Quote:
Originally Posted by gobbledygeek
My fave quote from this forum is buried in this thread somewhere: it's Ava's "But I'm still here" quote. It was in reference to his game quitting techniques, which in a vacuum looked -EV in the moment compared to the techniques that all the young buck pros in his game were using. But in the end, thanks to all his little "-EV in-the-moment" rules, he managed to outlast all his opponents over the very long term. Computers will obviously thrive going full steam ahead all the time; humans, not so much. It's a long haul game.
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Won't say it's a terrible approach, but strong mental game is a skill too, and one that can and should be improved for any who plan on playing for a living. It's better to improve your weaknesses than make sacrifices elsewhere to cover them up. If you are a pro and quitting when you lose a few buyins because you know you're prone to tilt without recognizing it, that's great, keep doing that, but also get your ass working on fixing it because it's a problem.
IMO, the biggest reason it feels terrible to lose a few stacks live is because it's so slow paced and hard to see the long run. It may have taken awhile to win that money, and may take awhile to win it back.
I recommend playing online. It's easier to be confident in your game when you've beaten online over a significant sample, when live games are much easier, and you can actually start to see the long run in just a couple weeks. You end up being desensitized to losing after being stacked hundreds, eventually thousands of times. It becomes normal and expected to lose with set over set, flush vs. full house, KK vs. AA, etc. In live poker it can take so long to get those hands that you feel entitled to win with them, so losing hurts more.
I'd also recommend getting more aggressive and bluffing more. For me, I started feeling less pain getting stacked when I had enough confidence in my game to throw in a river x/r all in and being ok knowing I could get snapped by the nuts. You really can't bluff (or thin value bet, for that matter) effectively without being aware of and accepting that the consequences could be negative 60% of the time. You'll also get better at poker by trying to expand your game and find more profitable spots.
But this is all in the context of a pro who wants to get better, not necessarily a rec who just wants to play a few times a month, have a good time and maybe make a little money.