Coping with GOOD luck

[Mendacious]

I've been on a bit of a heater for the last week, and today, the first day of my "fiscal" month I sit down at Party and play the $100 and $200 tables because I am working off 1000 hands for bonus. I play the morning session 100 hands and I am up $200, I sit down in the afternoon and play another 100 hands and I am now up $480.
My BB/100 is 92. I have played well, but clearly the stars are simply aligned. NOW WHAT? I want to work off bonus, but a little voice is telling me "quit while you are ahead". Too much prosperity makes me nervous and I absolutely HATE when a win streak ends so part of me is screaming bank it and "conserve" the good feeling for tomorrow, because it is virtually impossible to keep a run like that going.

Am I out of my mind?

Interstingly, these are my first 200 or so hands with a new Party Alias. I wonder if that has gotten me a few calls I wouldn't have normally.

[januarymute]

Quit while you're ahead if you notice that being ahead by X amount is affecting your play (ie, I'm up $500 on the session, that is an awesome result, I don't want to dip below $500 so I'm going to play extra tight, etc). I do this all the time, even sitting out before the blinds hit, etc.

[Mendacious]

Good advice, I do that too. In this case it isn't an amount per se, I've had bigger days, it is the first day of the month and I'd just as soon bank a juicy day than bust up a streak of good play. But unlike you I have I have the option of moving up and scoring bigger (or losing it all back in a hand), so I wonder if I am being lame or losing my nerve in a manner of speaking.

[niss]

The play at the 100 and 200 tables on Party (and the 400 and 600 tables, for that matter) is terrible. Find a table with 2 or 3 of the known idiots and keep playing.

[januarymute]

[ QUOTE ]
Good advice, I do that too. In this case it isn't an amount per se, I've had bigger days, it is the first day of the month and I'd just as soon bank a juicy day than bust up a streak of good play. But unlike you I have I have the option of moving up and scoring bigger (or losing it all back in a hand), so I wonder if I am being lame or losing my nerve in a manner of speaking.

[/ QUOTE ]
Personally, I think you are approaching this fine (by sitting out and banking a strong 1st day to the month). Purists will tell you that you are making a mistake by not playing when the games are good, you're playing well, and so on--the hours-not-results crowd. This might be true in theory, but it completely ignores human nature: like much of the online poker community, you obviously keep track of stats on a by-month basis. Just take a look at all the threads here and in BBV that begin with the name of a month. Therefore, your current mindset depends on how well you're doing in the current month. As such, booking a win to start off the month on a good note and fortify your confidence going forward seems like a very good decision to me. On the flipside, if you were to take a shot at 1k, suffer a bad beat, and end up even or down for the day, then you might slip into a tailspin.

I am the same way, and I openly admit that it is theoretically a weakness to rely on a keep-the-ball-rolling approach to results on a by-month basis. But I think it's better to acknowledge that weakness and work around it (like you are doing here) instead of trying to brute-force suppress it by continuing to play and so on.

[Mendacious]

That is what my gut tells me despite the fact that I recognize that playing for the monthly results is artificial and a weakness. I think I will finish off the "first" Party May bonus playing low-level NLHE, which will burn off the hands quickly enough and preserve that winning PLO8 feeling.

Thx. for the response(s)

[januarymute]

Good call. Here's a good analogy... you have probably heard that many cyclists won't screw the night before a stage of the Tour de France or other big races. Well, it's been shown that screwing the night before has basically no impact on the next day's results, from a purely statistical, scientific standpoint. However, if a given rider believes strongly in not screwing the night before, and gets a psychological edge from not screwing, EVEN despite the fact that he is aware that the effect is entirely psychosomatic, then he is better off not screwing.

If he is able to look at the statistical evidence and truly believe it, then he should be able to screw some hot sloot if he so chooses and not have it affect his race. But, if he only *thinks* he believes the statistics, screws the sloot, and then feels a little fatigued the next day due to random chance (bad meal or something), and then starts to let doubt creep into his mind, giving rise to psychological hindrance, then he has made a big mistake by screwing the sloot.

What all this means is that if you have a psychological weakness or superstition or whatever, you might frequently (depending on how bizarre it is) be better off acknowledging it and working around it than battling it head on and suffering as a result.

Also, we are lucky that sloot-screwing would never be psychologically linked with bad poker results.

[gergery]

[ QUOTE ]
Quit while you're ahead if you notice that being ahead by X amount is affecting your play (ie, I'm up $500 on the session, that is an awesome result, I don't want to dip below $500 so I'm going to play extra tight, etc). I do this all the time, even sitting out before the blinds hit, etc.

[/ QUOTE ]

And does your husband play poker too?

-g

[januarymute]

[ QUOTE ]

And does your husband play poker too?

-g


HEADS UP FREEZEOUT 100K NOW, OR ARE YOU A

[Scott Y.]

This is a common psychological problem even for people who understand the gambler's fallacy. This used to happen to me moving up limits (it's usually a function of bankroll - not that you're underrolled, just not grossly overrolled).

If you can't overcome your desire to "protect" a win, you need to stop playing. This is tilt. That said, you need to overcome this issue if you're going to become a successful gambler. Barry Greenstein's (excellent) book talks about the importance of eschewing small wins (i.e. just to book a win) and going for a "huge score." It's more than "play for hours, not results" - thoses times you win big you are more likely to have a large-edge situation at the table. These do not last forever. This is especially true in shorthanded games.