Tilt versus Tilt

I have been able to avoid going on tilt (mostly) for a very long time. It is something about playing a lot that probably hardens you to the crazy calls, unbelievably lucky suckouts, and all the other random stuff that happens at the table. But, yesterday at the American Legion I was saying to the guy next me, "just shoot me" and was fully prepared to just throw all my chips in on the next hand. What was it that put me on tilt? First of all it was a very "chatty" table. There were a couple of players that were talking a lot while deciding what to do. In addition, the dealer was chatting and taking forever to shuffle, deal, split pots, figure out all-ins, etc. Playing and dealing is a thankless task there...I no longer do it as it "pays" $10 plus 3 free drinks is just not worth the distraction while playing. All this is going on during that time in the tournament when blinds are starting to get large, and it really hurts small stacks when the play is so slow they get bumped up to a bigger blind unnecessarily soon.

But the real problem was one of the very slow chatty players who was just playing random cards aggressively and getting very lucky. Finally I picked up AK suited and reraised him all-in (my all-in not his). My AK held up against his trash and I doubled up. He then went on super tilt and went all-in blind 3 hands in a row. Someone called with a poor but dominating hand to his (10/8 vs 10/5 i think), and he caught his 5. That put the other player on tilt. Finally he was eliminated and the table regained some degree of normalcy.

I ended up making the final table but went out on the money bubble in 7th place after getting super lucky on an all-in with my A4 suited vs AJ offsuit and flopping the flush, but then "live by the sword, die by the sword" when I went all-in with A4 suited vs AQ. Sadly, I even hit my 4, but he hit his queen....oh well......