money and psychological loss limits

[Wyte22]

There are two types of loss limits, your money limit and your psychological limit.

So let's talk about losses. It is a common part of poker and you need to be at peace with the fact that you will be experiencing losses, some small, some large, but you will experience some losses, that is the only 100% surity in poker.

yes poker to an extent is gambling (it is still mainly skill but even a complete novice can take down doyle burnson if the cards fall right). If your playing for fun, make two bank accounts. one for bills and one for gaming. NEVER EVER pull money that you need to pay living expenses to play poker, blackjack or anything else with! Pull money from your fun account, and leave the debit card at home for your bill bank account. Once you reach a certain loss limit, say 25% of your fun account, pack it up and go home. No point in losing your fun account all in one night and having to kick yourself for it and spend the next X months rebuilding it. stretch it out.

(This next part is geared towards people who are interested in trying to make a living at poker, if you play for fun as a beginner and have no real prospect or desire to play even part-time to make money, skip this section).


Now if your playing for a living, still make two bank accounts and as the fun player, have one for bills that you do not touch at all! Once you get to a certain point of losses or winnings, say $500 +/- you stop, put up your BR into the bank or in storage at the casino ( I prefer this option since I don't like walking around NOLA with money in my pocket). and leave the casino. Also have an evolving money limit on how much you can still lose and keep on living in your current style. you don't want to lose soo much in a day or week that you have to modify your life style because you can't afford to go do this or that. Only break this rule if, and only if, you are on top of your game into the positive and you feel you can extract more than X limit you set for winnings before going home.

(End of section for playing for a living).

Now you are asking, why make 2 bank accounts? simple, your psychological limit is different than your bankroll limit. Your bankroll limit may say, you can lose $300 and still be good to go. Your psychological limit could say "you lose $100 and it really bothers you" Signs you have crossed your psychological limit:

* Sadness/depression over the extent of losses you have occured
* Feeling like you need to gamble more to recoup your losses
* Complete change in behavior, you become more aggressive and more prone to tilt.
* Complete disregard for all money you have with you and have access to. When this occurs, you will be the kind of person who puts $200 on a blackjack table, move all in and hope for the blackjack and when your hand is cracked, you sink deeper into a depression or disregard for money.

Once you cross the lower of the two limit, stop playing any form of gambling IMMEDIATELY! Go home immediately, and relax. Varience sucks. DO NOT keep playing. This is easy to do while you have a level head but once you have crossed that psycholgical barrier and your on the verge of complete tilt, it is near impossible.

So creating the 2 bank accounts and having access only to your fun one while at the casino allows you to still be responsible in the event of complete meltdown. Even if you lose everything in your fun account, you will still have money for living expenses and taking care of everything in your personal life. Ya it will suck losing however much money you have in it but at least you will keep your home, food in your fridge and losses won't be an issue in your home/family life if you keep to the 2 bank accounts and stick to the plan.


For the person considering playing for a living, understand that it is really tough, there are times you are well within your loss limit and need to stop before you reach it because you are crossing your psychological limit. If your playing for a living, have at least 6-8 months worth of living expenses in a seperate, bank account that you do not touch!!! If you do have a psychological meltdown, you won't blow anything more than what is in your bankroll, and if you manage to blow your entire bankroll in one meltdown, then you have money to survive until you find a job to help you rebuild that bankroll.


In Short always know what your money loss and psycholgical limits are. They will increase as you increase your bankroll but your psychological loss limit will increase more slowly. Once you notice you are getting close to ANY form of tilt, crossing the psycholgical limit, stop playing immediately. It is more fun to gamble while playing level headed then playing with clouded judgement.

[travz21]

Fawk, I went life broke before I could finish reading that whole thing

[braveboat27]

Good concepts in the post. The real lesson is how to deal with losses and variance. As the poster stated, you will experience both, and it's imperative that every poker player learn to deal with them successfully both to enjoy the game and to keep their bankroll alive.

Setting effective loss limits is step one, and the hardest step to take, in my opinion. Deciding how big of a loss you should accept before stopping play that session is as much science as it is skill. You must preserve enough of your bankroll to adequately fund future buy-ins, while allowing yourself enough leeway so that you can learn to stay in the game and win your money back.

When I first started playing, I would occasionally suffer large losses that not only caused my play to deteriorate into almost a state of desperation to get even, but that would cause me to have to augment my bankroll by re-depositing. You neither enjoy the game, nor the financial impact under those circumstances.

Allowing yourself the chance to learn patience and fortitude by staying in the game is important, too. If your large loss was attributable to a bad beat, but the game is good, re-buy, and exercise good solid play. If you're simply at a table at which you don't have an edge, or that is playing over your skill level, then by all means, get up and find a better game.

The last piece of advice is the hardest to take, but important. When you play like the money is important, or as if your reputation is on the line, my opinion is that you will lose. You play aggressively with good, solid hands, and do not fear losses. And if the right call is all-in, or to fold, it doesn't matter what anybody else thinks. You make the right play. Of course, it does matter what you want others to think about you, but that is another topic for another day.

[allthatremains]

I basically follow the Chris (Jesus) Ferguson BRM.

I have also added "stop loss" time limits.
I will stop playing if my losses reach the following:

1. 5% per session
2. 10% per day
3. 20% per week
4. 30% per month

I actually take this one step further. If I am ahead for the session/day/week/month, I will shut down when the % loss is reached from my highest bankroll attained. Example - Bankroll $1000 will shut down my session if I fall to $950. but if I get up to $1100. my new session shut down is $1045. Of course I will also leave at any time when I have just had enough.

It seemed to me that when I had taken a couple of beats (whether through my error or their suckouts), I would either tighten up or look for revenge. Either way I wasn't fully on my game anymore.

This strategy has allowed me to be in a good frame of mind at all times, although of course it applies mainly to cash games.