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piguanitore · #1 (**permalink**) 10-20-2010, 12:37 PM

I have this really big issue, I'm so scared to lose money that I don't play much at all.
I mean, I know I can definitely win at my limits and I often am surprised that people playing with me are so bad, but I'm so scared of variance and the frustration that comes with it, that I can't find the motivation to double click the poker software and start a session.
The weird thing is that once I play I'm not really scared of "running bad", and I take coolers all the time like everyone else, probably more than average so far, but it doesn't bother me that much, it's the "after the fact" feeling, that big ball of frustration stuck in my throat, or my stomach, if you see what I mean, I can't get away with it, so I'm scared to start another session. So I do everything else related to poker but playing. I browse forums, I read a lot of posts, I watch a lot of videos, over and over again, but can hardly start a session.
I won't get mad when I lose a big pot, puch the walls and break my keyboard that's not what I do, it's just that all the little things will add up and will grow until the frustration will transform into fear.
Does it happen to you guys ? How do you deal with it ?

T123 · #2 (**permalink**) 10-20-2010, 02:40 PM

I sturggled with this when moving up but then after i reach my comfort zone at a level, say 5k hands in I just see bbs in front of me... its the easiest way to think about things imo. become bone idle to the monetary value and your'll find decisions easier.

klamsauce · #3 (**permalink**) 10-20-2010, 03:06 PM

I think it's important too to have a lot of things going on in your life besides poker so those days that you do get hit with a massive amount of coolers or rough patches, you don't dwell on it incessantly.

Just make the best decisions you can make in any given situation and log hands. The short term will never mean anything unless you allow it to get to you, whether it be too much confidence or not enough, fear or invincibility.

dudu · #4 (**permalink**) 10-21-2010, 10:31 AM

I´d definetly consider moving down in limits if the actual $$$ value is bothering you...

Also, I try not to consider teh money in my poker account as real money, coz I know i´m not going to touch it for at least another 6months, and that helps me just focus on BBs, and plus ev spots... and not think- shit, I stacked that guy wiht a BI that I couild have used for dinner tonight, or buy a new CD, or whatever

piguanitore · #5 (**permalink**) 10-21-2010, 04:44 PM

Hm actually that's not really what I meant. I'm not attached to the actual value of the money. This, I don't really care.
However i'm scared of the defeat, the fact of losing money, you see what I mean ?

dudu · #6 (**permalink**) 10-21-2010, 04:58 PM

I don't really know what to say to you then, if you don't value the cash but your still scared of losing it

I'm not trying to be rude or a smartass, but this might be a situation where the only applicable phrase I can say to you is 'man up'

embrace variance for what it is and dont worry about short term results. and keep in mind that over the long term your a winner in the games... (I have no idea how you play, but I'll just assume you can beat your limit over a decent sample)

Probability · #7 (**permalink**) 10-21-2010, 05:54 PM

I have been thinking about something similar. When I play 200NL now I get nervous and can't play nearly as long. I decided I will play 1 session at 100NL and get some hands in at a limit I am comfortable with then play the last session of the day at 200NL, something slightly out of my comfort limit right now. That way I can get volume in, not have the feeling of dread, and overcome my issue.

robbyd86 · #8 (**permalink**) 10-21-2010, 06:30 PM

This was basically me for the last year and a half excluding the last 2-3 mos. What you have to realize is poker is soooooo high variance that by only putting in so few hands your swings will be that much bigger. I'm probably not making sense so i'll give an example. I used to play 15k hands/ month and i would either win 10 bi's or lose 10 bi's and was either super pissed or super happy for that month. Now I'm playing 50k+ hands/month and the variance tends to even out a lil more, it's still swingy as hell but it's crammed into a shorter time frame so it seems a lil better.

This doesn't mean you should go out and play 3x as many hands. I'm just using it as an example that you shouldn't be scared to play. Variance happens, you could go on 50k-100k hand downswings fairly easily. You just have to play each hand individually. This is obv easier said than done. I still chicken out and think about quitting all the time. Just this wknd i was bitching to fellow leggo member maximus until he smacked me around and told me to stop it.

So anyways, that's a lot of jumbled words, hope you got something out of that. I'm really not sure of any steps i took to help me get over my "fear" of losing/playing, i just kind of decided one day to not be results oriented and tried to keep it that way. Perhaps not looking at your results/cashier tab for a couple days at a time would help out. I know dougiedan used to not look at results for an entire month sometimes when he had similar problems.

yurk23 · #9 (**permalink**) 10-21-2010, 07:43 PM

Robbyd - Was watching one of the DeucesCracked (Wait! Wait! Don't ban me!) videos about variance/downswings/etc. and it was helpful. One part was just looking at different example winrates and expanding them over a large (like 1 million) hand sample when you account for standard deviation. The results can be pretty crazy if you just took a small say "10k or 50k" chunk out of the pie w/o looking at the long long term. Nice reminder about how crazy poker is with ups and downs even if you're a "winning player".

robbyd86 · #10 (**permalink**) 10-21-2010, 07:46 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by yurk23

Robbyd - Was watching one of the DeucesCracked (Wait! Wait! Don't ban me!) videos about variance/downswings/etc. and it was helpful. One part was just looking at different example winrates and expanding them over a large (like 1 million) hand sample when you account for standard deviation. The results can be pretty crazy if you just took a small say "10k or 50k" chunk out of the pie w/o looking at the long long term. Nice reminder about how crazy poker is with ups and downs even if you're a "winning player".

yeah that's basically what i was trying to say, is that short term results are useless.... and don't worry you're ban free... for now