When I Was A Donk With Abe Mosseri

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.

Abe Mosseri jumped right in with the big boys of the poker world when he first started playing poker in 2003, and the New York native has proven that he can more than hold his own in the years since. Although he prefers to battle it out in the high-stakes mixed cash games, Mosseri is no stranger to tournament success with more than $2.2 million in earnings and two World Series of Poker bracelets.

Mosseri won his first back in 2009, taking down the $2,500 triple draw lowball event for $165,521. This summer, he found himself back in the winner’s circle, topping the field in the $10,000 Omaha eight-or-better event for $391,313. He followed that up with a third-place showing in the $10,000 stud eight-or-better event for another $138,608.

Here, Mosseri talks about his first experience with tilt.

The first poker tournament I ever played in was the $10,000 WPT main event (Five-Diamond World Poker Classic) at the Bellagio in 2003. I didn’t really know what I was doing, but I somehow managed to finish fourth.

The next summer, I played in my first World Series of Poker main event, and even though I was still new to the game, I ended up as the chip leader after day 3. Back then, they’d give us 10,000 in chips to start, and I had built up my stack to something like 500,000.

Deep in the tournament, I’m sitting at the table with Josh Arieh. I had a massive chip stack, but we played a pot where I flopped top pair with A-2. I bet and he raised. I called, and the turn gave me a straight draw as well. He ended up making a very big bet, and as much as I wanted to call, I folded.

He showed me a complete bluff, no pair and no draw. All I had to do was call, and he would have been out of the tournament, or at least left with very little chips. Instead, he went on to finish third (for $2.5 million) and I went on crazy tilt.
I couldn’t handle it. I went from chip leader to busted in four hours, and finished with a mincash (120th place for $15,000).

The good news is that I learned my lesson really quick. It only took that one time of going on tilt for me to recognize that I was no longer making good decisions and playing good poker. After that, I became much more aware of what my emotions were and it became important for me to not take things personally at the table. ♠