Good Anger/Bad Anger and the MATH

Good Anger:




Bad Anger:

Meltdown

There's a myriad of reasons players get mad at the poker table. What a player does with his/her anger is central to successfully focusing on optimal play.

Mike Gundy had several reasons to be mad, he was protecting his players (a 21 year old 'kid') and lashing out at the media. Gundy accomplished something though. He sent a message to his team and to the media. I believe in the long run Gundy solidified his bond with, or hold over, his team. When playing a team sport, adopting a bunker mentality is key. It has to be US VS THEM. The stronger 'US' is, the more resilient and dominate 'US' can be over 'THEM'. Gundy put himself in front of his team, refocused the attention and built his teams trust all in one brilliantly insane blowup.

DeAngelo Hall is a punk. He has always been a punk and he will always be a punk. He continually blows himself up, just to get beaten or to beat himself. Hall's list of missteps is becoming large, and for all his talent and bravado theres a scared little classroom bully laying beneath his surface. Sunday night the Falcons actually had a chance to win their first game of the season. The defense had broken down a bit from the first 2 games, but Joey Harrington was showing glimpses of a guy who could pass for an actual NFL quarterback.

Hall was playing great, he had covered Steve Smith all game and held him without a catch. One little misstep derailed his entire game, and lost the momentum for his team. Steve Smith finally won, he got into Hall's head and Hall totally lost it. He cost his team an additional 30 yards being an idiot, and turned a long FG kick into a touchdown. Way to go dude, you completely screwed your team.

In most instances, anger does you no good. Anger is the result of a lack of discipline and focus. If you can channel your anger to produce positive results instead of verbal and physical tirades, then it is possible to always think clearly and make the proper decisions.

Yesterday afternoon I stepped a little outside my bankroll requirements and played a 2 table token tourney. I had an opportunity to play the MATH and I wanted to take it.

I got my token fairy easily, then sparked up FT about 9PM. I decided to play a 5.50 t-table to warm up, and took it down. Freeroll!

I played a bit loose as I tend to do in blogger games. I sucked out big time on HOY fairly early on so I decided to take some screenshots.


HOY played this hand perfectly against me. I call a small/medium raise with soooted jackking and flopped a gutshot. He knew my range was wide, he set the trap and I fell right in. Full Tilt RNG had other ideas.



A few hands later I catch him stealing. Standard mook re-raise.




Here I am overplaying mid pairs. I do this way to much and need to recognize the signs. Maloney was screaming top-tier and I couldn't lay em down.

Again, I overplay nines, this time it works out as I put HOY on a pretty wide range.


Wwonka was desperate and I got a BB special.



Joshua (Raising Cayne's roomie) raises 3x in the SB, I call my sooted gappers. I push post flop with oesd - 3rd pair. Thoughts on this one??

I think I was ahead here, the 4x raise may have been a bit risky though.

Fuel raises ~3x preflop, I smoof call, so does Byron. I push the oesd, Byron already had it, IGHN. double bubble.




Congrats to bdiddie or jim, whoever won.