Hi guys.

I am a recreational poker player. This year, I am playing my first EPT (Monte Carlo). I reached one good ITM and won a few BIs on 2/5 EUR cash games.

Here is the psychological trap I am facing now. Whenever I go to a cash table, I feel like I am playing with a lot of fear of losing, which badly affects my decisions. I know this sounds very obvious (who on earth is okay with losing, right?). To protect my well-being, I like stopping playing cash when I won one of the last hands or at least won a big pot. It has worked so far, but I tend to keep playing until I win, which can be dangerous. I feel like I am even afraid of going to the tournament/cash hall to play just because I am obsessed with protecting what I won so far. This may sound like a paradox, I admit. I like playing, I came for this, but now I am afraid, even after winning something. Still, I thought it could be good to share and hear your thoughts on going more relaxed to a cash table/tournament without letting the fear affect how I play.

Thanks.
JJJeb

Are you playing with an adequate bankroll? You mentioned that your a rec player so I'm assuming you have a full time job. If you don't have a proper bankroll then I would suggest saving what you can before spending too much time at the tables. If I only had 2 BI's I would be scared to death of losing also. Once yo have the proper bankroll it becomes easier to look at the game in the long run and not worry too much about short term results.

Disassociating from the value of money is a non-negotiable skill in poker.
Some people are just born with this sort of risk in them, others have to cultivate it.

BR management plays a big part here.

I have a full-time job. Before coming, I had already decided how much I wanted to invest to play the EPT, and because I made a final table, I am still positive. And I am not playing anything crazy. I play the cheapest cash game, which is 2/5. And I am also playing only cheap tournaments. When you mention the bankroll management, you mean from a perspective of a professional poker player who depends on the earnings to live, right?

Not necessarily. I play part time as well. I have a full time job but I keep a separate cash bankroll just for poker. At the end of the month I put a portion of my profits into the bankroll to grow it and take a portion for myself. I have a minimum that I must keep in that bankroll at all times. I've grown that to the point now that unless I have an epic string of losing months Its unlikely that it will dip below that minimum. But if it does go below I don't take any money for myself until I get it back to that minimum. If you have a full time job this is easier because you have a constant flow of income to help fuel the roll. Basically the more BI's you have in your bankroll the less concerned you are about one or two of them. So lets say you have 20 BI's in your poker bankroll. Losing 2 means much less than if you only had 3 BI's. You have plenty of money to keep playing.

Hi JJJeb:

When playing poker, especially if you're becoming serious about your game, you need to get a good understanding, among many things, of the large short-term luck factor that is present in the game and how it can impact your results. As I point out in my book Cardrooms: Everything Bad and How to Make Them Better experts, assuming four hour sessions, should be able to win approximately 2 out of 3 times, and recreational players, perhaps like yourself, should be able to win 1 out of 3 times. So, improving your understanding in this area should be the first step you'll need to take to solve this problem.

Mason

You asked "who on Earth is okay with losing?" The answer is winning players. Winning players understand their strategies are profitable long term, and that nobody has control over the short term results. The best strategies have to lose some amount in the short term, because if they didn't the bad players would never win, they would quit, and the game would die.

Understand that the best players go on regular downswings that would make many recreational players nauseous. Going down $5K or $10K as a 2/5 player is something that just happens, it's not even a super significant swing. Going dozens of tournaments without a cash is just a thing that happens, not even a significant swing. That's just the way the game plays.

You being a recreational poker player who has won a tiny amount over a near non-existent sample, your swings will be much worse. It is also entirely possible, your win rate is negative, in which case losing is actually the more commonly expected outcome.

Your options are:
- Get good which includes internalizing the realities of variance and also studying for hundreds (thousands,) of hours.
- Accept that losing regularly is part of the game, and enjoy it, just because conventional wisdom says losing is unenjoyable, go against the grain. Be a poker masochist, or if not that far a stoic, just accept that it is and move past it without indulging in intense emotional response.
- Don't accept it, and just play knowing you're going to be on an absolute emotional roller coaster.
- Don't play poker

Sounds like more a psychological bankroll than financial bankroll issue. I'm very familiar with it, unfortunately and fortunately, I guess I'd say.

One way of dealing with it is if and when you get way ahead of the game, meaning lifelong, you see each buy-in as just soldiers for the game already acquired from the game. This helps the very conservative financial mindset, I think. Another little trick that can work is if you can devise some system of not even knowing how much you are in the game. I do this sometimes by moving tables a lot, changing buy-ins each time, pocketing chips in several pockets, not counting chips, and such. Admittedly that is a bit of a weird trick, but can be helpful for the person clinging to chips way overprotectively.

Another trick is establishing an account for poker only, deposit whatever you win, but when you lose, don't withdraw it, just consider it entertainment fees. This immortalizes every win, if you can pull that off ... and THAT helps the psychology of one who is highly risk averse.

On big winning streaks the "these chips are for the game, I won them in the games, and it is all okay" attitude is easier to fashion for the highly risk averse. Only recently, after decades of play (and probably increasingly risk averse and conservative with aging), did I really begin to talk to myself about the thousands of buy-ins behind while having this way too much overprotectiveness and resistance about losing a buy-in.

You're in the environment. Work on setting some money aside, physically and mentally, that is not even part of your life finances or net worth. Cultivate an attitude not only of recognizing and understanding the variance of the game (that's a bit of cliche not really helping with the personality issue), but of granting the permission internally that these are risky investments, not conservative savings. Put a little percentage of your net worth in this first category, again, physically and psychologically.

Hi, I have a question, so only long-term strategies are profitable? If I have a separate budget for gambling but only for 2 months, it is a bad idea even to start?

You can set any time frame you want as an experiment.