How to? Convincing yourself it's not a lot of money as you move up

[People_Mover]

I remember in 2003, the first time I deposited 100.00. I lost it and I was sad, so I redeposited and lost again. I found twoplustwo, read some books, well a lot of books and redeposited another 100.00, telling myself it would be the last 100.00 I ever deposited. I grinded low stakes, bonus whored and won a 5.00 rebuy for 1800.00 to build a roll and continued to study the game. As I moved up stakes from .10/.25NL to .25/.50 to .50/1, a losing session would become less painful and "part of the game" I'd withdraw a few times to purchase some nice things that poker bought. In 2006, I had my first $1000.00 losing day and I was sad again and it brought memories back of the first 100.00 losing day I had. Still grinded though and moved up to 1/2NL and 2/4NL and took some random shots at 3/6 and 5/10NL nowadays.

The question though: Back then 25.00 was a lot of money to put on the table at one time. Then 100.00 was a lot of money to bring to one table. Then 200.00 seemed like a lot. I've been playing (smallish) winning poker at 2/4 for a few months now and 1/2NL is sort of a jokish money and 400.00 is money that I kind of care about. When I take a shot at 5/10, 1000.00 is a LOT of money (even though I'm rolled for it). How do you get into the right mindset that X amount of $$$ is not a lot anymore even if X $$$ isnt 1/20th of your bankroll?

I struggle with moving up past 2/4NL because 600.00 is a lot of money or 1000.00 is a lot of money even though of course there's risk/reward factor for moving up that maybe I'm struggling with. Any comments are appreciated.

[Henry17]

I'd say don't move up. I think you'd be playing with scared money which is not how you should be playing.

[napkins]

Accept the fact that you're playing for a lot of money. Don't lie to yourself, or try and convince yourself that it isn't that much. Instead, concentrate on the fact that poker is about decisions, and the corresponding money won/lost is a by-product of those decisions over the long run.

So, even if you lose a lot (but not a lot in proportion to your bankroll) you should be okay with the fact that you took a calculated risk that didn't happen to work out this time; but over the long run is a good decision if you're aiming to move up in stakes and become more profitable.

[JKratzer]

no quick fix, it's something you get used to.

[Jamougha]

Open shove every hand for the first orbit.

[sternroolz]

I was gonna respond to this, but realized you are not playing live. Live....I know its a lot of money(to me). I had a really hard time wanting to move from $9-18 LHE to $20-40 LHE. I mean, the amount I am willing to put in play any given night exceeds my biweekly take home play. So I moved up slow and played a lot of hours of $10-20 and $15-30 in between. Once I got to the $20-40, I sold 1/3 of my action to a friend for a while and that helped lessen the sting(and earned him $2200). Now that I've logged some hours....it still kinda bothers me. But not at the table. I'm able to view my chips as just that and really don't think of the money involved until I leave the table.

But I have no idea how I would handle things if I was playing online. It's not so easy to say to yourself that you are just playing with chips.

[Wardfish]

For me the solution is simple: I dont think of my bankroll as real money. Its money that allows me to play poker, in order to generate real money.

For me, the real money comes on the 15th of the month when I withdraw 10% of my bankroll.

Let me put some numbers to all of this:

BR at Monday 22 Oct: $24300
Loss for day: $800
BR c/fwd: $23500

Assuming I break even from now to 15 November (payday), this loss has only actually cost me $80 in real money ie. reducing my withdrawal figure by 10% of $800. Hopefully by payday there will be many more wins than losses, and the $800 loss suffered on Monday will be long forgotten.

When my wife asks me how much I have in the BR, I get annoyed with her, and tell her that "its not relevant - its not for spending, its for playing poker".

As long as you are winning at the level you currently play, dont even think about your BR as money. Your roll will simply generate more and more money for you in the long run but there will be ups and downs.

Just try to concentrate on what's important: playing winning poker.

[iRockPoker03]

maybe you should put in some overtime and grind out sort of a seperate bankroll for taking shots

like an hour extra a day? and once you feel its enough to take a shot with dont view it as money but time invested doing something you enjoy

idk just some thoughts