I don't understand how people can enjoy losing.

A slot player, just like a losing poker player, flushes money down the toilet and comes back for more.

If they truly hated losing, they would stop, or figure out how to win.

I HATE losing, even as a winning player, and I think this is actually a problem.

There has to be a way to embrace it, even if it's not enjoyable.

I have only rarely been at a table so fun, that I didn't mind being stuck.

AND I realize by now, losing and vairance is part of the game, but it's hard to prepare for that, because you want to go in with positive vibes.

Often, I can predict which way my session will go within the first few hours. It's just one of those things.

No one walks into the poker room EXPECTING to lose. OR expecting to waste hours folding and bleeding to death.

I'm actually quite envious of all these losing players. They are used to losing. They expect it. They are always thinking the worst case scenario. They hate AA or JJ and they "ALWAYS with with 52." And they seem to have fun, which I just can't understand.


They are so naive, its to their benefit. By NOT understanding the game, and thinking its all luck, they are more prepared to lose.

What are some tips or techniques to get into the mindset to prepare for anything?

I know it sounds cliche - to focus on the processs, but no one wants to drive an hour to the casino, wait another hour for a table sometimes, and then proceed to bleeed for hours.

You might look into mindfulness meditation. It helped me develop a more resilient mindset in poker. Exploring stoicism and taoism has also helped.

I still don't enjoy losing. When I get my aces all in preflop and end up losing it still stings.

That being said I've gotten a lot better at just experiencing the emotions and then letting them go. Putting in a lot of volume helps too.

The emotional rollercoaster is part of the game, and I have had the best luck allowing myself to fully experience the emotions, process whether I made a mistake or whether there is a strategic spot to look into later, and then letting the feelings go and refocusing on the next spot.

The key is not mentally dwelling on losses. There are various techniques to achieve this. For example in mindfulness meditation you deliberately focus on something else, like a repeated mantra, an imagined object such as a candle flame, or even your breath.

It's a work in progress and some days it's easier than others. Prolonged downswings are the most difficult, as you can start doubting whether you can still beat the game. On the other hand when you've been crushing it's a lot easier to shrug off coolers and bad beats.

Anyway good luck.

Alcohol and drugs

I've thought about meditation, but can't stick with it. I assume you need to be consistent, and it takes time like anything?

Thank you.

You'll get the most out of it if you make it a regular practice, but it couldn't hurt to just learn a simple practice and try it when you feel yourself starting to tilt at the tables. Even just taking a few deep breaths helps.

Music can be helpful too. Sometimes if a session isn't going well and I find myself getting irritable, I'll listen to a few songs to boost my mood.

i understand hating losing but maybe you need to look in the mirror and ask yourself a question: what am i so afraid of?
the reason i say this is simple..hatred is a byproduct of fear...so you must in some form or fashion fear losing.

A few thoughts:

- You shouldn't go into the game with "positive vibes" in the sense that you're expecting positive results. You can go in feeling good, but in terms of actually managing your expectations, your expectations should be realistic and data based, not just hoping for the best and being upset/tilted/whatever when you lose.

- If you feel like you can often predict how a session will go based on the first few hours, you are probably overly superstitious/suffering from memory bias or worse, letting early bad results influence your play later to your detriment. Every hand is a new hand. If we're talking about cash, the division of play into sessions is strategically insignificant, your entire life is one long session.

- You say nobody goes to the casino expecting to lose, or expecting to just bleed out for hours, but you're wrong about that. The best players absolutely acknowledge this is going to happen fairly often. If you're crushing the life out of your game, you're probably still losing 40% of your sessions or more, that's almost half! And assuming you're playing solidly long sessions, say 12 hours, that's 360 hands. Being card dead for 360 hands isn't even being card dead, that's just something that happens all the time. If you play 7 12 hours session per week, you will very likely go card dead for 300+ hands multiple times per month

- The thing you named as cliche, really is the answer. Being honest you don't seem to have a very good handle on the nature of the game. Focus on constantly improving your game via your short term inputs - study off table, write down every hand you play so you can study it off table, take care of your body and brain physically with diet exercise and sleep, manage your distractions in game, don't drink/smoke/etc when playing, do what you can in game and off table to develop your mindfulness and ability to engage flow state etc, actively move to the best seats at the best tables in the room. If you do all those things, you just don't pay attention to the short term results, good poker players aren't good because they almost always win, good poker players are good because after 2,000 hours of play they have high win rates relative to the rest of their opponents. It's a long term game.

- And FWIW, in 90% of situations where someone mentions a mental/emotional game element that's holding them back, they aren't doing most of the good inputs listed above. And in 99.99999999% of situations where someone mentions a mental/emotional game element that's holding them back, they could improve on their program even if it's already good. Focus on what you can control, and be viciously honest with yourself about your own abilities. Look around the room and realize 90% of the 1/3 and 2/5 players aren't winning players, if you're going to be a winning player, you're going to have to do things differently than all those people

i don't think it's about enjoying it but rather accepting it. when i lose i feel totally numb and it doesn't bother me at all. mainly because there's always another game tomorrow and i have a bankroll.

Don't envy others enjoying losing, just try to figure out your own energies and connect that to your results. Like figure out who you are and what you like and try to acknowledge that a lot of what you like happened in that session and how you can improve etc. Don't fall into the despair of losing. I hope this helps.

I have this irrational fear that I will run out of money or have to tap into stocks, or BTC, even though I've never had to do so in 20+ years.

“Time heals all.”

I don’t think getting rid of that bad, gross feeling after a bad session should be the goal. It’s kinda healthy in some ways because without that you’d be a degen/losing player. But when you’re going through that pain, you should, well, step 1, quit the session. But step 2 is you just gotta know that with time, you’ll be feeling normal again way sooner than you think. If you’re practicing good bankroll management, then most of the harm being done to you is only temporarily emotional, which always heals with time (unless you really ****ed up something, but even still…). I can’t even think of a time after a rough day of poker that I woke up the next morning and was still feeling down about it, and usually I’m feeling normal again in less than an hour.

Charlie Munger said "The secret to a happy life is low expectations"

Maybe this isn't the best advice, but I try to take an approach like I'm playing chess and just focus on "how good my play is", and i consider it winning when I play well, and losing when I play bad. If you can be honest enough with your own in game analysis, you'll still get angry at yourself (since we all make mistakes), but you might be able to get through run-bad streaks more intact.

its normal and its rooted in us. In a good bankroll management calculation there is accounted that you dont want to invest as such you can loose more than 5% of your bankroll. Otherwise you could try being thankful for the fish that play and that you win money off on average and that they keep the site running and soft. Normal flips vs regs you just have to get used to it, maybe you can also be happy for them somehow. I always try that and it helped me alot

About two years ago, after a session in which I thought I played well, yet still lost, I realized that playing well and losing feels worse than playing bad and losing, which can actually be fun. In fact, the real epiphany happened when I realized that nothing was more fun than playing bad and winning.

So, playing bad and winning > playing well and winning > playing bad and losing > playing well and losing.

Nothing is worse than playing well and losing. And playing bad and losing can actually be fun, if you honestly don't give a f**k, and are just there to have fun.

Like, back in the day, my friends and I would get together for micro-stakes home games, and have a ball, no matter how much any of us won or lost. More recently, after becoming a 1/3 grinder for the last few years, I simply can't enjoy playing in a micro-stakes home game, because I've gotten to the point that I take the game too seriously to have fun in a game with a bunch of stupid-splashy rec-fish.

I used to have this routine during my drive to the card-room. I'd mentally go over the leaks I wanted to avoid, and the strat I wanted to employ, and visualize myself playing in various common situations. On paper, that probably seems like a winner's habit, but I found that it created the expectation that I'd win, which made a losing session that much more frustrating.

Now, I do all that visualization and mental practice at home, on days when I'm not playing. On the drive to the cardroom, I'm just trying to relax, and think about having fun. I actually visualize myself having fun, joking with other players, and seeing friendly faces.

When I get to the cardroom, I make it a point to look around for any regs or dealers I know, so I can say hello, ask how they're doing, and see if I can find a game that looks fun, so I can ask to be put on the list for that table.

I still want to win. I still hate to lose. But focusing on having fun makes winning more enjoyable, and losing less frustrating. It also makes it easier for me to stay relaxed, which helps me make quick in-game adjustments, rather than going on tilt when something doesn't go my way.

Docvail, you just gave me an epiphany. A lot of the feeling of pain when you lose is related to the mental expectation that we will win.

Like today I played a day two of a tournament where I entered the day with a short stack. My expectation was that I was so short that I would likely bust early, and end up with a min cash (everyone who made day two was in the money).

I ended up running my stack up to an average stack, eventually busting in the top 50 when I ran into a cooler scenario. I won a few buyins, but I was so close to the big money up top (first was worth more than 100 buyins).

It's always disappointing to bust, but I left feeling like, "hey that was not bad considering how short I was to start the day."

On the other hand I had another recent scenario where I came into day two as one of the chip leaders. I ended up losing a few pots, other players doubled and before I knew it I was an average stack around the same period of the tournament (under 50 remain).

In the second scenario I described I also ran into a cooler to bust, but it was much more painful because I had come into the day as a chip leader and had an expectation that I would make a deep run.

In both scenarios I ran into a cooler with less than 50 left and an average stack. How I got to that point was irrelevant. Still my expectation at the start of the day made the second scenario feel way worse.

I might have to try to experiment with this idea more. Maybe it could be helpful to remind yourself at the start of a session that poker is a fickle game, and that it's a common outcome to play well and still lose. Managing expectations seems to be key. Within a hand it also helps to just focus on making the best play without any expectation of a result. Otherwise you're liable to tilt when you lose, and you might pass up on making good plays out of fear of a possible negative result.