I think we fear it can all go away... - Page 2

TaoTe · #11 07-13-2005, 09:06 AM

ty I was hoping to get feedback as to whether some people feel this way about the game, given that this is the psychology forum. Poker has so much to do with emotion and control. I play regularly with a friend who would be a great player if he could just remove his ego from the game. I also realize that if I could distance myself from the game that I would be a better player.

jskills · #12 07-13-2005, 11:35 AM

I have had sessions like this. It feels as if (1) you're being persecuted (2) someone "up there" has a sick sense of humor, and then eventually (3) you're not as good as you thought you were.

But it's just variance. Could you have amassed the bank roll you have on just luck and now it's all going to go away? Highly unlikely.

And variance works both ways. My last session was something out of a hollywood movie. I still have lumps on my head due to how hard the deck hit me over the head. I was looking down at aces, kings, and queens (which all held up in giant fields of opponents) more than I could imagine. I was hitting all my draws. I flopped a set that turned quads and got into an all out war with a poor guy who flopped a higher set and made top full house. Overall it was like a 50 BB upswing in under an hour.

So when I'm getting my ass kicked in again next time, I will just force myself to remember this particular session.

We just need to focus on making the correct the decisions and leave the rest up to the cards ...

flair1239 · #13 07-13-2005, 11:42 AM

The next time you have a really good run over a few thousand hands. Go back and look at some of your winners. count the times, you turned a set, had a pair and a gutshot and hit the gutshot on the river, trapped somebody set over set, made a fullhouse out of two pair on the river against a straight or a flush, had AA when someone else had KK-TT, flopped a set against AA or KK. You will see that even with good tight players, "bad beats" (or what you might percieve as a bad beat if you were on the recieving end) can have a strong positive influence on your short-term WR.

Jeffage · #14 07-13-2005, 11:46 AM

Interesting post. My question is, is your therapist totally open minded about your poker play? B/C I think most therapists would be like, "you have a gambling problem" no matter what you explain to them about it. It would be interesting to have a one-on-one with a shrink about psychological flaws that affect poker play without it becoming a "you have a problem, we have groups for this" kinda discussion.

Jeff

SNOWBALL138 · #15 07-13-2005, 03:59 PM

My therapist thinks that poker is healthy for me, so yeah, I think he's pretty open minded. I think you're right about most therapists having a negative reaction. My psychiatrist told me that she hopes I don't have a gambling problem when I mentioned that I play poker.
You wouldn't really tell someone that you hope that they aren't an alcoholic if they told you about going to a bar, would you?
So yeah, poker has an undeniably negative stigma attached to it, and people working in the mental health profession are not without their prejudices. When I have my better judgment working for me, I totally avoid discussing poker in mixed company. I just can't stand knowing that I am being judged.

Erik Blazynski · #16 07-13-2005, 04:42 PM

This is what they call learning, it's part of your evolutionaty instinct, a built in mechanism for improvement. I know it seems like a curse, but is really a blessing. When you lose, you reflect on the situations and you think about how you could have played differently and then you figure out how to get better.

If you lose and you just feel sorry for yourself and consider yourself (in your words) "a victim of variance" then you probably think that you are better than you really are, so just get over yourself already.

Blazman

SNOWBALL138 · #17 07-13-2005, 05:11 PM

I totally agree. My KK just lost to KJ all in before the flop, and instead of whining about it, I'm going to spend the rest of the day reflecting on how I should have seen this coming.

Seriously though, there is no analogy between learning poker and learning pool, golf, basketball, bowling, or anything else I can think of.
People play correctly and lose. People play incorrectly and win. The relationship between correct play and positive results occurs in ways that are not immediately noticable.
This is why people suck at the game and it is also why some people play for a whole lifetime and never become winning players.

[ QUOTE ]
This is what they call learning, it's part of your evolutionaty instinct, a built in mechanism for improvement.

[/ QUOTE ]

This is totally accurate. This is how humans learned that fire burns flesh, how ingesting too much ice cream gives you an ice cream headache, how ketsup tastes good with french fries, how Bush is a bad president, etc.

However, this is NOT how people learn to play winning poker. This is how people become supersitious about poker. "I always lose with AQ." "I never make two flushes in a row." "I should always quit when I am $200 ahead"

These are not useful ways to think.

Erik Blazynski · #18 07-13-2005, 09:00 PM

there is no such thing as a bad beat, only bad plays and bad reactions. The lesson in your KJ scenario is how to learn how to react to loosing the hand. To learn that ANYTHING can happen, and does. I learned this from a hand where I held JJ the flop came JJA, then A-Q goes all in, I call, turn A river A. Did I do the right thing? of course. But I learned that I can do everything correctly, I can play perfectly and lose. I am not supersitious about playing JJ. I concentrate on making the correct decision at every opportunity. If that is your goal instead of winning, the winning will come.

-Blazman

Net Warrior · #19 07-13-2005, 10:38 PM

I think another part of the problem is that when variance leads to a big downswing in our BR, we get frustrated. As winning players we get used to winning our fair share over the short term. Unless variance is really running against us, that's just how it works for winning players. So we get used to slowly building our BR and imagining how it will be and planning for our next move up in level. Then a downswing hits us and the wheels fall off the dream. Not only that but if we've been there and done that enough, we actually are force to move down in level to protect our BR untill the downswing is over. The carniage seems to last for ever. Poker is a time consumming passtime and losing adds insult to injury. Add to all of that that at times you are bound to tilt a little bit while running bad (it's human nature; we all get frustrated from time to time) and we start to feel like losers.