Not Tilting........ but still tilt......

Well been a month again since I posted.... but at least I am hitting it once a month minimum.

Still not playing too much but I did manage to stop by Wheeling for two different sessions.
Managed to prove to myself that I did learn my lesson from the previous trip there. Got there on a Tuesday night about 11:30pm and played till noon the next day. Was a card dead night, no suckouts. But I didn't let it tilt me this time. No pushing of hands I didn't need to push. Lost but only a small amount this time instead of the previous lengthy sessions where I pushed too hard the last hour or so of each session and lost much more than I should have.
Went back the Sunday after Thanksgiving and had a better but shorter session. The badbeat jackpot but up to $58k. Wanted to play more but was up a decent amount and decided not to risk it. Had I been up less I would have played more than the 4 hours I did play as I had planned on making it at least a 12 hour session.

Been doing ok playing small sessions of 1/2NL. Did have a bad session just the other night though. Took what I felt was a bad beat.... well not so much a bad beat as a surprising one based on the player and their knowledge of me. AK beat by Q5os on the river. With the Q5os raising on my flop bet...K106... all spades. And no I didn't have a spade in my hand. The other player knows me well and I had a good read on them they they did not have a hand yet. That they were on a draw. Unfortunately I was not deep stacked enough to make a play that I thought could push them off their draw. I bet-called the flop (was a min raise) and check-called the turn (6c). Checked the river (6s) as did the other player. Only to have their hand turned over to see the 5s that they were betting all the way. Started to tilt..... just kept saying "Wow" outloud but not loudly. I stewed for a little while but managed not to tilt aggressively in any hands after that. Didn't spew chips. I was happy with myself for not tilting... or so I thought.

I previously mainly thought of tilt as angry chip spewing or trying to be too aggressive. I found my other form of tilt that night....... being too scared. Playing hands too passively or totally incorrectly because I fear getting snapped. And of coure this caused me to misplay one hand horribly wrong and get felted. I limped with QQ noting a raise was coming to my left. Planned on just smooth calling to make sure no A (or K) came on the flop. It was raised to $18 with 5 callers before me and I was the last to call the raise. I knew if anyone else that was involved in the hand would have had a better hand or even AK they would have raised. The raiser was a very aggressive player who can raise almost any two and then play fairly well after the flop. I felt their hand wasn't that strong based on the reaction to all of the callers. I should have ended the hand right there and shoved aipf which most likely would have worked. Instead I sheepishly smoothed called. Flop was J43... I think the 43 were clubs. Checked to me with only the original raiser behind me and he looked like he was gonna bet. But I didn't want anyone else in the hand besides myself and the original raiser so I decided to shove my last $120. The pot was already just over $100 I believe. Everyone folded but one player.... the one with 44! He easily would have laid down preflop to a $120 reraise...... but I was tilting.........another lesson learned.

Also played in my monthly big tourney. Big for me is $100. Managed to get a respectable 5th finish out of it. Paid top 8. Ran QQ utg into KK in bb. Not much I could do there as I was in 4th in chips anyways. with blinds being 3/6k+500 ante. My stack was 33k. Made some good laydowns to get to that point. Had a couple of players move aipf in front of me. Woke up with AK, 99, 88 and 55. I think the only hand that would have held up was the 99 but didn't want to flip for half of my stack. Rather keep the shortstacks that way until I felt had them dominated. Ak would have lost to AQ or AJ. The flop was rabbitted and both Q and J was on flop. Might have caught the lucky 10 but we will never know.

So now I have had one tournament cash in each of the past 3 months for $300 or more and I have only played maybe a total of 10 tourneys. I am going to start playing tournaments again like I was doing in the first half of 2007 which was pretty frequent. Had a decent amount of success that year in tournaments but then things cooled off and I cut back my tournament play drastically.

Hopefully 2009 proves to be a good year for me cardwise. Trying to approach it much the way I have in 2008 but with a more consistent schedule of play.