Worst feelings from poker to date

The game of poker has dealt me some highs and lows but today has got to be the worst I have ever felt playing this beautiful game.

In the past I have woken to find my monthly profits down to zero when playing after a night out on the town; that hurt. I have since lost $500 in one night early on in my Vegas break; that was worse. But this feeling is by far the hardest to stomach.

I guess you are thinking I must've blown my whole bankroll in one session. You couldn't be further from the truth. This experience has cost me absolutely nothing - so why am I feeling so bad?

Well it all started when I got an email from Gala Poker saying that they hadn't seen me on their site for a while. If I were to come back and generate 10 points they will enter me for a $3000 restricted freeroll. I normally play these tournaments, they are a bit of fun and are normally far less subscribed to than the normal freerolls. So off I trotted to generate my 10 player points. When I had earned my ticket I logged into the tournament lobby, registered (along with two other players at that time) and waited for the weekend to play.

The weekend came along and on the morning of the tournament that started at 6pm I signed in to Gala to see how many entrants the tournament had ..... "STILL THREE??? .... wow this is going to be cancelled surely"....... "No" I think "there are gonna be some more sign in today!". So I set about playing a few 5 man single table tournaments just in case.

After above average success and about an hour before the tournament was due to start I logged back on to the Gala Tournament lobby to find that .. as I suspected .. there were more entrants .... ONE MORE!

So the tournament started with a winner takes all prize fund of $3000 dollars with 4 players. I was very nervous but seriously fancied my chances of at least getting heads up. Certainly I did not expect to go out first.

However go out first I did. It lasted only 29 hands for me, I played completely out of character and played completely hopelessly. I am not even going to post any of the hand histories as they read back so poorly. Just be rest assured I did not play to my full abilities.

So what went wrong? All I can think of is that the situation played the cards rather than myself. With such high expectation any deviation from what I imagined affected me greater than it should have. In essence I was playing on tilt without any reason to be tilted.

I should be consoled by the fact that I still have over $200 in profits this month with my new bank rolling method showing some sign of promise. I should be consoled by the fact that I lost nothing in the search of this free $3000. I should be consoled by the fact that my multi tabling has improved and that I have final tabled 3 times out of 9 tournaments and cashed in a fourth. But all that can go hang for the fact that I did myself an injustice by how I played this tournament. There was such a high reward yet I didn't show an ounce of the skills I know I possess.

BUT ... this is what I love about poker. It is not just a game of luck or skill. It is a cameo of life itself. You can carry on expecting it to all come your way and make excuses for why you didn't achieve ... OR ... you can look, learn and react to produce a better result the next time around.

These results all contain valuable lessons, and I expect to learn every single one!!

So for now .. Keep it Tight!!