 in profit and am using it for a vacation. I have continued to play the $100 rings and am cleaning up since my big tournament finish. I have won over $1000 this week in the $100 NL rings. So, I am left with a bankroll of over $3400.

So, what does this all mean. To tell you the truth, I am a little scared. The fact that I am capable of being so reckless makes me wonder if I should be playing poker at all. The fact that I have been able to recover from two separate devastatingly bad decisions makes me worry even more. Do I think that it isn’t that big a deal? Do I think that I can comeback even if I lose it all? What will my degenerate mind lead me to do next? I think I can control this. I think I can play smart. But I know that I am capable of much worse. Maybe my lesson is learned… again. I don’t know. Do I have to hit bottom? I hope not. I believe I am too smart for that…

… but I have shown otherwise.

Wish me luck.