I used to play a lot of backgammon for money. Backgammon is not a casino game, but it is a gambling game nonetheless. From 1973 through 1991 I spent many thousands of hours playing competitive backgammon. I was good, but not great. I was only able to keep my head above water by competing with players not as skilled as I was. To do this consistently required strong backgammon skills, but also many social skills. Fortunately for me, I was the favorite in most matches for at least the last five years that I played.
During my most profitable years, I won between 55 and 60 percent of the sessions. (A session was usually between 4 and 6 hours and would consist of 30 to 80 games or so.) Another way to say this was that I lost almost half the time.
Sometimes there were long losing streaks. Sometimes there were long winning streaks. Although I didn’t bother with keeping records at the beginning, over the last few years that I played, I kept very good records. I learned that no matter how bad a losing streak was, eventually I would make it all up again — as long as I continued to play opponents who were weaker than me.
Once I learned this, it gave me incredible peace of mind. I could lose $1,000 and not worry about it at all! Other players approximately as good as I was would whine and moan greatly during their losing streaks. Poker has “bad beat” stories. Backgammon does too. For whatever reason, these players experienced a great deal of anxiety when they lost. They appeared to be truly miserable.
Starting in the early 1980’s, I began flying into Las Vegas four or five times a year (later much more often) to play blackjack. I was an okay card counter, not a great card counter. I suspect that my blackjack success in later days never really made up financially for the big losses in my earlier days. I don’t know for sure because I don’t have accurate records from my early days. In blackjack, I never had a strong gut-feeling that I would prevail financially. I never knew for sure that a big losing streak might not come along and wipe me out.
So why was I so sure I would prevail at backgammon, so unsure at blackjack, and what does this have to do with video poker anyway?
At backgammon, I played frequently. Often three or more times a week, forty or more weeks a year. I got a very confident sense of how good I was against my regular competition. And I read and re-read every quality backgammon book ever published so that I continued to improve my skills. For the most part, my competitors no longer studied. They felt they “knew” the game.
At blackjack, I played sporadically. It would often be six months or more between sessions. I would have to re-learn all of my strategy tables all over again because I had forgotten some of them. I know from my results that I never got as good as I thought I was at the time. I didn’t practice on a computer, so I don’t know for sure, but I suspect that I made the wrong play many times.
At backgammon, I was usually the favorite. In blackjack, probably not.
Video poker, for me, is similar in many respects to backgammon. I play over a thousand hours a year, I teach all of the time so the games are fresh in my mind, and I know I am the favorite. Now I play for stakes where losing $10,000 or more in a day is quite possible, but it’s all right. Not because I am rolling in dough and don’t care about $10,000, but because I KNOW I will get it back. Winning has happened often enough in the past for me to feel very confident that it will continue to happen in the future.
But whatever it is, I am convinced that the players who enjoy a life of successful gambling the most are the ones that have come to accept losing streaks as part of the game. It happens to all of us. Frequently. If you cannot handle those losing experiences, you will not enjoy your gambling life.
And for me, even though I have experienced considerable financial success at this game, if it weren’t also enjoyable at the same time, I would find something else to do.