Hello! I struggle with winners tilt. If I get off to a good start and I win a buy in or 2 in the first couple hours I always want to quit and book the win. This has caused me to leave many good games and quit before I would otherwise like to.

Part of the problem is that i have done all of my studying at 100bb stack depth, and when I’m winning it usually means I’m playing 200bb+ deep. So I immediately feel less confident in my strategy and if I do get stacked at 200bb it only compounds. So I end up stacking off way too tight at 200bb because if I do get stacked I will feel like I made a mistake playing at a depth I haven’t studied.

Has anyone else struggled with this and how did you overcome the mental game leak?
Thanks!

The Doctor aka Unabomber Philip Laak taught me about this 20 years ago when I was playing underage @ commerce 20-40NL. It's called "TMM" and stands for Too Much Money

Point of fact is that you don't have "winner's tilt." Winner's tilt is when you start playing looser than your standards because you're winning a lot of hands. You then get yourself in bad situations, make bad calls and lose your money.

You have a situation of where you are scared money. Ideally, you'd learn how to play deeper over time. In the meantime, there's nothing wrong from getting up from the table, take a break, and come back in with 100 bb. Most rooms will make you sit out for a while before you can buy back in. Or you can move to smaller stakes where they will make you start with whatever the max buyin until you wait time is up.

Agree with venice. You just have to get used to playing deep and comfortable playing with a lot of money. Just takes time. I doubt your strategy should change too much vs 100bb stack if you are playing well.

By all means, leave when losing will tilt you -- nothing wrong with that. After all, we play to win money

I too hate being a certain amount deep because I get scared. I think if you can find a way to keep your head, you have to at least try to keep playing. Got to get used to this somehow lol. For me, I have a second solution, which is the fact that I play at 2 casinos that are across the street from each other for some reason. If it's a slow day and I'm super up, I just take my money out and rebuy at the other casino.

i agree with what Venice said 100%

you also may be more comfortable at smaller stacks like 30-50 blinds

If i get too deep I take a break and come back at my ideal stack size

I disagree with Jonathan Little on 1 thing.... all cash is 1 session regardless of buy-in/cashout

That is nonsense to a scalper / swing-trader

I am an online player mostly.... where we can easily scalp our profits and lock in bullets

If you triple up your buy-in and wait around to lose all 3 bullets you are a fool imo (unless you play for fun of course)

I love going all-in and cannot do this reasonably 300blinds deep

If there is a 21 person wait at your stake : switch stakes / continue to play the table deep stacked / go home

Seems like you've been making the right choice to leave when it gets too deep as you don't feel comfortable and likely have less of an edge.

I wouldn't sweat it too much if it's working for you, but probably worth studying up on 200bb strategy so you are able to broaden your longevity in good games. if that's something you desire.

If there are big fish making mistakes deep it's likely worth your time. But if you're just going to reg battle other deep stacks then doesn't seem that worthwhile from a $ perspective.

If you're comfortable playing 100 BB's deep, then 200 BB"s deep is almost the same there's not really much difference. I'm often in games that are 500 to 600+ bb's deep, so I would suggest if your get to a few hundred BB's deep or higher why not cash out and start over with 100? I'm not saying to come back to the same table obviously but it's always better to cash out then play at a level your not confident with in your decisions.

Don't know how many times I've wished I'd quit while I was ahead, instead of "playing the rush" and giving back all the profit I made running good early on.

If you're uncomfortable playing a big stack, consider changing tables every so often, and sitting down at a new table with a smaller stack.

Study 200bb deep and get comfortable with it. There is a ton of money to be made at this stack depth.

How many cardrooms allow this? The ones I play in don't allow this.

You leave to smoke, or eat, or "go give my wife money in the parking lot i need to cash out these 2 black chips and give her $200 i might be back i'm not sure yet"

"I hate this dealer i always get coolered he or she is unlucky .... bleep this table"

Do not grab a rack and say "I declare i am going south... see you in 10 minutes suckers"

Personally I feel casinos should alllow you to go south between hands as long as you leave the max buy in / 100bb

They allow me to topoff between a min/max level so why not the reverse?

I think going south being frowned upon causes all these "hit and run" excuses like i gave above.

My strategy calls for me to bank bullets and lock-in a win.

Last trip i was up 3.2 buy-ins in 45 minutes, i left to get food and everybody said "it's ok leave your chips here"

However this casino is infamous for not helping theft victims with security cameras and clearly lacks security, so I had the easy excuse.

I believe if u play for money u should lock in 3 buyin wins once you reach 400bb i dont care if stranger degenerates think i broke a rule

It doesn't matter what you tell the floor -- if you move tables they are going to know how much you have and won't/shouldn't let you join the new table with fewer chips. And if you do get away with it, it is going south and it is basically cheating, but more power to you.

If you are gone for an hour or whatever the floor gives you or if you move to different game/stakes, that's fine, obviously.

All of the rooms I play in allow it on a table change, but not if they come back to the same table within I believe 1 or 2 hours. I see a lot of players do this. A player is only allowed to sit down with above the maximum buy in if his table broke, otherwise they won't even allow him to enter with above the max. This is NJ/PA.

I play in San Jose, I see people move tables with over a buyin decently often. People still have to declare if they're from a broken game because they don't have to post if that's the case, though.

This varies a lot, and esp. at the stakes that have lots of tables it's much easier to bend the rules anyway.

IIRC near me ...

MGM Springfield: if you move tables you have to take exact stack to the new table or leave for about two hours. Requested dinner reseating requires noting exact stack size by floor and buyin for that when you get back (but if you just leave, eat and come back on the normal list it's much more difficult to enforce -- but I've seen them do it when a player just walked for 15 minutes and came back to a different table on open seating).

Mohegan: any requested table change is treated as leaving and coming back so you buyin again for table min/max. Broken table keeps stacks, as does must move tables. Explicit dinner reseating is treated like a table move, even if you get the same table.

Foxwoods: any requested table change you can _either_ keep stack or buyin again for table min/max. Broken table keeps stacks, as does must move tables. Dinner reseating doesn't take a chip count.


In theory I don't mind people "going south" when 250bb+ deep if there's even 4+ tables going, however Mohegan is by far the worst for it with $60 min. buyins and people will double up and snap table change... and the floors/room tend to then cater to this kind of player and almost all my worst experiences with floor rulings and players are at Mohegan, so now I'm kind of a grumpy old man who doesn't like it.

So...in my local room (Parx Philly), if someone changes tables, they are NOT allowed to sit down with more than the table max, even if they want to. The only time anyone is allowed to sit down with more than the max is if they're coming from a broken table.

This is why I suggested changing tables. I assumed the rule in my local room was the situation everywhere. I realize it's effectively going south, but if it's within the room's rules, nothing to be said or done about it.

I've been at the table more than once, when someone tried to sit down with more than the table max, and either the dealer or another player said something to them about it, sometimes creating debate, "don't you guys want more money on the table," etc.

There was actually one guy who was gone for over an hour, the floor picked him up, then he came back to the table (different seat) and pitched a fit when he wasn't allowed to start with the same amount he had when he left.

I know more than a few 1/3 and 2/5 grinders who will frequently table-hop, chasing better games, but also to lock up profits. Other grinders see them doing it, but there doesn't seem to be a real consensus about it being fine or shady.

On the one hand, grinders don't mind seeing other grinders leave the game when there's a chance a weaker opponent may fill the empty seat. On the other hand, they're taking money off the table and out of play. Then again, if they were forced to keep their whole stack in play, they might just leave altogether, or lock up the win by getting super-nitty.

I have mixed feelings about it. I hate buying in for the max and seeing a bunch of short-stacks, but I also don't really love it when someone from a broken table sits down at 2/5 with $3k and tries to get everyone to put the $10 straddle on every hand. I've seen weak players take $1500 off the table and leave because the game feels too big all of a sudden.

If it's the room's rule (lucky you!), that's fine. I've never seen that before. I'd be table hopping constantly. LOL.

No_Limit_Joker was giving examples of ways you could try to skirt the "going south" rule, and that's what I was replying to.

Yeah I wasn't thinking you were replying to me. I saw multiple comments about it from you and others, and figured it was worth offering the local rules as discussion fodder.

I'll change tables when the game isn't good, but otherwise, I haven't tried to lock up profits that way. Maybe I should, but my thinking is that if I'm winning, then I'm in a good game, and I shouldn't leave. I've made that mistake before because I didn't like playing with someone at my table, and invariably I end up in a worse game.

Plus I just don't want to be annoying to the floor staff.

i realize the cowboy mentality is "if you lose money to someone you have the right to win it back over the course of the next 8 hours"

banking bullets and locking in wins is learned multitable online.

i am trying to play deeper stacked i am

i realize these shenanigans can't go down at a home game

places like hard rock have a 2 hour wait so this has to go down at the lesser places

i doubt this will register tbh at my home casino they are not on their game

Question:

if you played 8 hours against a person who was able to go south/north after every hand to make sure he had 100 BB would you play differently? and why would you care exactly

tyia (i'll hang up and listen)

If I'm in a bad game or have all the "good" players directly on my left (who also know me too, not that I'm the least bit afraid or scared of them) why not take advantage of another potentially more profitable game? I believe it's a state gaming rule where I play in PA that when table transferring you can't start with over the max buy in unless it was a broken game where you can match up to the highest stack. I've never seen a supervisor make sure players take all their chips from a broken game, they're allowed to come into the new game with table minimum.

So, it's a $300 max buy-in, I have $1,000 and one other player triples up to $1,000, everyone else has $300 or less. The player with $1,000 immediately goes south and now has $300. I would care a lot. LOL. If you don't care or you don't know why you should care, you are not a poker player.

Edit: by your example, I could just lock in the $700 and buy back for $300, but that's now how it works when someone goes south against the rules and I choose to follow the rules and not go south.

but i thought poker is all 1 big session ( source: all the know-it-alls)

This is a fantastic thread, learning about live room's peccadilloes.

As good as you are, hyper, it'd benefit you to do as mlark suggests, and learn the GTO theory about deep play.

You're creative. I think you'd take to, "It's weird, but it can make the nuts, and no one will see it coming," really well. Along with enough bluffs to be balanced.

A few things

1) If i could do this, id play for the table minimum from EP and the blinds, and then go max from LP. Shorter stacks are harmed less by being OOP.


2) when im playing deepstacked poker, competent short stackers are the bane of my existence, i play a wide deceptive range that gets crushed by solid short stack strats who dont need to concern themselves with deception. The saving grace is if they double up thru me, guess what? They arent short anymore. If they could double up and go south, Id probably honestly just be playing the exacf same stupid short stack and go south strategies.


I wouldnt really care about going south if the table min was at least 100 BBs, bur I do think it would hurt action, because whichever big stack is OOP of the other big stack oughta be going south.