First Loss and TILT

I put in a 1,000 hand session tonight on Full Tilt and recorded my first loss (since starting this blog - don't worry, there will be many more). I was down $3,606 on the night. I ran into some tough spots early and fell behind two buy-ins within the first 200 hands when I ran KK into AA (all-in preflop) and bottom two pair against a flush draw and gut shot (all-in on the flop), losing both hands. I grinded back over the next 500-600 hands (down about 1k at my high-water mark), but am very disappointed with the way I played at the end of the session. It is no coincidence that a big loss and a long session coincided with one another. My desire to get back to even made me push hands harder than I should have and I ended up tilting off about a buy-in at the end of the night. A 1,000 hand session is a reasonable session (probably about 2.5 hours of play), but I need to shorten my sessions when I am losing (and possibly not playing my best) and lengthen them when I am winning (and playing well), and not the other way around.

I need to convince myself that every hand is part of one long extended session. Losing focus of this fact and worrying instead about the volatility of the current session cost me tonight.

Poker tracker: the PT support staff is working on the issue and I will start posting hands again as soon as it is resolved (hopefully tomorrow).