I’ve been playing poker, and gambling in general, for long enough that I don’t have a huge tilt factor at the tables. When things are going bad, I’m not driven to do self-destructive things out of desperation. I’m not going to just jump into a game five times higher than I normally play, or suddenly decide I can beat UB’s blackjack dealer.

My issues, as I’ve been identifying, are far more subtle. In the last five days, I’ve given back my profit from the previous twenty…here’s how…and we’ll use Omaha 8/b as an example.

I’ll go card dead, either with starting hands or missing flops with good hole cards. I’ll get dealt A23x with a suited Ace and the flop will be QJ9 rainbow. Or I’ll sneak into a 6-way pot in position with high cards, and the flop will come out all low despite the odds. Finally, I’ll hit a flop fairly well and take a beat from someone who plays every hand. They’ll have QQ85…I’ll hit a full house and good low draw with my A246 when the flop comes A66…brick on the turn, Q on the river for a better boat and I miss my low.

At this point, I will invariably decide that I should play every hand, because it’s my best opportunity to get my money back…if someone’s worse than I am, I should be in every hand too, to make more and beter decisions than they do. That’ll last for 10-15 minutes, until I remember that my key decision-making advantage is the first one: whether or not to play a hand in the first place.

By the time I come back to my senses, I’m down 20 bets…which is tough to make back in a split-pot game.