Prose from a Poshboy

[celtic]

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Too good.

[BorntoBubble]

To reiterate, if a losing session affects you beyond the 15 mins immediately after it, you have a gambling problem and cannot be a professional gambler. You need to work on your mental game and fix the problem not the symptoms.

This is 100% it, I have to tell people this all the time.

What do you mean by this? I bricked a big mtt schedule for me in a pretty brutal fashion yesterday. I was absolutely gutted, partly for people that took a piece and partly because i love the game and its sunday and i wanted to win. This stayed with me for a few hours, and I'm still a bit pissed today about it. But at the end of the day why shouldn't i let it bother me? I'm staying away from poker for the next week anyway. How does being upset at losing mean i have a gambling problem? This seems like a way OOL statement that needs clarification.

i completely agree i think its good to be annoyed at having a losing session and even better to look at it and say why was it a losing session.. was it because i 3 bet to much, was it because i called to much, was it because i hadn't had my pre session coco pops??! and you can look back and in the future try and solve these issues and have less losing sessions.

I believe as a working man that to many poker players do not take the job aspect of being a poker player seriously enough. If for example i was spending to much money at lunch, i may bring lunch in. If i was staying late every shift i may think how can i improve my efficiency during the shift so that i didnt have to stay late again if i had a bad day i may look to make sure the things that made it a bad day don't re occur.

I would go against the statement if you worry about loosing your a gambler and say that if you have that attitude you are scared of being called a gambler so you try and go completely the opposite way.

It is not natural to loose a lot of money and 15 minutes later forget about it, in business if you made a decision that you had no way of changing it yet it cost you £10K the next day you wouldn't just get up and go " O its variance last month i had a great month" you would look at it and go how am i going to ensure that never happens again

[SuuPRlim]

To reiterate, if a losing session affects you beyond the 15 mins immediately after it, you have a gambling problem and cannot be a professional gambler. You need to work on your mental game and fix the problem not the symptoms.

This is 100% it, I have to tell people this all the time.

What do you mean by this? I bricked a big mtt schedule for me in a pretty brutal fashion yesterday. I was absolutely gutted, partly for people that took a piece and partly because i love the game and its sunday and i wanted to win. This stayed with me for a few hours, and I'm still a bit pissed today about it. But at the end of the day why shouldn't i let it bother me? I'm staying away from poker for the next week anyway. How does being upset at losing mean i have a gambling problem? This seems like a way OOL statement that needs clarification.

That's a different thing, having a good shot at a big score (way more than the average you win) it would always be way more disappointing than a regular loss, maybe that stings for a day and you need to take a day/2 to chill and properly get over it. Fair enough.

But if losing sessions affect you for multiple days then that's a huge problem a likely a sign that you can't gamble for a living at this point in your life. Learning to lose is as important as learning to win.

[SuuPRlim]

i completely agree i think its good to be annoyed at having a losing session and even better to look at it and say why was it a losing session.. was it because i 3 bet to much, was it because i called to much, was it because i hadn't had my pre session coco pops??! and you can look back and in the future try and solve these issues and have less losing sessions.

I believe as a working man that to many poker players do not take the job aspect of being a poker player seriously enough. If for example i was spending to much money at lunch, i may bring lunch in. If i was staying late every shift i may think how can i improve my efficiency during the shift so that i didnt have to stay late again if i had a bad day i may look to make sure the things that made it a bad day don't re occur.

I would go against the statement if you worry about loosing your a gambler and say that if you have that attitude you are scared of being called a gambler so you try and go completely the opposite way.

It is not natural to loose a lot of money and 15 minutes later forget about it, in business if you made a decision that you had no way of changing it yet it cost you £10K the next day you wouldn't just get up and go " O its variance last month i had a great month" you would look at it and go how am i going to ensure that never happens again

You've touched on two subjects here imo, number 1 is that after a losing session you should look for mistakes/flawed thinking/leaks and work on improving them. Spot on imo you defo should, but you should also do this after every winning session, in theory a session where you win 35 buyins needs equally as much examination as a session where you lose 35 buyins.

What it is is a dis-attachment to the results, this is where your analogy to real world work and business separates because in real world business tend to operate on a much more results orientated basis, i'll use fish and chip shops as an example ( ) if a shop is expected to take £5,000 a week and is taking £5,100 a week then it'll be left to itself, if it's taking £3,500 a week it'll be given a lot of attention. This is logical but it's not how gambling works. If you gamble for multiple thousands on a regular basis then you should be perfectly happy to lose multiple thousands in a session and then be ok with it half an hour later, this is the job.

Ofc we're all human and have human leaks, like booking a £2k win at 1/2 is just a great feeling, and whereas the happiness is slightly deluded (you would have obv run well, you made more than you should etc) it's still happiness and it exists whether it's optimal or not. So feeling annoyed about a loss or wanting to protect a win etc is always going to happen. If it happens all the time though, then there are problems.

[BorntoBubble]

Do you not think a shop that took more then expected and didnt work on this is exactly like what a hundreds of ex winning pokers players have fallen trap to? And eventually these buisnesses will fall into this trap? Wouldnt you say the most successful buisnesses are the ones that book a good weeks profit and then coming back next week with higher targets and try and smash these also? exactly in the same way a poker player should work?

[cambridgealex]

Just to interrupt the lovely discussion which I haven't caught up on yet...

Just arrived at my first stop. It's so incredible I literally might stay here for the entire trip. Or even my entire life. Zommmmgggg!

Click to see full-size image.

And that's the view from my room!

[cambridgealex]

Wiiii

[redsimon]

Looks great.

Are you travelling just in Colombia or visiting other countries?

[BorntoBubble]

looks awesome i very jealous!

[skolsuper]

To reiterate, if a losing session affects you beyond the 15 mins immediately after it, you have a gambling problem and cannot be a professional gambler. You need to work on your mental game and fix the problem not the symptoms.

This is 100% it, I have to tell people this all the time.

What do you mean by this? I bricked a big mtt schedule for me in a pretty brutal fashion yesterday. I was absolutely gutted, partly for people that took a piece and partly because i love the game and its sunday and i wanted to win. This stayed with me for a few hours, and I'm still a bit pissed today about it. But at the end of the day why shouldn't i let it bother me? I'm staying away from poker for the next week anyway. How does being upset at losing mean i have a gambling problem? This seems like a way OOL statement that needs clarification.

i completely agree i think its good to be annoyed at having a losing session and even better to look at it and say why was it a losing session.. was it because i 3 bet to much, was it because i called to much, was it because i hadn't had my pre session coco pops??! and you can look back and in the future try and solve these issues and have less losing sessions.

I believe as a working man that to many poker players do not take the job aspect of being a poker player seriously enough. If for example i was spending to much money at lunch, i may bring lunch in. If i was staying late every shift i may think how can i improve my efficiency during the shift so that i didnt have to stay late again if i had a bad day i may look to make sure the things that made it a bad day don't re occur.

I would go against the statement if you worry about loosing your a gambler and say that if you have that attitude you are scared of being called a gambler so you try and go completely the opposite way.

It is not natural to loose a lot of money and 15 minutes later forget about it, in business if you made a decision that you had no way of changing it yet it cost you £10K the next day you wouldn't just get up and go " O its variance last month i had a great month" you would look at it and go how am i going to ensure that never happens again

I'm sorry, I missed a word 2nd time around, it should say "if your mood is affected". I got it right earlier in the post, honest! You're right, one should obviously change things in the aftermath of a losing session and be 'affected' in the positive way that you describe.

[cambridgealex]

Yeh it's pretty amazing here, but it's sooo expensive I mean, for what it is, it's not much but I remember how much i used to budget for hotels when travelling.

£5 a night was about average. Seriously! Back in the day, I had a £15 per day budget for Peru, Bolivia, Argentina etc etc and that was split evenly between hotel/food and misc activities,transport etc. Seriously that's all you needed. We stayed in some pretty budget places of course, but they were always clean, safe, friendly etc.

I remember when we got to Rio, and the cheapest hotel we could find was £9/night. We were like omg can't stay here long then!

This place is £90/night! That includes 3 meals a day which is a big deal breaker obv, has wifi in the room (grinding with that view in front of me is literally paradise for me!) and free access to pool, gym, and i think there's a spa etc too.

It's right next to the lake where you can get fishing boats out or kayak around and has a nice pool. The location is just amazing, I think I will just stay here rather than look for somewhere cheaper.

[atdc21]

Hi Alex, congrats on your cash, place looks awesome too.
You seem to have starte dquite adebate lol, dont forget if you gonna gamble , be prepared to be disapointed

[Mondeoman]

Firstly if playing sub optimally and not maximising your profits makes you happier then do what you like. 
Very few people actually play poker to maximise winnings (they often think they do but often there's much more going on).
However just be aware that this booking wins mentatilty is pretty poor thinking from a poker playing perspective.
Basically you are saying that despite playing not as well as you could and subsequently not winning as much as you could you feel happier. 
I find this a bit odd really, i'd struggle to feel happy about not playing my best and effectively cheating myself.
If losing sessions upsets you i think the best solution is to master this mental aspect of the game rather than taking
the easy option of just becoming a dead seat for the last hour of play.

From a practical point of view realise that it will cost you because
i)  as you know the last hour of the game is often the best time to play as people play badly trying to get unstuck. 
ii)  When you sit out to book a win this is the nut worse time to sit out (sit out/leave when you're losing not winning).  If you're winning in a game liklihood is you are playing well and
if you're winning others are losing - and if they are losing they are prob playing badly or will start to play badly.

The argument of punting it with k5 etc when you're losing because you're happiness will be increased if you get even is dangerous and fishy thinking.
True if you lose £3k or £3.5k it prob feels about the same at the time.  However when the dust has settled and you realise you
have actually lost an unneccessary £500 (£500 that you will have to work x hours to get back) you should feel worse.

Like i said to a certain extent i understand your sentiments, they are natural - it's how most people think - but most people aren't good at poker -
most people think about these things incorrectly.
The logical conclusion of this thought process for you is next time you get AA just shove all in pre that way you'll win the pot more often and
get drawn out on less.

So basically if it makes you happy fine do it - you play for whatever reasons you like but if you want to be the best player you can be it's probably
not the mentality to take.

[cambridgealex]

Urgh I hate giving you compliments, but out of all the posts on this topic, that is the best one. Couldn't disagree with a single word.

[atdc21]

yeah good post mondeoman, prob cos its in english without +ev-$perhours squared to power 3 etc jammed init.
maybe have to reconsider my views again ffs its never easy