So sick the edge that is possible in LHE tournaments. Very very few people in the world are exceptionally good at both limit based poker AND tournament poker,. Poker players have a hard time accepting that even an unlikely event can continue to happen, and so they think that the world has become sick when they do not get want they want. As a form of entitlement tilt, many players just think it is unfair when they do not get their way every time. Just look at Phil Helmuth’s many blow-ups.

When someone tells a bad beat story, what are they really trying to accomplish? On one level, it is clear that they want sympathy for their misfortune, but how does sympathy make the pain go away? Is there some magical process that alleviates suffering? If someone shows that they care, does that really make me feel better? To respond to these questions, we have to return to the root cause of our social relationships.

Freud argued that when a baby cries to be fed, the baby is not just making a demand for milk. Rather, the child is seeking recognition, love, and understanding. In other words, the suffering baby wants the parent to understand what the child needs and recognize that the child is suffering so that love and care will be supplied. From a psychoanalytic viewpoint, people are constantly making this type of demand, and so even if someone asks you for a simple thing, they may be asking for a whole lot more.

One time, my young daughter was in the bath and demanded buttered toast. I told her that the bread will be destroyed by the bathwater, but she just got more insistent, and she started to cry out, “just one crumb! Can’t you give me just one crumb!” It should be clear that she did not just want something to eat. Instead, she wanted me to give into her demand. Here we see that a request for a particular object might really be a demand for someone to give up and submit to the will of the demander. What the child ultimately wants is for the powerful parents to give up their power and freedom. The insistent, demanding child does not just want love or recognition: the child wants an unconditional surrender.

Returning to the issue of why people tell bad beat stories, we find a similar demand for attention and recognition. The person telling the story not only wants the audience to show signs of shared pain, but the story teller is also asking the audience to take on responsibility for the problem, while the story teller remains good and innocent. As a form of victimhood identity, the person telling the bad beat story wants the other to affirm that the loss was not the fault of the person who was beat. In order to escape from any bad feelings of guilt and shame, the goal of telling the story is then to absolve the player from any responsibility. The role of the audience therefore is to affirm that the loser was just the victim of external evil forces, and that in a world of true justice, this type of thing would not happen.

Of course, there is no natural just order in the world, but people like to imagine that there is some underlying force that balances all accounts and imposes a perfect system of moral order. Even the most scientific and rational people fall back into magical thinking because they do not want to accept the possibility that there is no inherent order to the universe. As hard as we try to escape superstition, we have a difficult time acknowledging reality because it can be so painful. We also do not want to accept our own responsibility for our failures and losses, and so we must believe that some higher power is in control of everything.

When a player exclaims, “That was so sick!,” what they are often really saying is that bad things should not happen to good people, and it is unfair that the world is unjust. Poker players have a hard time accepting that even an unlikely event can continue to happen, and so they think that the world has become sick when they do not get want they want. As a form of entitlement tilt, many players just think it is unfair when they do not get their way every time. Just look at Phil Helmuth’s many blow-ups. They almost all center on him feeling that he has been treated unjustly because some “idiot” has dared to beat him in a hand. Similar to Daniel Negreanu’s recent meltdown, it is hard for people not to feel that they are entitled to win in a just universe. The problem is that no one is entitled to anything, and the world is not inherently just.

As I have argued in previous articles, one reason why it so important to think about bad beat stories is that it helps us to understand what we want from others inside and outside of poker. Ultimately, we want someone else or something else to be responsible for our suffering because we do not want to take responsibility for our own actions. As a way of escaping feelings of guilt and shame, we transfer responsibility onto others, but this makes us deny the reality of our own lives. In terms of poker, there is no way to get better if you do not recognize what you are doing wrong, but if you hide all of your faults and blame others, then you will never advance. Here we see why having a good mental game is so important. We can only improve if we understand ourselves, and this understanding is often blocked by our desire to protect our positive self-image.

Someone like Phil Helmuth is the rare exception of a player who appears to have little self-insight, but still manages to be successful. Even though he often goes on tilt and blames others for his own mistakes, Phil has been able to make it work for him. However, the exception often proves the rule, and the rule that Phil proves is that for most people, you will not able to improve if you do not take responsibility for your own actions. Helmuth thus provides a very bad example for the rest of the poker community since he has been able to get away with seeing life from the perspective of bad beats.

So Sick Poker Rules

So Sick Poker Tips

Day 3 at the 2008 World Series of Poker main event brought about the albatross of the poker world -- the money bubble. When the clock read 10:30 p.m., 675 players went to hand-for-hand action in the $10,000 no-limit hold’em world championship, and just over an hour later, the ironically lucky number of 666 players remained. The roar that came from the depths of the field was deafening when the money bubble burst, for every player still in his seat was guaranteed to walk away with, at the very least, $21,230 in prize money.
The unfortunate bubble boy was Steve Chung, but it wasn’t all bad for him, as he was awarded a $10,000 buy-in for the 2009 main event by Milwaukee’s Best Light. The day had begun with 1,308 players, but the way the field melted down quickly to the money bubble, the 633 eliminations that took place on the way to hand-for-hand play seemed like the blink of an eye when compared with the nine that had to be forced out during the final march to the money. Here is a look at the notable players who fell on the way to the money bubble:
Scott Clements, Jennifer Harman, Erik Seidel, Phil Gordon, John D’Agostino, Alex Kravchenko, Toto Leonidas, Noah Boeken, Chris Moneymaker, Barny Boatman, Steve Zolotow, Jason Strasser, and Nenad Medic.
Not too surprisingly, the pace of play picked up after the bubble burst, and the payout out desk was inundated with players cashing out for $21,230. Some notables that went out in the money during the final stretch of play included:
651: Men “The Master” Nguyen
645: Pat Pezzin
635: Jason Gray
625: Vanessa Rousso
618: Brandon Adams
616: Bill Gazes
600: Thor Hansen
536: Farzad Rouhani
526: Bob Slezak
518: Chau Giang (pictured at right)
Many of the big names in poker still remained at the end of the day, and two of them happened to be (arguably) the biggest names in the game -- Johnny Chan and Phil Hellmuth. Other big professionals who could make an intriguing and entertaining run deep into the tournament include Mike Matusow, Jean-Robert Bellande, Allen Cunningham, Evelyn Ng, Jeff Madsen, Brandon Cantu, Hoyt Corkins, Adam Levy, Jon Friedberg, and Victor Ramdin.
Two players gathered the lion's share of the attention on day 3, although only one of them was a household name. Hellmuth obviously gathered attention with his antics and his claim as the most famous poker player on the planet, while Jeremiah Smith attracted attention with a chip stack that was so large that he needed a cocktail serving tray to move it when his table was broken after the money bubble burst.
Here are a few of the hands from each player featured today in CardPlayer.com'slive coverage of the event:
Smith's monster stack gets even bigger
Preflop, Ryan Daut raised to 6,300 from early position, and he was called by both Jeremiah Smith and the player in the big blind. The flop came J 9 5, and when it checked around to Smith, he bet 12,000. Daut called, and the turn was the J. Daut checked, and Smith quickly fired 20,000. Daut again called, and then checked after the 10 came on the river. Smith again bet quickly, this time for 25,000. Daut folded, and Smith took down the pot. After the hand, Smith was over 700,000.
Hellmuth moves all in, gets fold, 'so sick'

Phil Hellmuth was on the button and was in a pot against the big blind. The flop was dealt A J 9, and Hellmuth bet 6,000 after his opponent checked. The blind called and then bet out 25,000 when the turn came J. Hellmuth thought for a minute and then moved all in. He had the blind, who said this situation was 'so sick' a couple times, covered. Finally, he flashed 8 7 and folded. Hellmuth jumped out of his chair and told him he was drawing dead and was mad at himself for raising. After the hand, he was up to about 260,000 chips.

Crowds Form For Hellmuth's All In
RIght now, if there are crowds swarmed around a table, it means one of two things. It's either Phil Hellmuth's table and he's up to his usual 'Poker Brat' ways, or it's the current chip leader, Jeremiah Smith, as he knocks out yet another opponent and approaches the one-million mark in chips.
The most recent crowd formed for Hellmuth. He made it 9,000 to go from under the gun and a player in late position reraised to 24,000. Action folded to Hellmuth, who made it a whopping 84,000 to go. His opponent called, and the the flop came Q 5 2. Hellmuth checked, and his opponent bet 60,000. Hellmuth check-raised all in, and the camera crews and surrounding crowd thickened. Hellmuth began to tell Mike Matusow at a distant table about how he was all in and Matusow came over to try to see the action. After several minutes, Hellmuth's opponent wiped his eyes, let out a sigh, and mucked his cards. A smiling Hellmuth sat back down and collected the big pot, chipping up to 470,000.

Big Bully
The player in seat 8 raised under the gun to 8,000. Action folded to Jeremiah Smith in the small blind, and he shipped it all in, putting seat 8 at risk. Unfortunately for Smith, seat 8 quickly called and turned over Q Q. Smith showed down 9 6. Time was taken as the table waited for the television crews to arrive. 'Classic race situation,' Smith joked as he admitted he was just trying to punish people on the bubble. The cameras arrived, and did they ever see a show. The flop dropped 10 8 7, giving Smith a straight along with a straight-flush draw. Media surrounding the table gasped as Smith felt a touch of destiny. The turn paired the board as the 10 dropped, but the river brought the A, and Smith pulled a miracle knockout. 'I was just trying to be a bully,' Smith said after the hand. The player who was eliminated stormed off, so Smith apologized to him through the ESPN cameras. Smith was at 1,150,000 after the hand.
Play ended late, thanks to the tournament-stalling effects of the money bubble, and play did not end until after 2 a.m. As a result, the tournament will not start until 1 p.m. tomorrow to give the players time to rest. Here is a look at the top 10 chip counts at the end of day 3:
Jeremy Joseph: 1,470,000
Jeremiah Smith: 1,300,000
Owen Crowe: 1,000,000
Alexander Kostritsyn: 970,000
Dag Martin Mikkelsen: 930,000
Mark Ketteringham: 912,000
Alan Jaffray: 865,000
Cristian Dragomir: 860,000
Sarkis Akopyan: 850,000
Robert Georato: 822,000