Quote:
Originally Posted by wazz
Lots of rational reasons to turn down a 50/50 flip. Obviously in the case where it's $750 to $500, and they on $200k+, those rational reasons don't add up to enough to turn it down, but it's a part of the +ev gambler's mindset that turning down eg is always irrational. It's not.
TLDR (way longer than I thought this post would be)
Variance is real and so is ROR so it's not always irrational to turn it down but for those people it was.
It's also rational to turn it down if you can't handle losing and you'll then steam and try to get it back in -ev games the times you lose. But those people could never win in poker long term.
I can make +ev bets,lose hundreds or even thousands of dollars and be perfectly happy. But if I lost 50 bucks playing roulette id be pissed at myself bc why the **** am I playing a -ev games. It's torching money. I'm sure part of it is learned over time but part of it is just the way my brain is wired. I just "got it" when it came to ev right away when I was 15 or whatever.
Most people obviously would be super pissed about losing hundreds or thousands of dollars on +ev bets (say hypothetically I had a bunch of match plays) and not really care about losing 50 on roulette.
Even if you could beat theory in someone's head- enough theory to say beat 2/5 nl for 25 an hour (so not a crusher by any stretch but a winner) most people can't handle having swings in the thousands of dollars to make 25 an hour.
And by the way most people don't even have the aptitude to learn a ton of theory in the first place.
Berkey and his sidekick Lamana are actually 2 great examples of people being wired totally differently. They've been friends since they were kids,got into poker together but have totally opposite mentalities when it comes to money and poker. Neither strikes me as a genius or as dumb and they probably have a similar intelligence level.
Berkey time and time again would go broke putting his entire bankroll on the table- something that makes me sick even thinking about. And frankly for every success story like Berkey probably 100 guys doing the same thing ended up broke and out of poker.
Lamana is a collosal nit. He's had access to the same info Berkey has for 20 years, can talk hands with him etc and yet he's so risk averse he really hasn't moved above 1/2 nl. It's really hard for people to fight the way they're naturally wired.
I know people with way less money than me that will play much bigger than me. They'll play some 50/100/200 plo game with 150k to their name and be willing to lose 100k in the game and start back lower if it happens. If I lost 100k in a game im gonna feel like my entire year was a waste. It might take me 6 months or a year to get that back playing my normal games.
Yet in game they'll tilt often and I'll almost never tilt. To me tilting is just stupid and not that I'm perfect but I'm pretty close to it as far as being able to stay on my A game or at least just leaving the rare time I feel tilt coming on.
To most people they'll feel the same if they lose say 6k or 10 k so once they hit that point where they don't care anymore it's open season and who is taking their money next. For me I'm able to separate myself from the situation and realize hey you can't control the cards,but you can control how you play. Losing 10k when you only had to lose 6k is moronic and avoiding that is the same as winning 4k. In 6 months you're not gonna remember what you won or lost today so why torch the money.
It's really really hard to fight your nature. Yes you can fine tune it some. So over the years I've gotten really good at not tilting. When I was younger I might tilt once or twice a year and I might leave 3-4 times a year bc I felt I was going to tilt. But I was already for whatever reason starting at a pretty high level as far as being to be able to play my A game consistently. Other people who tilt like crazy might be able to reign it in to some degree. So they go from playing their A game 80 percent of the time to 85 percent of the time and cut down on some of the money torching but that's probably their ceiling in that department.
A lot more than just knowing how to play poker hands goes into winning at poker long term. And so much of it just goes against human nature in most people.
I mean are we really going to act like the most studied theoretically sound player in each player pool is the biggest winner? Bc he really isnt unless he's also good at a lot of the soft skills that exist in slow paced live poke, not tilting,not playing tired etc.
Last edited by borg23; 10-12-2023 at 10:55 AM.