so, I dabble in online and live poker. Online, I'll 4-table 25nl and not get rattled even in the slightest if I find I'm in 5 buy-ins on one table... in fact, I might not even notice. In live, I typically play $2/5 1k buy-in and if I'm stuck $3k+, I notice I get pretty steamy and chase / tilt / punt through my play. I try to view the game through the lens of, "this is a long-term game, you shouldn't care about local results; that is, it doesn't matter if you're up or down in this session."

do people have the same issue? maybe im playing to big of stakes live if losing 3k-4k annoys me? Online, I like the notion of checking-in (looking at my graph, results, p&l, etc.) every 10k hands or so, to not make sure I'm not letting variance get to my head. what equivalent would you employ live? every 500 hours?

I guess the jist of this post is, like, how do you not give a f*** about individual session results?

cheers,
ringring

Whenever i lose too many buy ins in a single session I just remember myself that this is not even the biggest downswing I will ever have.

Specially if you want to play highstakes in the future, you must be prepared to face 6 figure downswings all the time.

And when that time comes what are you going to do? Get angry like a baby? No. You must be capable of losing 6 figures and move on completly from it.

Otherwise you wil start drinking too much and beating your wife because of poker.

Two paths, first:

1. Study a ton to the point where you’re good and you’re confident you are good. The majority of 2/5 live players aren’t beating the rake. If you’re taking the game seriously, you should be confident that you’re one of the best players in your game.

2. Countering that, be honest, data based, conservative in your estimation of self. There is a big difference between “I’m good at poker,” and “I’ve studied poker 10 hours a week for two years and have a win rate of 10bb/hr over 2,000 hours so I’m reasonably confident in a significant winner in my game”

3. Be properly bankrolled.

4. Play a ton.

5. Pay next to no attention to short term results. You have virtually no control over whether you win a hand, or a session, or 100 hours of play. Focus on your inputs that you control. While playing, once a hand is over, note it, and then on to the next one. When a session is over, give yourself a quick pat on the back, or a “darn, we lost that one” and then go back to your life. Look at results over significant sample sizes only where meaningful insights can be pulled.

6. Play a ton.


If you’re not taking the game that seriously , there’s path two:

You’re gambling, enjoy it, if you don’t enjoy it play less, play lower, or don’t play

If you typically play NL25 online and NL500 live, when you are down 3k in 2 5, that's 60 online buy-ins (half a year's worth of grinding?) that you are down. No wonder that tilts you.

I generally use a 3-buy-in stop loss. It's really hard to play your best live when you're down more than this. At least it is for me. Call it a night, and go back the next day when your mind and emotions are centered again.

You will get desensitized to swings after a while. Beyond that good bankroll management will help of course.

You can also adjust your playing style to choose lower variance paths and avoid thin edges, if you really hate the swings. This would mean stuff like not auto 4 betting ak, playing draws more passively etc. It does lose ev, but it also lowers your variance.

That being said, if you can get comfortable with variance, you will have an edge over most players. No one likes losing, literally no one. So if you are less afraid of losing than your opponent, that is an edge in a game that is increasingly harder to beat.

Losing money sucks. I haven’t found that it gets easier.

We are humans. We are emotional.

How to get over feelings? Become a robot.

Figure out what works best for you by trial an error.

Ive learned by trial an error ( personally ) playing live poker these rules:

If i short buy; i can buy in 3x and play without letting my feelings dictate action
If i max buy; 1 buy- in only.
If i have a drink, i stop playing.



These are my rules. Everyone’s different, and i learned these lessons expensively.

Practical matter would be to make sure you're rolled enough. If you aren't and losing that money could significantly affect your life or your career (by significant I mean having to move down stakes, making less money for a while etc., not stuff like losing your house and so on), it's impossible (and not functional either) not to be affected by results. It might be that this is your issue, as otherwise you seem to be in the right mindset.

What you can work on is accepting your emotions: if it feels frustrating, that's fine. We aren't and shouldn't be super humans. What you can control is how you react to that frustration - do you let it affect your game and your life, or not? That's probably the only factor you can control in this equation (assuming you're properly rolled)

Just leave if you are down more than a buy in and you won't have those problems.

It is said that true freedom lies only in our ability to choose how we react to a thing.

That's rarely available to us in the moment. In order to give ourselves the biggest chances of reacting the way we want to react, we choose, ahead of time, to want a different thing than we currently want. We currently want to win money. We should want to play well. Part of the work is to be conscious in our choices.

That, be well-rolled, study hard, have pieces in other people and sell pieces in yourself to lower variance.

My first trip to Vegas, I remember very clearly one guy who took beat after beat in big pot in one disastrous session, and just kept smiling like a pro and pulling up. Everyone else at the table - me included - was celebrating the wins and bemoaning the losses. This guy just took it all in stride like a champ. I found it intimidating. I decided to take on that attitude, at least as a weapon in my toolkit. So I don't celebrate the wins either, now, because my bottom line is more important to me than a physical expression of feeling the rush of winning a big pot. And losing a big pot is no biggie too.

I got to put it in play in glorious fashion as soon as I got back to London. Spun up and played a £15k pot at £2/5 6card PLO against Man @ Aspers, got it in as a big favourite ~85%, lost, and just pulled out a couple of £1k chips to buy back in, with a smile on my face, like an unfased pro. I don't know if that intimidated anyone, as such, but it feels badass, definitely better than moaning about my luck.

A lot of it is just being mature and realistic.

Barry Greenstien has a whole story in his book.

Short version is that you are playing 2/5. Run it up. See drunk whales playing 10/20. They are going all in blind and stuff like that. You take a shot. Run it up to a huge sum. Time to go after this orbit.

They both go in blind, covering you. Uh oh, you have aces. You have to do it.

Scenario 1. You win. Down payment on a house. All debt gone. Whatever. You have sex w/ wife. Father a drug addict who makes you and others miserable for decades, costs you way more, before they finally OD.

Scenario 2 you lose. Dejected, no sex. Later, you father a brilliant doctor.

Yeah, it's just the butterfly effect. But it's obviously true. Your life is a chain of events and you have no clue at all how something like a poker session will factor in. Try to really get it through your head.

temporary solution is to move down to 1-3/1-2 where you're less tilted by the amount at stake


otherwise stick with it and you'll get that dead inside empty numbness where we're wondering if we're actually alive or not because we find ourselves relatively indifferent to +20k or -20k days trusting it'll all workout in the long run

If you acquire a terminal illness, the stakes won't matter all that much. Just make sure that it's terminal and that a few buy-ins won't affect access to treatment. If they do, tilt may continue to be an issue.

I struggle with this as well. I'm on the verge of retiring, I have plenty of money, and $500 is basically like loose change under the sofa cushions.

Nonetheless, I definitely don't like getting stacked for $500, and I've lately been consciously working on not overfolding in large, messy pots when I have significant equity.