Doin' the job

Over the past week or so I've gone through a pretty bad downswing (approx $800 I think, not 100% sure). I've managed to grind a lot of it back now, but during a couple of sessions I've been up a few BIs, continued playing, and subsequently broken even for the session, or lost.

I was playing this HUUUUUGE fish today HU. He bought in for $30, I took it off him. He bought in for another $30, and I took that off him. He bought in for another $30, and I took 25 of it off him. He then proceeded to go on the most epic heater imaginable, and before I knew it he was up $40 on me. I was getting incredibly frustrated, and explained to my girlfriend what was happening.

She said "Well obviously you should have just quit while you were ahead LDO." I tried to tell her that, due to my more than sizeable edge against this guy, I should keep playing as long as he was sitting there and I was conscious. 

In the end I finished up about $40, so it wasn't all bad, but the amount of time and frustration it took to get there was ridiculous. It got me thinking about something from the Eightfold Path to Poker Enlightenment.

When you're up, and then subsequently lose it back again, there's an emotional disconnect between the financial results and the emotional results. Being up feels good, and when you lose it back again it feels even worse than if you had just broken even over a few hundred hands.

I can't remember exactly what Tommy Angelo said, but I think it was that your emotional risk outweighs the financial risk. For me, that couldn't be more true. I play my absolute worst poker when I have been up during a session, and then lose it back again. I get frustrated, tilted, annoyed, spewy, chase my losses (which aren't even losses, but 'not winnings'). 

I'm not sure what I'm going to do about it - implementing a 'stop-win' seems foolish - but I think the best thing to do would be to limit myself to only short sessions, no longer than 45 minutes. Not quite "quit while you're ahead", but something close to that.

And if at ANY time during the session I feel that I'm not playing my absolute A-game, I will snap quit. 

Sounds easy when I say it like that.