October and Tilt Breaker Software Review

Swinging down and then back up. I probably played my B game overall because I made too many hero calls for no reason and made alot of little mistakes that hurt my results at $100 NLHE FR Rush.

I've been talking with Winthrop on Skype. I met him a few years back on CR and we have kept in touch. It's def good for my game to talk to someone like Winthrop who has very interesting views on how to play hands. He use to play higher but is currently playing $25 nlhe SH at Poker Stars.

We also made a prop bet where we have to ship each other $1/hand that we play bad. I need to add them all up. I probably owe Winthrop about $10 or so and maybe even more after I critically review all my hands again.

It's so sick, I know what I need to do but I still can't do it while playing. It's like I'm not in control when I'm playing poker. It's ridiculous and I need to fix this ASAP because the cycle of losing and breaking even will continue forever.

I've been testing out this new software called Tilt Breaker. There is also a post by SuicideKing who is looking for feed back in the software program at 2plus2 Software Forum.

It was easy to install and set up. I basically downloaded it and typed in my screen name so that the software would recognize me. It automatically picked up where my hand history were stored. It works with HEM or PT3 but you don't need either as it is a standalone software. You can try it out for free for 15 days before you decide to buy it.

There are currently 4 different ways of controlling your tilt. You can preset stop loss, stop win, stop time played and/or stop hands played and lock down time for each category. Whatever you hit first, it will activate Tilt Breaker and kick you off your cash tables. I don't play tournaments or sit n goes so I"m not really sure how it works. From what I read, Tilt Breaker will let you finish your session but won't let you enter into new tournaments or rematches.

For example, you can preset Tilt Breaker to kick you off your poker tables by presetting it for $300 stop loss from start of session or session peak. Peak session means that if you win $200 within your first couple of hundred of hands and then proceed to lose $300 to be at negative $100 for the session. Tilt Breaker will kick you off the tables. You can also preset how long you want Tilt Breaker to keep you on lock down. I would recommend 30 minutes to two hours depending on how badly you tilt.

There is also a Rage Quit Button that you can manually activate to kick you off the tables. There are 3 levels of tilt that you can preset it at. For example, level 1 will lock you down for 30 minutes, level 2 for 1 hour and level 3 for 3 hours.

I highly recommend this software if you got tilt issues. I know I do, and it has helped tremendously so far in November. I personally set it up at negative $250 (lock down for 30 minutes), positive $250 (lock down for 5 minutes), 1200 hands (lock down for 30 minutes), and 1 hour per session (lock down for 30 minutes). I notice that these numbers were optimal for me because I'm never playing my best when I'm down 2 1/2 bi or up 2 1/2 bi. After 1 hour, I'm playing bad and probably chasing my losses too.

I'm looking forward to seeing how my results will be this month with Tilt Breaker because in October I had sessions where I couldn't get up off the tables and ended dropping around 4 buy ins or more in a session when I should of stopped down 2 or 3 buy ins.

September Review

Went on a little downswing in the beginning of the month and dropped back down to $50 NLHE FR Rush Poker. I got my confidence back and jumped back up to $100 NLHE FR Rush Poker. Feels good to be winning again but I know I can get better results.

I got so many leaks, it's ridiculous. I'm really happy that I can spot my leaks because that allows me to be a better player.

I'm a Black Card Member but it seems like it's not too much of a boost. I earned it by averaging 500 FTP points in the past 100 days. FTP released a new update on 9/30/10. They basically got rid of Iron Man Plus and changed their rakeback system from dealt to weighted contributed. So instead everyone getting an even share of the rake, they will now split it up evenly to the players who contributed. For Example, if sb and bb got it all in preflop for $100 each. FTP would rake $3. SB and BB would get $1.5 worth of mgr. I'm no math wizard but it looks like it might be hurting us in the short term. I'm just going to wait for HEM to release the new rake update for FTP so I can see how it affects me.

My Goals this month is to just keep playing my A game. I'm still trying to stick to my 1 hour session game plan. I went over a little when i was tilted and down a couple of buy ins. It's still very hard for me to quit when I"m stuck. I need to stick to this plan unless I'm playing ridiculously well or the tables are awesome. It's just a way to stay discipline and not tilt off 10 bi in one session because I've done it in the past.

August Review

I think I played alot better this month than last month but my results don't show it. I was up close to 8 bi over 30k hands then I went crashing the next 20k hands down 1 bi. With rakeback, I'm a very very small winner at $100 NLHE Rush Poker. I also tried experimenting with 5 and 6 tabling by adding a couple of $50 NLHE FR Rush Poker toward the middle. Once I started going downward, I dropped back down to 4 tabling.

In the beginning of the month, I was using Citizenwind's concepts but I sort of got away from it because I was frustrated that I kept getting sucked out on the turn or river. It was either a suckout or action killer card. Overall, I just need to think with a clearer head and not be so result oriented. I gotta think through their range and figure if I can get their whole stack, 1, 2 or 3 streets of value. Use logic and reap the rewards.

I'm going to limit myself to 1 hour sessions no matter what for awhile and see how that works with my new style. I got a pretty bad leak where if I'm losing I start to play too many 3 bets pots OOP. I should just fold and get into a better spot IP or as the preflop aggressor. I also gotta stop being a calling station because that is probably my biggest leak. If I can fix those leaks, I should win atleast 10bi's this month for sure because donks just love giving away their money.

Shoutout to SkinnyBrown at CR. We're in the same boat and aspire to be poker pros. He plays $50 and $100 NLHE FR Rush Poker too and we're going to be sweating/talking poker strategy this month.

10k bankroll (Milestone)

I've been thinking about making this milestone for awhile now. My bankroll will fluctuate but it's nice to see 10k in the bankroll. I always withdraw so it never got this high ever until now. Def feels good.

July 2010 Summary

I finally decided to hire Citizenwind (Alvin Lau) to coach me in $100 NLHE FR Rush Poker. I always liked his CR videos and his style of play. I've gotten 3 of 4 lessons already and will get the last one sometime in August. If your thinking about hiring Alvin, you have to throw your ego out the window because he isn't going to hold back if he thinks you play bad. I read his review on CR so I didn't take any of it personally but it did sting a little :)

I was down 14 bi in early July and then i hired Alvin to coach me. I then went on a 14 bi upswing over about 40k hands or so. So I broke even for the month over 68k hands which is not so bad because I made money from rakeback/bonuses.

I'm really looking forward to August and seeing how this new style will work for me. The sick thing is I think I ran bad on turn and rivers for the past 40k hands. I would easily be up about 10 bi or more. I can remember about 4-6 sets that gut suck out on the turn or river or very scary cards hitting and killing my action.

Good Luck

All Hands Since Oct 2009 to end of June 2010

That graph represents all my hands since Oct 30 2009 to the end of June 2010 in big blinds. Overall, I'm okay with it because I tilted so much during that time. With rake back and bonuses it's not too terrible.

The last 80k hands on that graph is all $100 nlhe FR Rush and I didn't even look at my results all month. If I would had looked when I was down over 20 bi I would had tilted. I made a nice recovery and almost go back to even for June but ended down about 6 bi.

I'm going to stick with not looking at my results again. I notice that I play very long for my losing sessions and about 1-2 hours for my winning sessions.

I'm going to try to stick with 1 hour and if I feel good go another hour or so. Funny thing is I just played a 4 hour session. I'm such a degen and set rules that I break. If only the tilt demon software would work for me on my computer. I got Morny, tilt demon support to do a teamviewer session with me but he couldn't get it to work. I'm hoping he can find the problem soon because I def need that piece of software.

As for fitness, got a lot of family members visiting for graduation parties and July 4th so I haven't been too good with diet/exercise. Going to get back in a better routine this month for sure. At least I didn't gain any pounds and my stamina is way better. I'm able to run over 1 mile on the treadmill without killing myself so that a positive. I did end up losing that ten pounds and hope to lose another 5 pounds this month.

Happy 4 of July!

Oh yeah, Please Donate if you Can. The PPA is trying to raise funds to help get online poker regulated in America. I copy and pasted a post that "TheEngineer" posted on 2plus2......



On July 1st, PPA will mark the one month anniversary of full implementation of the UIGEA banking regulations with the Poker Money Bomb! The money bomb will allow us to fight back and to stand up for ourselves proactively via donations to PPA and the PokerPAC (paid members are eligible to donate to the PAC). We'll let our opponents know that we're not lying down and we're not giving up.


I recorded a spot promoting the Poker Money Bomb, at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QFjeUo3KnQI.
DIGG: http://digg.com/world_news/Poker_Pla...mb_on_July_1st

Main site: www.pokermoneybomb.com
PPA Donations: http://theppa.org/donate
PokerPAC Donations: http://theppa.org/about/pokerpac/donations/

New Poker Mindset

I played about 80k hands last month. I played a mix of $50 and $100 NLHE FR Regular and Rush Poker. I"m probably up around $1500 with rakeback but I'm not exactly sure because I haven't looked at my HEM results or FTP cashier. I got the idea after I read Bazclef's blog about resetting your poker bankroll mentally and accepting for what it is. Tommy Angelo also talks about it in his Deuces Crack video about not getting attach to your peak bankroll. I'm starting to realize that it leads to me tilting and chasing losses because I want to get even all the time.

I chased losts twice last month at $1-2 NLHE FR Rush. It could of led to disaster but I was lucky that I ran well up there.

I haven't looked at my HEM results or FTP cashier for over 1 week now. I'm probably up a little but I'm not exactly sure. I like this approach and don't plan to look at my results until the end of the month. We'll see how long I can last because I might accidentally see it.

Once I look, I'll post a graph of my last 100k plus hands.

I'm also trying to get Tilt Demon Software to work. It's a neat program that will shut down your poker client if you reach your stop loss, stop win, hand or time limit. You set it before hand and it will keep track for you with HEM. I haven't got it to work yet but I emailed support. I'm hoping to get it running so I can test it out. If I like it, I will buy it. There is a 14 day free trial. Check it out and let me know what you think. Here's the link.

Tilt Demon Software


He also has a Tilt Demon Savings Calculator. It will calculate how much you won/lost after a hand min, cash won or lost min or time min. For example, if you put in 1 hour. The savings calculator will calculate your win rate after one hour. So if your session lasted 1 hour and 30 minutes. The software will show you how much you won/lost for the last 30 minutes over your whole or range of data in HEM. It's pretty neat. and it's free too!

As for this month, I'm focusing on playing 4 tables of $100 nlhe FR Rush. I never thought I would get hook but I'm starting to like Rush Poker. I'll try to limit my sessions for 1-2 hours. After 2 hours, I notice I'm not playing my A game anymore because I'm probably chasing losses.

Good luck