Help - No lack of skill, but lack of willpower

[kismet]

I've come to a very bad realization. I have never cashed out of our local bar unless it was because the game is breaking up. I can't seem to quit no matter if the game is good or bad. Tonight I played my best, and was reading hands perfect. I tripled up my $40 buy-in in about two hours. The fish were pretty much already broke at this point, and then something familiar happened. I looked down at my stack and said ok I'll just wait till they bust out then cash out for a profit and go home early. Not two hands later I took a horrible beat from a good player for about $25. I stopped thinking of cashing out and before I knew it I was broke. AGAIN. The last 4 nights, and many many other times I have said to myself, finally I played well and I'll end a winner.. then go broke. Instead of up $350 for the last 4 nights I am now down about $120 just because I don't quit when I think I should quit. I realized tonight I do this far to often, and would probably have a super bankroll right now if I didn't have to play till close every night. Mostly because I enjoy the game and beating every dollar out of a table. What can I do? It is easy to tell myself at home, ok I'm gonna cash a profit tonight, but it never works. It is always just one more loop, or till the fish bust out, then somehow I rack off all my money before I realized what happened. I'll be off tilt again tommorrow and ready to play my best again. Maybe I can stop ahead... Maybe...

[steamboatin]

If you notice, many of the posts and almost every poker book talks about the importance of discipline. This is a prime example of why discipline is important.

You are halfway there, you have found a leak in your game, now you need to find the discipline to fix the leak. Either get up and leave or realize that you play differently when you are ahead and fix that problem.

[Al Mirpuri]

You should not be leaving a game just because you are a winner. You should not be leaving a game because you are a loser. Caro talks about when to quit in Caro's Fundamental Secrets Of Poker. If you can beat these suckers then you should not leave the game until it breaks up (bearing in mind that you have to be at work in the morning or whatever).

Willpower is a skill and probably a much more important one than knowing how to play your cards. Direct your willpower at not tilting. The difference between the best players and the rest is probably that they tilt far less than the others.

[Cry Me A River]

[ QUOTE ]

and beating every dollar out of a table.


[/ QUOTE ]

If you're down $120 you are not beating every dollar out of the table.

You are fish.

"I have seen the enemy and he is us."

My family has a huge history of addiction problems (though none in gambling, and I've never had any addiction problems myself, or I wouldn't be playing). Every time I play, I have a schedule and a time limit. And often it's a hard limit, because I have to do something or be somewhere (ie: I often play online for an hour or two before I have to pick my wife up from work).

So you've played at your bar enough, you should know the optimum time to leave, when the fishes are out of money and you're about to give it all back. So set that time as your curfew: midnight, 11pm, 1am, whatever. If you have a watch, set the alarm.

And then, when the time comes, get up and leave. If you have to make an excuse, do so. Just leave.

Leave.

If you do not leave, and you're back here the next day re-reading this thread regretting that you did not leave, go to your first Gamblers Anonymous meeting tonight.

Seriously dude, don't be one of those middle aged house-wives who pretends she really wants to loose weight but switches diets twice a month and gets no exercise. If what you really want is to play as long as possible, consequences be damned and who cares if you win or loose, that's fine. But be honest with yourself! You're not a child, you're allowed to just have fun if that's what you want and the money's not an issue it's no big deal.

But, if you're really serious about changing this pattern of behaviour, get up and leave the damn table at the pre-determined time! If you can't leave when you really want to, no excuses, you're a degenerate gambler. Get help.

[Blarg]

[ QUOTE ]
The difference between the best players and the rest is probably that they tilt far less than the others.


[/ QUOTE ]

Immediately put me in mind of golfer Tiger Woods. His almost impossibly cool nerves under even the worst pressure is legendary already in his young career. It's a very real part of what makes him Tiger Woods.

[Dov]

Technically, you are supposed to continue playing as long you have an advantage regardless of the results of the session.

Realistically, most people can only play their A game for a few hours.

My suggestion is that the next time you even consider quitting the game, especially as a winner, that you do it. Even if you just paid your blinds.

As another poster mentioned, discipline is the most important skill in any type of gambling. You need to be able to walk away whether you are winning or losing. The game will still be there when you get back.

If you cannot do this, then you must stop playing, IMHO. Even if the money isn't important to you. This is not just a leak in your game, it is a leak in your personality and life. It is a habitual way of thinking and behaving that you need to break.

You absolutely must learn to approach the game without regard to session results. If the results bother you, then either you don't understand the game as well as you think you do, or you are playing too high or low for your bankroll and tolerance. (I say too low, because many people throw caution to the wind when playing for insignificant (to them) stakes.)

I wish you the best of luck, and you can probably find ways to strengthen your discipline away from the table as well. Whatever you do, when you come back to the game, come back prepared.

[steamboatin]

You need to develop discipline. So next time set a stop/loss limit. I will stop at X hours of play or I will stop when I win/lose X amount of money.

Now lots of people tell you not to stop playing a session because of short term wins or losses and that is correct for a winning player, but you are not a winning player.

You have a hole in your game that you could drive a truck through and you need to fix that hole. You will never improve doing exactly the same thing over and over, so you need to make a change.

After you walk out of there a few times with winnings, it will be easier to indentify what happens later in the session when you begin to lose. Maybe better players enter the game, maybe you play loose when you are a head.

Remember, all the Poker books say, you need to do things that have a positive expected value(+EV). Right now, playing the whole night has a negative expected value so don't do it.

[Knockwurst]

Your response, as well as the others, are right on and answer a question I posted recently about when to get up from the table.

But don't you think that good players (even the likes of S&M) sometimes fall into the trap of considering how they are doing in a session in determining whether to play on, or do they give absolutely no consideration to how they're doing? One trick that I'm going to start doing is arranging my chips in stacks so that I can't readily tell how I'm doing during the session. Of course this doesn't work all that well if you only have a few chips left.

[Ouspensky]

Yes i just made those numbers up. Take into account the rake, tipping and any other expenses and there will come a period of time when i am winning money at a slower rate than i am paying it out. Continued long enough i will leave broke every time. As meaningless as session results are in the theoretical long term, for a begining player it is silly not to think of the affects of spending too much time at the table. Whether that means staying after the fish are cleaned out or until the inevitable downswing forces you to leave broke the end results are the same. If you were to double your bet on blackjack every time it'd be impossible to lose, right? And that's why there are table limits to keep the inevitable upswing from cracking the casino. the poker player's safety net is running out of chips, it'd be nice though, to time the lulls and get out before being completely broke.

[Dov]

[ QUOTE ]
or until the inevitable downswing forces you to leave broke

[/ QUOTE ]

Why should the inevitable downswing break you?

[nef]

If you are a winning player, the longer you play, the more you should win. The "quit when you are ahead" thing is a fallacy.

[steamboatin]

The guy who started this thread is not a winning player. He starts out good, gets ahead and then loses his shirt by the end of the session.

He needs to develop some discipline.

[pc in NM]

[ QUOTE ]
The guy who started this thread is not a winning player. He starts out good, gets ahead and then loses his shirt by the end of the session.

He needs to develop some discipline.

[/ QUOTE ]

It seems that both he, and we, can see the destructive pattern here - he plays to the bitter end, and ends losing his cash. While his account sounds objective, there's a likelihood he isn't telling everything - he probably isn't even "seeing" everything. He explains his inevitable change of fortunes as a function of time. But, almost certainly, its a function of his own change of play....

But the focus of all the remedies is on "discipline". Even he "knows" that, but just can't seem to pull it off....

IMHO, this bears all the hallmarks of an addiction. Gambling is the behavior; the pattern is familiar, even anticipated, yet inevitably results in "unacceptable" consequences. Repeated attempts to "control" the behavior, even while it is happening, are unsuccessful....

It's already time to make that call to Gambler's Anonmyous or to see a therapist. The road will only lead to deeper "bottoms", and there's no "need" to get there to make the choice....

Good luck, friend!

[Transference]

You shouldnt walk away because you are winning or losing. You should walk away if you are losing or are about to due to a factor you cannot currently control.

If you are tired, walk.
If your attenntion is drifting, walk.
If you become convinced you can read other players "perfectly" walk (you can't).
If you are tilting because of a bad beat, you guessed it!

If you can only having a winning night by leaving as soon as you get ahead, improve your game or quit.

And finally, if you are keeping records of how much you would have won if you quit when you had your biggest stack...

I really do not understand what your are attributing your losses to. Are you tired? Do you play too loose when you are ahead? Do you expect that you are due to a string of bad luck or something?? Are you not even trying to figure out why you are losing????

[playerfl]

I set a 30 BB loss limit a while back, and this concept is backed up by many pro's as bankroll protection against unwittingly being the sucker of the table.

After a losing session last night and a few others I recall, I am now going to set a hard time limit as well. My play definitely gets worse as time passes. Also there is the issue of not interfering with the rest of my life.

If I lose 30 BB, OR, if the time has exceeded X hours, then I quit playing.

Any suggestions on optimal time limit ? I'm thinking about two hours at this point.

[Mark H]

2 thoughts is drinking involved with your down swings or disipline. Are you becoming the fish. Do the super fish bust out leaving you with better players. Mark

[Cpt Spaulding]

take your girlfriend or wife with you...The power of nagging goes a long way....

[playerfl]

I agree with this. I seldom get more than 2 hours at the table when my girlfriend is with me.

[kismet]

Thanks for all the replies so far, they are things I already knew in the back of my mind but it helps to see them in print. The one I find most interesting is the "just a gambling problem", as I think it might partially correct. As a math/physics major I would never do something dumb like sink money into roulette, craps, slots, etc. However, I know I am supposed to be able to beat poker and understand why. My problem is that I don't stop when I become a negligable favorite or a slight underdog. At that point poker is no better then blackjack.

I've looked back at my records to see if I could find any trends. Out game tends to go NL near the end of the night when the bar is about to close. A little more then half the time when the game has went NL I have went home broke, and the other half I win a LOT. I do play NL all the time on the internet and love it more then structured. The problem is people who come play our NL game usually lay down two to three times what my stack has grown into. This summer my bankroll has been a bit slim for their NL game so I think I've been playing too timid with my "scared money". I just have this competitive drive to outthink and outplay them. After all, I have sunk thousands of dollars into things like bowling, golf, magic, pool, tae-kwan-do, and similar hobbies trying to be the best so I could crush anyone I knew. So back to gambling problem.. is it a gambling problem when it is the competitive nature that drives you?

All that being said I took some advice to heart for my bankroll's sake. I've never bought in more then once per night. Now I'm going to start cashing out when the game is about to go NL or my stack takes a big hit (%20) from it's peak. I've done that the last two nights and it feels great later being a winner on the night even if it is hard to not play NL with my friends. I think this will help me with +EV in the hours I do play untill I learn some self control. Perhaps when my bankroll is healthy again I'll pick one night a week to play the NL game with my winnings for the evening.