One of the mantras I keep harping on is, “Today’s Score Doesn’t Matter.” I’m sure each of my regular readers has seen that dozens of times. Most of my readers who are willing to be persuaded already accept that. Others will never accept that no matter how often I keep repeating it.
I sometimes read www.cardplayer.com, partly in hopes of learning a strategy tip that I can apply to video poker, and partly looking for news to talk about on the Gambling with an Edge radio show. Recently I came across an article by Ed Miller which originally appeared a year and a half ago.
Ed Miller, who has been on our show several times, writes for low-stakes poker players. Although not always the case, poker players who play for smaller stakes usually do not play as competently as those who play for larger stakes. Because of this, Ed often addresses the basics in his writings. One example is included in the middle part of an article called, “Poker Strategy With Ed Miller — Three Tips For Keeping Your Sanity — Stay Sane At The Poker Table By Following These Helpful Tips” that was originally published May 11, 2013 and is now being reprinted again with the permission of the author.
Ignore Session Results
I know this is a tough one, but if you can get there you’ll be a lot saner about poker. Please ignore your session results.
What do I mean?
“Gee, I’m only up $130 for the day. One more bad hand and I’ll have lost it all back.”
“I can get even. ‘m almost there. I’m on a roll.”
“Darn, I used to be up $800 and now I’ve lost it all back and I’m down $100.”
All thoughts of this type are 100 percent, without exception counter-productive.
Your results in any session are pure noise. There is no information there. Being even for the day is no magic number. It does not matter whether you quit for the day below even or above even. It does not matter how much you’ve lost from your peak stack of the day. Just because you’ve gotten half your loss on the day back does not mean anything about whether you should keep playing or not keep playing.
It’s all completely meaningless. Completely.
It’s also counter-productive to think about, because these thoughts tend to alter how people play. They’ll play too conservatively when ahead a little bit for the day and too recklessly when either ahead or behind a lot for the day. No one ever plays better because they’re thinking about how much they’ve won or lost on the day.
So just stop thinking about it. Here’s my suggestion. Come to the cardroom every day with a fixed amount of money. Maybe you play $2-$5 and you always come with $2,000 in your pocket. At the beginning of a session, convert all your cash to chips, buying black chips for the money in excess of your first buy-in.
If you lose $100, take a black chip out of your pocket and put it on the felt. Make change for the black chip if you like to make the chips harder to count.
If you always keep your stack topped up like this, after an hour or two it becomes work to keep track of whether you’re up or down. How many times did you rebuy chips? You have to think about it.
But don’t think about it. Are you ahead or behind? Well, you had to rebuy a couple times, but now you just won a big pot. Are you ahead $100 or $500? When you’re not thinking about it and you don’t keep your buy-in in round numbers, it’s hard to be sure, and that’s the idea. Don’t worry about it.
Then at the end of the session, cash everything in and count to see what your final number was. Since you know what you started with, you know how you did. Write it down in your log.
And then forget about it. Because that number is noise and doesn’t indicate anything about how well or poorly you played.
The language of poker is different than that of video poker, but the concepts necessary for successful gambling in one game frequently overlap those of other gambling games. Perhaps Miller’s phrasing hits home to you in a way that mine doesn’t. If so, you’re ahead in the game. It’s an important concept.
Note: If you like Ed Miller’s writing style, check out edmillerpoker.com There are free articles there as well as information on the books and videos he publishes.