I think an important thing to draw from this post is this: although the guy at the table makes the stupid play and still pulls that river card to beat you.....In the long run if your system is sound, you will come out ahead. I know from experience, trying to change your style because you run into a couple of losing trades DOES NOT MAKE THINGS BETTER. All it does is leave you one step behind at all times, causing more losers. If the market enviroment changes around our plan, it is better to sit back and wait for the envronment that works. Just like waiting for the cards that you play that consistently give you an edge.
From the Twoplustwo forum: Sure seems a lot like learning to trade doesn't it. I read somewhere here the other day that one of the traders breakthroughs was learning to lose. ........................................... ........................................... Hi all, I just put this up on my blog, thought I'd share it... I just finished my worst day ever; I'm down over $500. If I would have suffered a loss like this a month ago I would have been devastated. Today, I'm strangely indifferent, in some ways I'm actually very excited about what happened today. Learning to become a good player is an iterative process. You read the books, play the game, and eventually you reach a point where something clicks in your mind. This click gives you a more profound understanding of the game and the secrets behind the game. Of course you're not done at this point, you go back to the books and back to the tables and eventually you have another click. Each step in the process brings you closer and closer to that level of poker perfection we all aspire (but ultimately will never reach). Today was one of those days when I failed to get many playable hands, and whenever I did get a solid starting hand I either won a small pot or lost a monster. It was brutal, we've all been there in one way or another so I'll spare you the bad beat stories...it was ugly, let's just leave it at that. Swings are a naturally occurring part of poker. Solid players push a relatively small edge against the weakies and over the long run they will get the money, but in the short run the element of chance can cause your bankroll to go through some pretty dramatic fluctuations. The ability to handle these swings (or lack thereof) is probably one of the biggest factors in separating the winners from the wanna-be's. In the past I've always had a bit of a problem handling the swings that poker brings. On the surface I understood that bad beats are a good thing, I'll win in the long run, yadda, yadda, yadda, but deep down I still had trouble accepting it. Sometimes they didn't phase me, but other times (especially after taking a few in rapid succession) I'd get tilted and start pissing my money away. Today, during my worst run of cards ever, everything finally clicked. All of a sudden, it was like this giant weight was lifted from my shoulders. I detached myself from the money I was losing, stopped bemoaning my horrible luck, and instead realized how I was playing was the only thing that really mattered. Changing my frame of mind allowed me to play some of my best poker. Even though I was losing money I didn't let it affect my game. I played tight/aggressive poker and forced my opponents to take the worst of it in order to beat me. I'm not going to let the fact they got lucky upset me...not anymore. Peace, Jason
Nice post Tony!! The mental game is THE game. The beautiful thing about probabilities is that you can depend on them.
Nice post Tony. I still have internittent problems when a novice calls my big bets all the way only to make the miracle card on the river. The physical reaction is amazing - elevated heart rate, stress reaction, everything. Imagine what kind of mental control Tiger Woods has. I try to think of him when I am getting beaten by a 'clueless amateur'. Since this thread was supposed to be aimed in part at beginners, I will say that reviewing my hands and especially the losing ones is critical for me. Most of the time, I will see that my losses were a result of bad decisions on my part. Try tracking your play for 15 hands after a really bad beat. As always, if I eliminated my own mistakes, bad beats would never be enough to make a dent in my profits, at least in the long run. I'm sure that more experienced players grow out of the need for this kind of thing. Keeping a trade journal seems to be a must for all beginners, except those very few for whom winning comes naturally. If you are just starting out in trading, no matter what kind, and you aren't keeping a detailed journal, you need to ask yourself why, IMHO. If you have been trying to trade without a trade journal and meeting with limited success, you need to understand that if you don't have what it takes to keep a detailed journal, you may not have what it takes to win at trading. Harsh? Yes, it sounds that way. True? I am beginning to believe it. For me, it is. Playing exclusively single table tournaments these days, like Hank.
It also helps to remember that these "cluless ones" are the people who are providing you with a source of income. If they didnt draw against you there would be no edge.
A long time ago I used to play poker with the other kids in the basements of our homes and apartment buildings on makeshift tables. I was an average player and as we all grew up we continued to play, everyone with their own style or lack of. One observant friend said I was always looking for the edge. Fast forward to the popularity of Texas Hold'em, a game we played as kids, and I wanted to see if I could figure out if there was any edge, which apparently hadn't changed from my youth. I started playing at the fun tables, $5/$10 pot limit, with $1000 about 6 months ago and never drew anymore money. I wrote down every hand and with 3 or 4 simple indicators, because of the time element, and tracked the cards and game and absolutely followed the same method. 4922 hands later I now have $256000. What I learned, if you can learn anything with fun money, is (A)you must play in a pot limit game to take full advantage of a really good hand (B)you never play on the come, you either start with good cards or you drop. That's what discipline is all about. (C)you never let yourself get caught up in a betting frenzy, better to drop, and a high percentage of the time you wouldn't have won anyway (D)you follow the cards and think percentage of winning that hand and what the percentage of your opponents winning the hand are (E)when there is a very high percentage of you winning you bet big (F)when the bad beats start coming you leave. I'll be in a game between 1/2 hour to 1 1/2 hours, and the greatest number of days sees me leaving early. The correlation between poker and trading is very interesting.
Is it fast enough to use while playing or is there something better/more comprehensive? If there is a program that says hold/add/fold that is what I want.