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Maryann Guberman has been a writer and editor with many gaming publications, including Sports Form, Card Player, Poker World, Player's Panorama and Systems and Methods. She also has written and edited numerous books on gambling.

Dec 02, 2006

The Plunging Bankroll

Oh where, oh where has my little dog gone; oh where, oh where can he be? - Anonymous (Children's Song)

Paul, whom I've mentioned in previous articles, called me on the cell phone using the voice that usually indicates some kind of stress.

"I can't seem to win anymore," he lamented. "My BR is a disaster. I've been taking some real hits these last three weeks."

"And?" I asked, prompting him to continue.

"I've been playing these sit and go tourneys and you know I was winning like crazy and when I wasn't winning, I was coming in second. And now I can't seem to get to the first blind raises. It's like I'm snake bit. I flop a set and somebody reaches into the bag of miracles and pulls out a straight on the river. I flop two pair and get beat by trips. I won't tell you how many times I've had high pairs snapped off."

I asked if he had changed his playing style. He insists the only changes he makes is in relation to the other players. He still starts out slowly at the lower limits then gets more aggressive as the blinds go up. He plays from the power of position only when his hand warrants it and when he bluffs he does it with a gigantic wager, often the size of the pot.

I ask him if he's keeping a diary. He tells me he used to write down everything he can about every hand and every player but stopped being so meticulous when he discovered he rarely met a player more than once.

I ask him if he's playing at a new level and he lets me know how he progressed from measly dollar tournaments and worked his way up as his confidence grew. His results at the higher limits were comparable to the lower ones. He thinks "they" might be cheating.

I wanted to say: "Oh sure. Every opponent you've never met is in collusion with the house or with the others at your table to beat you out of your little buy-in." I didn't.

Then I asked him the final question. Have you ever had a lengthy losing session before?

"Sure," he answered. "Back when I started and then again about six months ago, before I got to this level."

I had him go back to his notes from those sessions and review them.

"What for," he asked.

For a moment I wanted to give him the what-for but since I've been studying the Zen of life, I took a deep breath and relaxed. "Just do it, and when you've studied those notes, get back to me."

I went back to watching Ann Marie Lucas put handcuffs on a man who was starving his dog.

I didn't hear from Paul for more than a week but when I did, he had some interesting news. He hadn't exactly experienced an epiphany but he had finally realized what every poker player has to accept as part of the ebb and flow of the game - everybody hurts! (Apologies to R.E.M.)

Paul didn't just go through the notes from his two losing sessions; he went through his entire diary and found he'd had more than those two bad streaks. There were two others he'd almost forgotten because he had started a vacation once and his computer was down a second time. It's very possible that he averted a longer losing streak simply by staying away from the game. Of course there's no way to tell for sure because we can't rewrite the past and even if we were to experiment with a control group, the results would not be scientific enough to be valid. But my suggestion, based on Paul's notes, was to try something else for a change. If you have to be connected, go to www.pogo.com or some similar site and play some free games that require some skill. (It works for me.) Take some tests at http://similarminds.com/. (The site has dozens of different types of tests and you can't fail.) Take a hike, a bike ride, a drive, a walk in the park. Get a dog (or a cat if you must). Find a hobby that requires your attention when you might be playing poker.

In short, accept the fact that life happens in peaks and valleys with a lot of level road between. If we're good at what we do, we'll succeed when the road is level, soar when it's high and learn to take find roses in the valley and smell them while we climb back up.

Hey, many people think poker is a metaphor for life; maybe in this instance it is.