yardle’s poker blog

check the sousaphone solo at 1:23

as part of my ‘rewards’ for playing a massive amount of sngs on full tilt, i am given a cardrunners.com membership for free, as long as i accrue a certain number of points every month. for those who haven’t heard of cardrunners, it’s a video training site where some of the best poker players in the world make instructional videos, teaching you all sorts of different skills. i’ve been a member of similar sites in the past, but this is my first month on cardrunners.

i don’t watch a lot of videos these days but i came upon a video yesterday that related to my last post very well and i just thought i’d post it here for anyone that might be interested and so i can find it later on if i need to.

here’s the link:
http://www.cardrunners.com/JimmyLegs/JimmyLegs/JimmyLegs/video/1991/Brain%20Fail,%20Part%201

basically the instructor goes over what is known as loss aversion. basically loss aversion says that humans tend to strongly prefer avoiding losses to acquiring gains and the instructor provides some ideas on how you can avoid the psychological toll of losses.

the one that makes the most sense to me is to avoid looking at your bankroll as much as possible. obviously we need to make sure we are playing within our limits, but, the less you look at your roll, the less you’ll experience loss because you simply won’t know whether you won or lost. it makes sense to me that i should pay less attention to my results because they simply don’t matter. the only thing that matters is that i play well.

anyways, i’m very thankful that i found that video today because i’m somewhat sure that i have lost a lot of money today (i didn’t look, but i know i’m down…) and i just don’t care, which is a really nice feeling.

time for another 100 games.

if you’ve ever spoken to a poker player about what it feels like to win/lose you’ve no doubt heard all of this before, but it’s something that i’m beginning to understand in a way i never have before, so i’m gonna take a minute to write about it.

yesterday i started off losing more money in a shorter period of time than i ever have before. i was mad. i was mad at my opponents for their awful plays that cost me money. i was mad at the site for dealing such terrible beats. most importantly, though, i was mad at myself for not being able to handle it. i felt physically ill and wanted smash something (sorry to my bed for the beating i delivered to it). anyone that knows me would probably have been shocked to see the state i was in. i was about as miserable as i’ve ever been.

after about 3 separate sessions of this i decided to put my headphones on and take a walk. i listened to an audio book i had just purchased from iTunes and by the time i got back i felt like myself again.

the next few hours of playing went about as well as you could possibly ask for. i made back about double what i had lost.

in most other things in my life, the highs have been about equal to the lows. when i ran competitively in high school it felt just about as good to win as it felt bad to lose. when taking auditions the joy of being accepted was pretty much equal to the disappointment of rejection. i could go on but you get the point.

poker is different for me though. winning doesn’t feel good. it doesn’t feel bad, but you won’t find me skipping around the room, elated that my opponents made such terrible mistakes that made me money. i feel relieved when i win.

i hope by the time i am able to quit poker it has taught me how to deal with the low points of my life better. i almost look forward to the next opportunity i get deal with a downswing because by the time it’s over and i begin to win again, i think i’ll actually feel a little joy that i was able to handle it all.

back to the grind.

the goals this month are simple. i’m going to play at least 9000 games, and by the end of the month, i will be on top of the full tilt low limit sng leaderboard .