Losing Money Poker Casino

Top 5 Real Money Online Poker Sites - Our experts have reviewed 100's of real money poker sites to pick the best. Great bonuses + FREE poker hands chart. Dec 29, 2017 If the temptation to withdraw more money is too much for you, get money from the bank before you go to the casino, and then leave your credit and debit cards at home. Once you have your money, break it up into smaller bankrolls. How to gamble at a casino without losing a lot of money. I love to gamble. It might seem strange for a guy that writes two articles a week about how frugal I am to visit a casino, because it really isn’t a very wise investment, but it isn’t as strange as it seems.

Nobody likes to lose when playing poker, yet how you react to losing can shape you as poker player.

Losing is an important part of poker. Think about it, if nobody lost a hand then nobody could win. The sooner you start to accept that you are not going to win every hand that you play, the sooner you will find your overall enjoyment of the game increases.

There is no special formula for dealing with losing at poker and do not allow anyone to pretend to you that there is. If it were as simple as applying “Fix A” to your game, then every poker player in the world would be a happy beacon of light regardless of his or her results.

Below are some hints and tips that have helped me cope with losing over the years. Feel free to combine one, two, or all of them into your own coping mechanism.

Practice Good Bankroll Management / Play With a Large Bankroll

I cannot stress enough how important bankroll management is. Time and time again, I have read forum posts and poker players’ blogs where the author has gone broke due to poor bankroll management. There is no excuse for it.

Having a large bankroll — that is money that is 100% set aside with which to play poker — can take away some of the stresses of losing.

Imagine the following scenarios: (1) you are playing in a $0.05/$0.10 no-limit hold’em cash game online and have a bankroll of $50 (or five full buy-ins); (2) you are playing in an identical game and have a bankroll of $300 (30 buy-ins). Should the inevitable happen and you lose a stack, which of the scenarios do you think you would be able to cope with the best?

In both scenarios you have lost $10, but losing $10 when you only had $50 with which to play is a much worse prospect than losing $10 when you have $300 at your disposal. Personally, I feel more comfortable with an even larger bankroll behind me. This means it takes longer to move up levels when I want to, but it also means I have never gone broke in the nine years I have played this crazy game.

Try Not to Think of Your Bankroll as Money

Following on from practicing good bankroll management, try not to think of your bankroll in terms of actual monetary value. This may sound crazy to some of you out there, yet not thinking about the monetary value of your bankroll during your wins and losses will aid your ability to cope with the swings of poker better.

Losing 10 buy-ins is easier to swallow than losing a week’s worth of groceries, for example.

Think of the Game as One Big Session, Not Many Smaller Ones

Whenever you sit down to play poker, be it cash games or tournaments, do not label it as “a session.” Doing so can lead you to thinking negatively about how your last few “sessions” have gone (especially if you have had numerous losing sessions), which can see you enter a downward spiral that is difficult to get out of. Instead, if you think of all of your sessions as part of one long game, you'll be less likely to be overly affected by what happens — good or bad — in a single night of playing.

Resist the Urge to Complain

Perhaps the most solid advice I received came from a British cash game pro a year or so ago and it struck a chord with me from the second I heard it. I had just taken to social media to bemoan my bad luck. I’d gone on a run of games where I lost 80 buy-ins for the turbo 180-man SNGs I was playing at the time. It was starting to have a negative effect on my confidence, causing me both to start questioning my own ability and to go online and whine.

This pro told me that one of my problems was the fact I would also take to social media to celebrate — or, truthfully, to brag — about my wins or a decent run of in-the-money finishes. He said that by getting overly excited about winning, the low caused by losing would feel worse and that I should try to become almost numb to the fact you have won or lost.

Thinking about this, when was the last time you saw a top, established pro bragging about wins? There are exceptions, of course, but most of the time those who are winning consistently are more likely to reference their good fortune or thank people for their support. Indeed, many of the best players never bother to publish their wins or losses — it can’t be a coincidence.

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Review Your Play

Instead of trumpeting to the world your results when finished for the day, go through and review your hand history files to see if there were any areas in which you could have improved. Often, you will discover that there were spots you should have folded and saved yourself some chips, and times that you could have played more aggressively and accumulated extra chips. Then the next time you play, you can focus more specifically on improving upon those areas of your game.

By constantly reviewing your play you will improve at poker and make fewer mistakes, which in turn reduces the amount of losing sessions that you will have.

Play More Poker!

Sometimes when things aren’t going your way at the tables, taking a break might be in order. But gathering more experience is also a great way to become better equipped to handle losing. The more hands you play, the more you will experience both winning and losing and the more likely it is that you will be able to shrug off losing more easily.

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By Jean Scott
Let's face it: Losing is never as much fun as winning. This is no doubt true in any area of life you might discuss: the Super Bowl, Academy Awards, Dow Jones Industrial Average, Miss America Pageant, U.S. Open, Wimbledon, the office paycheck lottery, even an argument with your spouse. And video poker is no exception; a winning session is a LOT more fun than a losing one.
However, LOSING AT VP IS UNAVOIDABLE. I'm not talking about the long run here. If you've read even a few of my writings, you know that I believe in (and personally practice) smart video poker play, which gives you a very good chance to be a winner in the long term. I'm also not talking about unknowledgeable players. If you choose plays where you don't have the mathematical advantage over the casino or you don't learn proper strategy, you should expect to lose.
I'm talking about knowledgeable players who choose only the best games and go at them with accurate strategies. Losing sessions and losing streaks in the short-term are unavoidable. Bob Dancer, who plays a lot of video poker and plays it at the expert level, says he loses on average two out of three sessions, even though he's been an overall winner every year he's played. Brad's and my play over many years has seen similar results.
Actually, this problem of losing streaks does not diminish the longer you play; in fact, you should expect the opposite. Although it's true that the longer you play the nearer you'll come to the expected return -- a winning figure if you're playing positive games -- it's also a fact that you'll experience many more different lengths of streaks, including those at the tail end of the losing side of the bell curve. Players who have a year or two with medium-length streaks around the middle of the curve -- and especially if they have had some really great winning streaks at the tail end of the winning side -- can be devastated by an extremely long losing streak. You have to remember that any good streak you've had, no matter how glorious, has a dark counterpart on the other side that can pop up at any time and last for what feels like an eternity.
So if you're doing all the right things in your video poker play -- good games and good strategy, coupled with the best slot club benefits and promotions you can find -- and you can't avoid losing sessions or even long losing streaks, how can you cope better with this inevitability?
Here are some ideas that have worked for me and many players I know.
EXPECT TO LOSE - I frequently read gambling advice that tells you always to enter a casino with an optimistic attitude; some writers even say you'll win more that way. Personally, I've always been an optimist and I'm not dissing positive thinking. Norman Vincent Peale is right: There IS power in positive thinking in many areas of life.
However, perhaps it's better to enter a casino to play video poker with a more realistic attitude, based on what you know about math. I find it helps me to cope better if I sit down at a video poker machine and say to myself, 'The odds are stronger that I'll lose today than I'll win. So I'm going to expect to lose -- and if I do, I won't be so disappointed. And if I win -- I'll be pleasantly surprised.'
The hardest time to say this to myself and really believe it is in the middle of a long losing streak. Rogue thoughts keep popping up in my mind: 'I'm DUE to win since I've been losing so long,' or 'I just HAVE to hit a royal today; it's been so long since I've had one.' I have to remind myself that this machine does not know what my results have been in the past and that there's no such thing as a 'due' factor.
ACCEPT BEING HUMAN - Some players are bothered by the fact that they get 'down' psychologically when they lose, especially if they've had a long streak of losing sessions. I've had them come to me and say, 'I know the math and that in the long run I'll be okay, but I just can't help being discouraged when I lose.'
Hey, I haven't talked to Bob Dancer personally about this -- you ask him the next time you take one of his classes! -- but I bet that, even though he says today's score doesn't matter, he'd be the first to admit that it's more fun when the score is positive. There's no question that his wife Shirley thinks so!
Now, I believe that some people shouldn't play video poker, even the long-term-winning kind. Their temperaments are just not suited for losing money anytime, even if they'll win in the long term. Their heads may be right, but their guts can't take even short-term losses. They literally become ill. However, most of us who know and believe in the math don't enjoy losing, but we can learn to accept it, albeit with some very human complaining along the way. After all, we're not robots.
MAKE MONEY ADJUSTMENTS - The following has been pounded into our heads by every gambling writer, social-behavior expert, financial advisor, and well-meaning friend and family member, not to mention our own consciences: No one should gamble with money that they can't afford to lose.
There can never be real peace of mind when you're gambling with money that should be used for the necessities of life. Losing this money, even if you're playing skilled video poker, will always be psychologically difficult. I can't help you make this easier to cope with. No one can. The only answer is to quit until you have the money to spare.
However, you can make certain adjustments if your gambling bankroll consists of entirely discretionary income -- in other words, you could lose it all without negatively impacting your lifestyle and relationships. Many charts have been developed that show the required bankroll for various games and denominations in order not to go broke and have to quit playing. One of the best ways for some people to cope with the inevitable losing in the short run is to play well below their bankroll. This can be a temporary measure until a long losing spell is over; or, for many people, especially those who take losing very hard, it can be a permanent tactic.
This illustrates the difference between a financial bankroll and a psychological one. You may be able to 'afford' bigger session losses or longer losing streaks, but it's too much of a stress on your mental health. After you've had some severe losses at the $1 denomination, dropping back down to quarters can be downright relaxing.
MAKE TIME ADJUSTMENTS - Sometimes the best thing you can do when you're in a losing streak -- and it's getting you down -- is to take a break. This break can be short, just an hour or two during a long day's session while you're on a casino vacation. You stop playing to take a walk, go shopping, see a show, or enjoy a long leisurely meal -- anything that rests your tired eyes and stiff muscles, anything that gets your mind off losing. For someone like a local Las Vegan, who plays almost every day, the break may need to be longer, for example several days of non-gambling activities to refresh the spirit. If someone is suffering from severe video poker 'burnout,' he may need to take a break for several weeks and cultivate new interests, like volunteer work or a non-casino hobby.
KEEPING THE FAITH - Although losing in the short term cannot be avoided, there's one comforting truth for the properly bankrolled video poker player who's doing all the right things: No losing streak lasts forever. Keep the faith, baby!