My Trouble With Live Poker...Handling Losses

[Jeffage]

Ok, here's my problem. I play 15-30 and 30-60 regularly online and do pretty well. Losing streaks on the CPU don't really bother me that much as I enter them into my Excel file...I just look at it like it's a business and part of the normal fluctuations. But, I still play live in Atlantic City about once a month because I love it. Live play to me is much more exciting and the games are full of action. But when I lose live, it really bothers me later. Like if I drop 2k live, thats $2000 cash I had to go to my bank account and pull out, and then lose. The consequences of winning or losing live are immediate and much more painful if things go bad. But if I lose 2k in a bad online session, I can shrug it off and quickly move on because it's just a bad day. Why can't I look at it that way when I play live? I think if I played live every week I could, but with work and my social life I can't. Would it make more sense to play 10-20 live because of this even though I would prefer and can afford to play higher? Comments?

Jeff

[Kenshin]

I believe you have identified one of the primary reasons I play at lower limits live than online. The "immediacy of losing" live produces a far more visceral impact for me than a decrease in my pokerstars balance does. Additionally, the relatively static lineup of live poker tables also influences my pain in losing. Whereas I lose and win from a myriad of players online in 1 sessions, I generally lose and win from the same players in 1 live session. Thus, I have to deal with supposedly "inferior" players taking all my money. I just remind myself that the cards will eventually change in my favor and that I drastically overestimate my own ability.

[mosch]

Interesting, I do just the opposite, playing at significantly higher limits live than online.

Live, I'm just playing with chips. Sometimes the chips are pink, sometimes they're red, sometimes I have to use huge stacks of them, but they're just chips.

Online, there are dollar signs next to everything, and I can see exactly what I'm up or down at the moment. I absolutely hate that, because it's an everpresent reminder that poker is not just a game that you try to play well, it's a game you play for money.

[Ulysses]

Keep some amount of money in cash at your house in a wad of 100s. If you're playing 15-30/20-40 live keep, I dunno, 6k-8k in cash. That'll make it easier to treat those hundreds just like chips than if you go to the bank and get money before playing.

[JayKon]

This is more or less what I do. I keep 4 digits worth of cash on hand. It really makes the loses easier to take.

[Al_Capone_Junior]

sounds like you need a live play spreadsheet. I had little trouble with losing live when I kept track of every session. Same reasons you give. You might consider just putting your live play results in your current spreadsheet too. It's all the same thing really, unless you play higher limits live than you do online (didn't sound like it from your post).

al

[sweeneyagonistes]

What information do you put therein? simple net gain/loss and date, or is there more?

[JayKon]

I record:

date, location, hours, +/- $

[Jeffage]

Thank you everyone for your responses...I guess I have to put things into perspective. Despite the more visceral effect of winning and losing, my one weekend a month of live poker is really "just another day" in the books. I like Ulysses idea of keeping some cash so you don't have to constantly go to the bank. Cool thread.

Jeff

[Jeffage]

For my online spreadsheet, I put Date, Time Start, Time Stop, Total Hours (formula adds it up for this column), Site, Game Type, Table Name/Number, Stakes and Net result. You can use formulas to keep a running total of how you're doing, etc as well as your hours. I prefer more details to less with records but YMMV.

Jeff