Complaints about online poker and recordkeeping

[Al Schoonmaker]

I agree with your point about feeling cheated because of poor record keeping. In fact, I made that point in "Paranoia at the poker table" a few years ago in "Poker Digest," and I'll make it again in "Taking notes, Part II" in "Card Player." Let me quote from that PD article.

"In fact, many losers believe they beat live games just because they keep bad records. They forget how many chips they buy, or how often and how much they lose, but exaggerate their good nights. Their results online are the same as in live games, but the online sites keep accurate records. I am sure that selective forgetting is a major cause for the online losses of many self-proclaimed winners.
Most of the 'I've been cheated!' complainers never seriously consider these other possibilities, especially the one about bad records. They insist: 'I'm a good player. I have always won before, and cheating is the only possible explanation for my online losses.'"

It's all part of the common need to deny reality, which is the topic of my current articles in our eZine. You will see denial EVERYWHERE, but it is particularly common in our world.

You must constantly fight against it because it will damage or destroy your bottom line.

Regards,

Al

[MicroBob]

those who claim to be big, cosnistent winners at B&M but still can't beat the online games because they're 'rigged' or the 'players call down too much' or whatever other reason probably are assumed by many of the 2+2 regulars to generally be losing players at the B&M as well...mostly for the reasons you go through.


Also - I don't think this is exclusive to poker players. I know many people who play slots or craps or whatever who claim to have some sort of system (their favorite machine....or leave after winning $150...or whatever) and many of them claim that they are break-even or slight winners overall.
This is pretty ridiculous of course considering the number of players who are long-term losers.


for a lot of slots, craps or losing poker-players....a night of losing $80 gets rounded in their heads to 'breaking-even' because they lost a fairly negligible amount.

A night of winning $245 gets rounded-up somehow to $300....or even $400 if they forget a buy-in somewhere in there.


And then...after playing 1 night a week for 10 straight weeks they will tend to remember a night where they think they lost $500....a night where they think they won $700....forget about all the minus $100 to $200 night in-between or call them break-even....and somehow come to the conclusion that they are a winning player.



Many people have many creative ways of denying reality.
I don't really know why exactly this is but I have seen it MANY MANY times.


I bet you could walk through a casino to the craps and BJ and slots players and ask those who play semi-frequently 'in your gambling life-time...are you Up, Down, or about Break-Even' and a ridiculously high number of players would answer break-even.
Same for losing poker-players too of course.