When I Was A Donk – James Obst

In this series, Card Player asks top pros to rewind back to their humble beginnings and provide insights regarding the mistakes, leaks, and deficiencies that they had to overcome in order to improve their games.

James Obst was one of Australia’s first online poker superstars, winning millions under the name “Andy_McLeod.” The 25-year-old also has more than $1.3 million in live tournament earnings and most recently finished runner-up in the $10,000 buy-in H.O.R.S.E. event at the 2016 World Series of Poker for $261,354.

He has now made WSOP final tables in each of the last three years, proving he is one of the more well-rounded poker players by cashing in variants such as seven card stud, triple draw, Omaha eight-or-better, limit hold’em, and even dealer’s choice.

Here, Obst recalls a particularly brutal session of high-stakes online pot-limit Omaha.

Back in the day I saw a not-so-great player sitting in the $200-$400 pot-limit Omaha game on Full Tilt. He had a reputation for being a bit of a loose cannon and I thought it was a good opportunity for me. I was very wrong. Over the course of the night, I ended up punting off $200,000 in buy-ins, $25,000 at a time.

I don’t know what I was thinking, but he was still in the game, so I just kept on firing. Of course, I didn’t realize that I was the actual bunny in that game. I had no mental control and not only did the other players in the game win, but so did he. He was probably laughing at this kid who thought he could come in and win.

My game was okay, but I had no tilt control. The first $25,000 probably went in good, and maybe even the second $25,000 went in good, but after that, it just got out of hand. I just kept on hitting that deposit button over and over again.

That night was the fastest I’ve ever driven a car. That’s how I kind of forced myself to calm down, by going for a long drive and blowing off some steam. By the next day, I was over it.

These days I’m much better at controlling tilt. I didn’t learn quickly, but eventually it started to sink in. You can only go through so many computer monitors and laptops before you have to mature. ♠