Get Even Itis (money management - long content)

[wildwood]

Get even itis. When you get stuck during a poker session and say, “I’ll just play till I get back to even.” You’re setting yourself up for a big loss. Four out of five times you’ll get back to even and you’ll feel great. But the one time the cards don’t change or you’re tilting or the table is playing differently against you because you are losing or you’re tired from playing too long or some combination of these, it’s the setup for a huge loss. I’ve seen and read enough poker player interviews that say it’s not uncommon for a player to win perhaps 7 or more sessions in a row and then in the 8th session lose all their previous winnings plus more and be a net loser. Howard Lederer says he never risks more than 30 big bets during one session because he doesn’t play as well when he’s losing. Well if that’s true for him, what about us? The pros say for the most part they go to the table to play hours because it’s all one long poker game and tomorrow picks up when today left off.
There are four things that can happen in a poker session (besides break even) 1. Small win 2. Big win 3. Small loss 4. Big loss. Assuming you play well and you can handicap yourself at a table, if you eliminate number 4, you must win in the long run. There is a saying in the markets…”If you’re not willing to take a small loss, sooner or later you’re going to take the mother of all losses” The next time you say “I’ll just play till I get even” the red caution flag should go up!

[crunchy1]

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Get even itis. When you get stuck during a poker session and say, “I’ll just play till I get back to even.” You’re setting yourself up for a big loss.

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You're probably a losing player if you're saying this to yourself.

A winning player would evaluate his current play and the table conditions and decided whether it was profitable to continue playing. A winning player would not be concerned with "getting back to even" in any one particular session because the winning player understands that a real session of poker spans his/her entire life from the very first hand he/she ever played until the last hand he/she ever plays.

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Four out of five times you’ll get back to even and you’ll feel great. But the one time the cards don’t change or you’re tilting or the table is playing differently against you because you are losing or you’re tired from playing too long or some combination of these, it’s the setup for a huge loss.

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These are all great reasons/evaulations about whether or not you should continue playing in a session. What I don't understand is what this has to do with "getting even"?

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I’ve seen and read enough poker player interviews that say it’s not uncommon for a player to win perhaps 7 or more sessions in a row and then in the 8th session lose all their previous winnings plus more and be a net loser. Howard Lederer says he never risks more than 30 big bets during one session because he doesn’t play as well when he’s losing. Well if that’s true for him, what about us?

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I'm not familiar with his quote on this but, I have a hard time believing that a high-limit pro player like Lederer is going to flinch at losing 30BBs? That just sounds ridiculous.

<Sarcasm> (had to turn this on for this section of the post [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img])
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There are four things that can happen in a poker session (besides break even)

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So actually there's five?

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1. Small win 2. Big win 3. Small loss 4. Big loss.

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What about (in addition to 5. Break Even): 6. Medium Win 7. Medium Loss 8. Medium-small Win 9. Medium-Big Win 10. Medium-Small Loss 11. Medium-Big Loss 12. Etc, Etc, Etc.
</Sarcasm>

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Assuming you play well and you can handicap yourself at a table,

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What do you mean by: "handicap yourself at the table"?

Final Thought:

Don't play to get even, play to win. If you're losing an the game is good and you're playing well - KEEP PLAYING! If you're losing and tilting and the game sucks - take a break. If you can't handle losing - don't play!

[cmwck]

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Howard Lederer says he never risks more than 30 big bets during one session because he doesn’t play as well when he’s losing.

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If you get frusterated and quit when you're down 30BB, then when you come back the next day, you're still down 30BB, so nothing has changed.

Also, I ignore how much I win/loose in a given session or even a day (I cover my buy-in with Gametime+). I always win my Slansky bucks each and every session, and the real money usually follows shortly.

[poundaforty]

I have heard this HL quote. 30BBs isn't all that much to us, but 30BBs is a lot different when you're playing B&M $100/$200 or whatever, as opposed to 4-8 tabling online $3/$6. Not saying I agree or disagree with this yet; just putting some perspective to it.

We all know that we should stay in the game if the game is good and you're feeling good etc etc. However, how many of us can say with much confidence that our judgment is steadfast when we're losing?

In other words, let's say you're in four juicy games, each with 3+ fish looking very fat. They've all pulled a few suckouts on you in the past couple hours. You know you can beat these games. You know you're better than these players.

But, do you know that you're playing your best? Say you usually play 3 hour sessions. You've been in these games for 5 hours because the fish are still here giving away their money, but unfortunately not to you. yet. They will, you tell yourself.

You tell yourself that you're still awake, you're still feeling fresh, you're not on tilt, the games are still good.

But here's the thing. I'm capable of convincing myself of all sorts of crazy things unrelated to poker, so I know I could kid myself about all these things as well. I may be exhausted but tell myself I'm feeling fine. I may think those 5 sharks that have sat down around all the fish at one table aren't in my way, when really they are (or even worse, I may not have even noticed them).

Therefore, while I disagree with many things in the OP as crunchy has pointed out, I do think that a stop-loss threshold has some merit. Losing money can cause you to lose judgment. A stop-loss threshold can be used as an INDICATION that you may not be in a winning situation, and prevent your loss of judgment from hurting your bankroll further.

From a statistical and gambling perspective, a stop-loss threshold is not valid, as was written in this month's 2+2 magazine. However, this does not account for the fact that we as human beings are not always great at determining whether we actually have the best of it or not.

If you are 100% sure that you can tell with absolute certainty whether you are feeling fresh, playing your best, and that the game is good, even after you are stuck a couple hundred BBs, then you can ignore everything I have written. For the rest of us, I think it can be beneficial to have some set amount that tells us that we need to stop. Whatever that amount is is for you to decide.

[wildwood]

Thanks for the replies. Debate is good. This is a controversial issue with the top players so we can disagree as well. By Handicap yourself, I simply mean to judge how good you are vs. the rest of the table. The reference to Howard Lederer and the 30 big bets is from his limit hold'em DVD. Concerning the presentation of my ideas, my degree is in electronics, not english. I hope everyone grasped the concepts I attempted to convey even if they disagree with them. I want to add not subtract value from this forum.

[AliasMrJones]

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I have heard this HL quote. 30BBs isn't all that much to us, but 30BBs is a lot different when you're playing B&M $100/$200 or whatever, as opposed to 4-8 tabling online $3/$6. Not saying I agree or disagree with this yet; just putting some perspective to it.

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This quote is from a fulltilt email by Howard. They send out these "lesson" emails from the pros on their site. This is from the "lesson" email from Howard.

30BB is absolutely no different at 100/200 than 3/6. A big bet is a big bet. If you feel a BB at 100/200 is different than 3/6, I would advise you to not play 100/200 as you won't be playing your best. I very seriously doubt Howard looks at a BB of 100/200 as different than I look at a BB of 3/6.

[poundaforty]

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I have heard this HL quote. 30BBs isn't all that much to us, but 30BBs is a lot different when you're playing B&M $100/$200 or whatever, as opposed to 4-8 tabling online $3/$6. Not saying I agree or disagree with this yet; just putting some perspective to it.

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This quote is from a fulltilt email by Howard. They send out these "lesson" emails from the pros on their site. This is from the "lesson" email from Howard.

30BB is absolutely no different at 100/200 than 3/6. A big bet is a big bet. If you feel a BB at 100/200 is different than 3/6, I would advise you to not play 100/200 as you won't be playing your best. I very seriously doubt Howard looks at a BB of 100/200 as different than I look at a BB of 3/6.

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yeah my bad. I looked at this again and realized I shouldn't have said anything about stakes, as you have pointed out.

My point was, 30BB is different at one table of B&M than while multi-tabling online, psychologically and statistically.

[rmarotti]

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My point was, 30BB is different at one table of B&M than while multi-tabling online, psychologically and statistically.

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No, no it's not. What planet are you people from? Is this a troll account? 30BB is f[/i]ucking 30BB online or B&M, 100/200 or .5/1, Puerto Rico or Paris.

This thread should die now. It is uninteresting and unhelpful and rife with misconceptions.

[jason_t]

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My point was, 30BB is different at one table of B&M than while multi-tabling online, psychologically and statistically.

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No, no it's not. What planet are you people from? Is this a troll account? 30BB is f[/i]ucking 30BB online or B&M, 100/200 or .5/1, Puerto Rico or Paris.

This thread should die now. It is uninteresting and unhelpful and rife with misconceptions.

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I [img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img] rmarotti (still, [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]). Thread over.

[Argus]

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30BB is f[/i]ucking 30BB online or B&M, 100/200 or .5/1, Puerto Rico or Paris.

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The rake is so high in Puerto Rico that you might consider 30BB to only be worth 29BB or so, depending on the stakes you play. [img]/images/graemlins/cool.gif[/img]