You've heard it dozens of times, and you may have even said it yourself. If you did, it was probably after a series of losses, and after a particularly bad session. You lost three racks of chips despite playing well, and one hand was particularly painful. You hadn't won a pot for three hours, finally flopped a set, and some idiot playing 7-3 suited made a runner-runner flush.
You were proud of yourself for not going on tilt, but were so frustrated that you had to talk about it. You tried to explain your feelings to your friends, but they didn't really listen. They just wanted to tell you their own bad-beat stories. So, you said, "Why put up with all of this garbage? I'm quitting."
Should You Quit?
Maybe. Poker is a game, and games should be played for pleasure. If it's not fun, don't play. Even if poker pays your bills, you should quit if you don't enjoy it. Your life is too short and precious to waste on a "job" that makes you miserable. However, before making a final decision, let's discuss why you are close to making it.
The "Psychology Forum" of twoplustwo.com has had several posts about quitting. Some were from people who overestimate their own skill and/or select the wrong games. I'll deal with those issues in my next column, "Running Bad or Playing Badly?" Here, I'd like to focus on just three topics: (1) You don't accept the game as it is. (2) You're playing above your psychological bankroll. (3) Your life is unbalanced.
You Don't Accept the Game as it Is
The simple, inescapable truth is that poker is a gambling game, which means that swings and losing streaks are unavoidable. Mason Malmuth has argued that a gambling game can't survive and reward good players without a proper balance of luck and skill.
If the game is entirely dependent upon luck – such as craps and roulette – nobody can win. The house edge guarantees that everybody will be a long-term loser, as countless poker players can testify.
If the game is too dependent upon skill, hardly anyone will bet on it. For example, in chess, because the better player almost always wins, there is virtually no gambling. Poker has an excellent balance of skill and luck, which allows good players to make serious profits.
Good players have a statistical edge, not an absolute one. Many pots are won because players made terrible mistakes, and weak players can beat stronger ones for an evening, a tournament, or even a month or more. You hope that in the "long run," your good play will prevail, but you may deny the reality of how long it will take.
Mason Malmuth is a professional statistician, and he has proved that a good player could have a 4,000-hour losing streak, about two years of full-time play. Mike Caro said that someone who plays full time for 20 years will have a 1,000-hour losing streak. While such a losing streak may seem impossible, it will happen to many of us, even if we play well and do everything else right. If you can't accept that reality, stop whining and play something else.
But don't expect to win much (or any) money at it. If luck is not a factor, there are not going to be large (or any) profits. Mike Sexton called it "the beauty of poker," that huge luck factor that causes weak players to believe they play better than they really do so that they keep coming back to donate to us.
You're Playing Above Your
"Psychological Bankroll"
You may be able to afford the money you've lost, but you can't handle it emotionally. You may deny it, but you, I, and nearly everyone else has a limited amount of money we can lose before getting upset. Because we have worked hard for the money and value what it can buy, this amount is almost always much smaller than the loss we can objectively afford.
This principle applies to both professionals and recreational players. After being a highly successful professional at one level, a friend of mine wanted to move up to a larger game. Because he expected some losses at first, he set aside part of his bankroll in the same way that a businessman would allocate an investment for a new venture's startup costs. He could afford to lose all of it, and if he did so, he intended to move back down. However, after losing about 15 percent of his budgeted amount, he realized that he was feeling stressed and not playing his best. He accepted his limitations, wrote off the small loss, and moved back to his old level.
Bill Gates is a recreational player with an essentially infinite bankroll, but he plays for low stakes, about $4-$8. He can objectively afford to play for a thousand times as much; $1 million is less than one-fifty thousandth of his net worth, but he won't risk more than a few hundred dollars. He knows the size of his psychological bankroll, and he is smart enough to accept and adjust to it. If an excellent professional and the world's richest man play within their psychological limits, maybe you should do the same.
But you may deny reality. You want the rush of big wins, but can't handle the pain of the inevitable losses. Because poker is a gambling game, you must understand that there is an absolutely unbreakable link between the upside gains and the downside risks. When you don't have the psychological bankroll for the stakes you are playing, your state of mind will affect your play and, ultimately, your financial bankroll. If you can't handle the swings, you must either move down, quit playing, or be miserable. There are no other options.
Your Life is Unbalanced
Whenever I see someone get extremely upset by poker losses that he can objectively afford, I suspect that his life is unbalanced. Winning at poker is too important because he has so little else going for him. He will almost certainly deny it, but he's got a great big hole that he hopes poker will fill, making poker much more than a game. Instead of playing just for money, he is literally gambling with his emotional stability.
His results determine how he feels about himself and his life. When he wins, he feels powerful, competent, and confident. When he loses, he feels like a failure and a loser, not just in poker, but in life.
If you feel that way, the solution is not to quit poker, because that great big hole is not going to go away. In fact, without poker to fill it, you may have nothing at all. The solution is to find other things – family, work, friends, hobbies, exercise, whatever – to fill that hole. When poker becomes simply a part of your life rather than your entire life, it will become less stressful and more enjoyable. In simplest terms, if poker is too important to you, don't quit because you've taken some losses; "get a life" so that those losses don't mean so much to you.
Author's note: Some writers edit each other's columns before submitting them for final editing by the executive editor, and we usually don't mention it. However, Jim Brier helped so much with this one that I'd like to thank him publicly.
If you would like to learn more about yourself and other players, you can order Dr. Schoonmaker's book, The Psychology of Poker. See the Two Plus Two ad on Page 107.