Why Do I Play Poker?

It used to be that I would put $100 in my FTP account and have a good time. Play a few sit-n-gos and win or lose, it was entertaining.

Wait, what the fuck am I say­ing? I NEVER and I mean NEVER have really felt that way. I am com­pet­i­tive to the bone and every fiber in my body always wants to win. $1, $5, $100, I don’t care. I want to be the best and I want to win. Ok, I got that off my chest.

So 2 days ago I put $100 into Full Tilt and got ready for some sit n go action.  First 2 go well, a first place and a third place. Then, I hit the skids. In the course of 2 hours, I played 6 multi table tour­na­ments.  I play my usual game — tight early on, then open up as the blinds get higher in order to steal blinds, then when it gets to the bub­ble stage I either push or fold.  It usu­ally comes down to coin flips and as every­one knows, you gotta win the flips if you’re gonna win the tourney.

I have come to accept that I am going to bust out before the money this way fairly often. It’s a bit­ter pill to swal­low when it hap­pens, but when I win the flips it is sweet per­fec­tion. This is a win­ning style of poker.….unless.…..

You lose every fuck­ing coin flip.

You see, on this par­tic­u­lar night I was run­ning really well pre-flop. I was catch­ing good cards, mak­ing the right folds and push­ing when I had the best of it. Only prob­lem was none of my hands would hold up. Don’t get me wrong, I am not cry­ing bad beat here. It just sucked to be kicked in the balls over and over. I was at worst a 60/40 win­ner in 7 coin flip sit­u­a­tions and didn’t win one of them. I got 2 outed, 3 outed and 4 outed over and over.

I’ll admit it. I titled. I steamed off $20 in a sit n go by push­ing on the flop with a queen high flush draw. Of course I got called by the Ace high flush draw. Just one of those nights.

In the end, I real­ize that on line poker just isn’t for me. Call me crazy, but I did the most extreme thing I could think of.

I BANNED MYSELF FROM FTP, permanently.

Instead of donat­ing money to unde­serv­ing poker play­ers, I have decided the next time I want to waste $100 play­ing online poker, I’ll just send a check to Haiti and then go play with my son.  Bet­ter use of time. Bet­ter use of money.

I play ONLINE poker to remind myself to never again play online poker.

Why do you play? Let me know at stories@whydoiplaypoker.net