Playing Scared

[ThorGoT]

When I started my first session yesterday, for some reason I was feeling incredibly scared -- i.e., that, other things being equal (i.e., unless the deck smacked me in the face),there was essentially no way I could win unless other people made mistakes. (BTW, I am not having a bad run -- to the contrary, it's been a successful past two months, and a successful past week.) I then proceeded to eke out my most successful four-game session ever, with two firsts and two seconds ($50+5). Obviously, luck played a part, as it always does, but I'm curious about whether my mental approach -- such as it was -- also had an effect. "Playing scared" meant that I was not (a) on tilt (too scared!) or (b) gunning for pots that I felt I 'deserved' to win (when my cards did not merit it). Additionally, it is in fact true that your profits do depend in substantial part on other people's mistakes. Anyway, if my results had been bad, I probably wouldn't be posting this, but I thought it was interesting. I was also curious, in an entirely non-productive way, about whether other people ever get "scared," and whether there's some level of success (total money won, total games played) at which it goes away. Whether you'd want it to go away is, I suppose, a different question.

Edit: Posted in the STT section rather than psychology because I think playing "scared" is arguably of particular value in this kind of game, inasmuch as it forestalls you from bleeding off chips / violating the gap concept.

[unfrgvn]

I have had this feeling in the past, don't remember if I did well or not. I also think it came at a time when I was running good. I think in the back of my mind I was feeling I'd been running too good to last, and I was "scared" this would be the time.