I don't play enough ... and I think I know why

[aislephive]

[ QUOTE ]
Graphs work well for me. Whenever I feel the dread coming I pull up a graph of total winnings for the year. This helps me view downswings as inevitable, minor bumps in the longterm road. Afterwards all I worry about is playing my A game and shipping more monies.

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Yeah I tend to stare at my graphs while I'm not playing thinking of how much richer I'd be if I multiplied the amount of the X axis by 2-3. But for some reason it doesn't really motivate me. The thought of going on a downswing depresses me.

[ QUOTE ]
OP,

Your situation describes mine to a tee. And I am also feeling that if I can't figure this out soon, I am going to go in a different direction in my life. Wish I could offer you some advice, but I haven't figured it out myself.

One small thing that has at least helped keep me from ever having short sessions is simply, never looking at my cashier, during play. You can still cut it short on those nothing will work days, to avoid tilt. But obv for a winning player, those days are rare. Most days you will be winning and only have a pretty rough estimate of how much in your head. This makes it easier to forget about it and focus on a time or # of hands target.

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I'm not a big fan of short sessions and they haven't really worked for me. I usually like to put in one or two sessions a day at most to get the most out of the day. If I put in a 3-4 hr session I can have the rest of the day to do whatever, where as with constant mini-sessions I don't really have that comfort.

[ QUOTE ]
When I run bad, I do the same thing. Play short sessions and few of them. When you play this game long enough, you'll know what variance can do...even if your playing your A game.

I also hate to loose and when your on a slight bit of tilt, it's hard to drop that premium hand you were dealt, even if the flop looks bad.

My advice: Play a lot when your running good. Do the same thing that your doing when your running bad, shorter sessions and fewer of them until things turn around. Maybe drop limits and play a bit tighter.

[/ QUOTE ]

I've tried dropping down sometimes, but I find that I can't really take the games too seriously and end up spewing a lot. And I'm definitely guilty of not playing enough when I'm running well, but I think that's very common.

[ QUOTE ]
I feel the same way as you do OP. Except I keep playing when I lose because I don't like losing. And then I get angry and tilt.

I believe the best advice is what BlackRain said. Just concentrate on playing good solid poker [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img] and not worrying about the results constantly checking the cashier.

I remember TillerMan did an experiment with this on his blog. He went a few days or weeks-- I cant remember --without looking at his cashier. He believed it messed with his head constantly worrying about his short term results.

I'm going to work on doing that.

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Believe it or not I don't check the cashier or PT while I'm playing, but sometimes in a really swingy session I'll check and usually quit right after.

[ QUOTE ]
do you get rakeback? that motivates me to put in hours.

how about moving up in stakes, changing that $100/hour to $400/hour eventually, isn't that thought appealing? it's going to happen a hell of a lot sooner if you put in lots of hands.

consistency works for me. consider putting yourself on some kind of hand schedule, like 2000/day.

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Those are all good points and I do get RB (sorta) and want to move up. And I've also tried doing hand schedules as well, but it all goes back to me being afraid to lose instead of just accepting variance.

[ QUOTE ]
Your putting all your emphisis on winning and losing. Just concentrate on playing well. Playing 6-8 tables doesn't sound like a guy looking to improve his game. It also sounds like you may be playing over your bankroll. I don't play NL but when losing more than 3 buyins is considered unrecoverable I would think that's a big part of the problem

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I have > 50 buyins for the level I play, bankroll issues are of no concern. Yes I do play a lot of tables, but I don't think that's part of the problem, as I'm winning pretty soundly in my games right now. I guess I just don't want to mess with the 6ptbb I've been running at for the past few months, which is pretty silly all things considered.

[ QUOTE ]
a5:

while I didn't have many months where I played significantly more hands than this, I suggest sticking to a time when you should play, every day, and playing for the same amount of time. I used to play from 10 pm to 1 am ish - put on live at the bike in the background and went to work.

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Yeah I'm going to try to get on more of a schedule, that usually helps me put in hands.

Thanks for the responses so far everybody.

[AgentSq]

I have a similar problem and have come up with why, for me anyway.

If you imagine an emotional scale that runs from -10 (the worst you have ever felt playing poker) to +10 (the best you have felt).

So you start playing at Emotion = 0 and an hour or two later you are up 3 buyins at which point Emotion =4.

If you continue to play for 2 hours assume that you will win another 3 buyins 50% of the time, stay level 20% of the time and lose the 3 buyins 30% of the time. Winning another 3 buyins will raise your Emotion to 6, staying level will reduce Emotion to 3 and losing what you won will reduce your emotion to -3.

So your emotional EV is 50% * 6 + 20% * 3 + 30% * (-3) = 2.7

Hence even though you are +EV to win money you are -EV on the Emotional scale (since 2.7 is less than 4). This is why I struggle to play because the money I stand to win is not worth as much to me emotionally as the money I stand to lose.

You say that you stop playing when you are 3 buyins down which I would guess means that you find that acceptable, maybe -2 on the scale, but losing 6 buyins would be alot worse, maybe -7.

Of course this is backward thinking, but it happens because emotions work in the short term and don't place a proper value on the prospect of winning or losing.

An example of this for me is breaking even for the day having been down 5 buyins rates at about a 5, but breakeven having been up 5 buyins is more like a -5.

Unfortunately I don't have a solution. I have found that understanding the problem helps together with not keeping track of results. Having a target of hour played per week also helps me.

Hope this helps.

[Werd]

[ QUOTE ]
I have a similar problem and have come up with why, for me anyway.

If you imagine an emotional scale that runs from -10 (the worst you have ever felt playing poker) to +10 (the best you have felt).

So you start playing at Emotion = 0 and an hour or two later you are up 3 buyins at which point Emotion =4.

If you continue to play for 2 hours assume that you will win another 3 buyins 50% of the time, stay level 20% of the time and lose the 3 buyins 30% of the time. Winning another 3 buyins will raise your Emotion to 6, staying level will reduce Emotion to 3 and losing what you won will reduce your emotion to -3.

So your emotional EV is 50% * 6 + 20% * 3 + 30% * (-3) = 2.7

Hence even though you are +EV to win money you are -EV on the Emotional scale (since 2.7 is less than 4). This is why I struggle to play because the money I stand to win is not worth as much to me emotionally as the money I stand to lose.

You say that you stop playing when you are 3 buyins down which I would guess means that you find that acceptable, maybe -2 on the scale, but losing 6 buyins would be alot worse, maybe -7.

Of course this is backward thinking, but it happens because emotions work in the short term and don't place a proper value on the prospect of winning or losing.

An example of this for me is breaking even for the day having been down 5 buyins rates at about a 5, but breakeven having been up 5 buyins is more like a -5.

Unfortunately I don't have a solution. I have found that understanding the problem helps together with not keeping track of results. Having a target of hour played per week also helps me.

Hope this helps.

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haha this is absolutely awesome!

[john kane]

what ive found useful for me is to set weekly $ targets nad hands targets. i started this 4 weeks ago, and managed on average 15K hands per week and almost $10K per week. no way i could manage this without having the focus of my week being playing poker.

i take all mornings off which is really nice, as i feel that im not trying to play non-stop, plus i can take the time off guilt-free as i know i will be playing later. i aim to play 2.30pm-7pm and 8pm-1am or so. if i can do the afternoon session 5 days a week and the evening session 5 days a week, thats 48 hours a week. take off 8 hours for when you cant be bothered to play that much, and you've got a decent schedule of playing a lot, yet having all your mornings off, 2 afternoons off to play sports or whatever and 2 nights off to go out drinking with friends.

also, i will always go to bed by 1.45am. it is often too easy to stay up doing bugger all, by i try and go to bed then so i get up by 10am and have 4-5 hours to do emails, chill out, playstation.

my only problem is the constant variance. im up about $38K in last 4 weeks, yet i swung down $2K today and ended out $200 down for the day. this bugs me hugely, i should have won. that's the problem, we are always looking to win every single session becuase lets face it, nobody likes to 'work' and lose money, and have those thoughts (which i ALWAYS do) of 'if only i watched tv for longer i wouldn't of sat down on that table and lost that buyin' etc.

ill stop my rambles,

gl

[Raxor101]

I also have the same problem as the OP. I think it is pretty obvious that is all due to result-orientated thinking. It feels so horrible to sit down for 3-4 hours, playing your best and walk away far worse off than when you started. The perceived 'waste' of time and money is just psychologically crushing no matter how irrational it is to think in those terms. Very hard to overcome.
[img]/images/graemlins/frown.gif[/img]

[sweeng8]

john cane, im curious, what limits and games do you play? I ask as im hoping to try and follow a similar schedule to your own (though im not even close to how much youre making)

[southerndog]

Ugghhhh I have the same problem, but worse..

I play small stakes plh. I have been doing really well for the past few months, but a tough year of seven card stud I feel has left me like permanently scarred.. I am so afraid of losing after I get a nice score. Part of this is that I live overseas, where the economy sux.. Like, say if I win $200 , I think about how far that can go over here, and how hard I would have to work to get that kind of money (1 week at a regular job). If I were to lose that $200, I end up feeling really crappy about myself, and how much that $$ would help us out..

My typical sessions are either like 1-2 hours of me doing quite well, or like 10 a ten hour session where I may start out losing a big pot.. then I go on tilt, then I cool down.. then I start to battle back or whatever.. One good thing is, I actually play a tad bit more aggressive when I'm stuck, so that's kind of good..

In summary, my winning sessions are short, and my losing sessions are long, which is very bad. As a positive, I don't play too many tables.

[vos]

damn OP, you seem to describe my situation in detail. I feel the same way but also have the 'checking the cashier all the time'-problem.
This feeling has literally led me to a downswing/running BE for 2 months, not running bad, but basically playing bad. It was really messing with my head.

Then, first of all, I decided to cash out 2/3rd of my roll to force myself going down a level, I was playing 200nl quite overrolled. Now I`m playing 100nl, where I seem to win more, seem to care a bit less about losses.. and my old game is coming back again. I seem solid again. That`s my solution to half of the problem, now I need to stop looking at the cashier and focus more on the long run.