Controlling Losses

[DING-DONG YO]

I have the exact same problem. I chase losses and play way too long as a result. My winning days are 20-30BB for a 1-2 hour session and my losing days are 100BB+ for a 4-6 hour session. And I know I'm playing like hell at the tail end of the losing sessions but still keep chasing.

I feel for you, OP. I could use some advice as well.

[stickdude]

I used the have the exact same problem. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

A couple of times in the past, I had been able to come back from a 40-50BB deficit to get back to even, so because I had done it once, I could do it every time, right? Wrong. A 400BB downswing last month taught me otherwise. Much of that downswing came from me trying to get back to even after dropping 20-30BB in a session instead of focusing on making the best decision each hand. I had a few sessions where a 20-30BB loss soon became a 75BB+ loss. [img]/images/graemlins/frown.gif[/img]

What changed?

First, I read a line in the book "Inside the Poker Mind" by John Feeney - in there he said, "The next hour of poker you play is the next hour you play". It doesn't matter if that next hour takes place in the next 60 minutes, or tomorrow, or a week from now. For some reason that line really pointed out to me that our poker career is really just one big session, and our results for a given day at a given table really don't matter. I realized how utterly stupid it was to try to get back to even in an individual session - it's like a football team switching to a hurry-up offense and throwing long bombs just because they're down a touchdown in the first quarter - there's still a lot of game left, and as long as they stick to their game plan (in our case, making good decisions in every hand), things will work out.

Second, I discovered a little program called TiltBlocker (you can search the forums for a link). It's a little opaque window that you put on top of your stack so that you can't see the size of your stack (because in limit, the size of the stack you currently have at the table is irrelevant, provided you have the 12BB necessary to cap every street when you get a monster). With TiltBlocker, I honestly have no clue how much I'm up or down. I usually have a rough idea if I'm up or if I'm down, but that's about it. Since I can't worry about chasing losses (because I have no idea how much I'm down), I can focus on the one thing that matters - making the best possible decision each hand.

And the results so far? September has been my best month ever. [img]/images/graemlins/laugh.gif[/img]