Poker Chasing Losses
This proposal can be a good research topic as a thesis for university students.
Compulsive gambling is an addiction problem very much like alcoholism. If you think you may be suffering from compulsive gambling, you are advised to seek professional help.
Understanding the psychodynamic theory of compulsive gambling can help you quit gambling. As service providers, psychiatrists, counsellors, therapists, can use their understanding of the psychodynamic theory of compulsive gambling to get you out of gambling.
The dog is a chaser – a loser. Playing poker, there are lots of chasers; and they usually lose most, if not all, of their chips before the evening is over, no matter the game or the stakes. Even more so if there is a cost to play, as is the case in cardrooms and casinos all over the world. What is a “chaser” in hold’em poker? Now develop the discipline to forget about chasing losses. Your bankroll will notice the difference. May all your wins be swift and large and all your losses slow and small. Jerry “Stickman” is an expert in craps, blackjack and video poker and advantage slot machine play. He is the author of 'Everything Casino Poker.'
- To Chase Losses When things have been going badly, many players extend their session length or play on days when they would normally take a break from poker. The desperation that accompanies the feeling of chasing losses virtually guarantees that you will play far below your maximum ability.
- The concept of chasing losses is probably the worst one out there. When you think of it, if you lost a lot of money during a single session, you probably played the game for a while that day. You’re likely to be tired and out of focus, meaning your performance will definitely not be as good as at the start of the session.
- Fev, gambling is gambling whether its horses or poker. Gamblers biggest problem is chasing your loses, this happens with poker. — Dazza (@Dazza5173) March 10, 2011. Instead, we are referring to the person that is digging into their wallet for the fourth or fifth buy-in or are walking to the ATM to get more cash because “they’re due to hit.”.
Careful study of gamblers show a predictable pattern in the evolution of a compulsive gambler.
Gambling Authorities claim that it is not possible to predict with certainty who will become compulsive gambler. This is true only to a certain sector of the population. However, it is possible to predict who are likely to become compulsive gamblers based on personality types and gender. Certain personalities are more prone to become compulsive gamblers. For men, the initial triggers are usually those who love action and think that they are smarter than an average bettor. For women, it is a little different. Their initial motivation is often an escape phenomenon.
Men with “action” personality are more prone to get hooked into gambling and become compulsive gamblers. The reason is action gamblers who are attracted to the excitement and “action” of gambling may initially be quite successful. They have fantasies of further success and of gambling becoming their personal road to wealth and power. Those who are headed for problems think that they are smarter than the average bettor. They know that gambling is going to work for them because they, unlike less clever people, really understand how to beat the system. Their initial success further reinforced their belief system.
As they commit more and more in gambling, they continue to derive an increasing portion of their self-esteem from seeing themselves as smart or lucky. Because of this, two things happen when they do incur the inevitable losses. First, they suffer monetary loss. Second, and more importantly, they suffer a deflated ego. Further, the casino will reward them with gifts to inflate their deflated ego and at the same time make them feel like a winner. The idea is to perpectuate their gambling activity.
To salvage their self-esteem, they rationalize losses by blaming other people or situations. They blame the jockey, the weather, the interruptions by friends and family members, the counter-measures by casinos and the “bad luck” in cards, craps or lotteries. In other situations especially in sports gambling, they reflect on their handicapping abilities and tell themselves that they will not make the same “mistake” again.
The monetary loss is another matter, however, and this is dealt with differently. In order to recoup the loss, many gamblers “chase.” That is, they continue their betting and increase the amount of their bets in order to get even. Instead of saying, “It’s lost,” the chaser says, “I’ll get even tomorrow.” Chasing losses leads the gambler to gamble with more than he or she can afford to lose, and often to borrowing money in an effort to get even.
Many gamblers may chase for short periods, until they learn from bitter experience that this is counter-productive. Pathological gambling is defined by the long-term pre-occupation with chasing losses.
Chasing seems logical to many gamblers especially those who are “brave, courageous and smart”, as it means giving oneself a chance to get even. If a gambler stops chasing, both money and self-esteem are lost. If the gambler continues chasing and wins, both can be regained. There is, therefore, the motivation to borrow in order to recoup losses. When continued gambling leads to still more losses, the compulsive gamblers continue to borrow. The more money borrowed, the greater the commitment to more gambling as the only possible means of gaining enough money to pay off the debt.
This spiraling commitment to increased gambling often depletes family resources. Many compulsive gamblers cash in joint savings, bonds, empty checking accounts, pawn joint property, and take out loans without the spouse’s knowledge. In order to preserve or regain respectability in the eyes of parents, spouse, friends and work colleagues, and also partly because their paychecks are insufficient, desperate gamblers see more gambling as the only alternative.
Fearing loss of respectability, the gambler takes secret loans. When gamblers default on the loans, the fear that the bank or loan company will inform their spouse may drive them to more gambling as a possible quick fix. The behaviour that caused the problem is increasingly seen by the gambler as the only way out, as there is no other solution to get the needed money quickly.
Once the loans are due and there is constant pressure to pay, sometimes involving threats of exposure or of physical harm from loan sharks or bookies, desperate gamblers weigh the risks of embezzling money from their employer, making fraudulent loan applications or insurance claims, or stealing the money. They rationalize their intentions as “borrowed” money or other “borrowed” items even though they are done fraudulently.
As they succumb to this temptation, the threshold to an even greater commitment to gambling has been crossed. This is especially true if they obtain money by loan fraud or embezzlement. These kinds of crimes enable gamblers to rationalize that they are not really criminals. The money is only “borrowed” so no one is being hurt. However, the pressure to repay the money is becoming more insistant, and counting on a big gambling win is seen as their only hope. This extends the vicious cycle from more gambling to more and more illegal activities until the vicious cycle resolve itself in one of the three ways.
Firstly, the gambler may be caught. Secondly, the gambler may seek professional help, or thridly, the gambler really hit the big win. There are many examples. One of them is the case of a Singaporean accountant who embezzles close to a hundred million. He is now serving his sentence in jail.
The twin evils of “action” and “chasing losses” is really an angel in disguise. Falling in love with the “action” and then chasing losses is the starting point for most men who become compulsive gamblers, but as mentioned earlier many women take a different route. While women also enjoy the “action” and chase losses, their initial motivation is often escape. They turn to gambling to escape from memories of unhappy childhood, parental abuse or even as a jilted lover. Other triggers include escape from troubled husbands and escape from loneliness. Once they become hooked on gambling, women follow the same vicious cycle of increasing commitment as men, often leading to criminal activities.
You can see that actions and chasing losses turn out to be big losers for the gamblers and big winners for the casinos. These twin evils are the two most powerful weapons of the casinos. They are the causes of pathological gamblers just like microbes and germs are the causes of infectious diseases.
Whether you are a recreational gambler or a professional gambler, you should study your “action” and “chasing losses” in great detail and use them in gambling at high standards appropriate to your gambling plan. Responsible gambling requires gamblers to be able to handle “action” and “chasing losses” at their level of play. Many of these methods are already covered in the gamblinghelp.biz blog as well as in the apropriate category of the free gambling courses.
KEYPOINTS
1. Actions and chasing losses are the two most powerful weapons of the casinos.
2. Actions and chasing losses are the primary causes of compulsive gambling.
3. Ability to handle actions and chasing losses is the answer to responsible gambling.
4. Understanding the pathogenesis of compulsive gambling can help you quit gambling.
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Hopefully you’ve already absorbed a wealth of knowledge from our poker lessons. There’s still much to learn – in fact you’ll never stop learning about poker. Before moving onto the next stage of your poker development let’s review some of the typical mistakes that beginners make when playing Texas hold’em.
Although one or two of the mistakes we’re going to mention are relevant to no-limit hold’em, the majority are applicable to all forms of hold’em, in addition to other poker formats. Please use this lesson as a guide, so that you don’t fall into the same traps.
The Top 10 Typical Beginner Mistakes
In no particular order, here are our top ten typical beginner mistakes:
#1 – Playing Too Many Hands
One of the main mistakes new players make is feeling like they have to play every hand. They may become impatient, feel left out of the action or don’t want to look weak in front of their friends. It could also be that they just don’t know any better. Any Jack, Queen, King or Ace looks good if you don’t understand good starting hand selection.
The problem with playing too many hands is that you are actually only going to hit the flop a small percentage of the time and even if you do hit the flop; it’s hard to know if your hand is the best. Until you understand how to play beyond the cards, you will mostly be playing based on what you are dealt and if you are involved in too many pots, the next thing you know all of your chips will be gone.
#2 – Playing Scared
While some beginners play with reckless abandon, many play with fear. Having not played many hands, new poker players are often afraid to make a mistake or they simply are afraid to lose. Because of this they will fold until they know they have an unbeatable hand. Fear can also manifest itself into paranoia, where a player assumes that anyone betting aggressively must have a monster hand (often referred to as “monsters under the bed”) and they will fold all but the best possible hands. The only way to get over this is to log in time at the poker tables and practice trusting your instincts.
#3 – Getting Committed to a Hand
Because of the competitive nature of poker, beginners think that poker is like other sports where “giving up” is considered a bad thing. While you shouldn’t play passively, poker is not like other sports and it is often the correct play to fold. When you first start playing poker, it’s easy to get emotionally attached to a hand. This might be a pre-flop hand like a pocket pair or making a pair on the flop. You stay in a hand because you don’t want to get bluffed out of a pot or look weak – or because the competitor in you says there is no way to win if you fold. Unfortunately, by continuously calling bets you never really know where you stand in the hand until it’s too late.
#4 – Improper Bet Sizes
This one is primarily related to no limit and pot limit games. Understanding how to correctly size your bets in these games to manipulate the action comes with experience of playing poker. However, such common betting mistakes that beginners tend to make are easy to fix. New players often raise or bet at the extremes – meaning too little or too much. Some common examples of this are raising the minimum pre-flop in no limit games when there are several players who have already entered the pot or raising 5x-6x the size of the blinds when you are first to enter a hand.
Miss-sizing of bets also occurs after the flop. Beginners will bet the minimum with big hands (two pair or a set) when there are lots of players in the hand allowing them to draw cheaply to a better hand. Conversely, they may also over bet to “protect” their hand. In most cases, these are both incorrect. Ideally, in poker you want to bet an amount that maximizes how much you can win and minimizes how much you can lose.
#5 – Chasing
Similar to #3, a beginner will often stay in a hand hoping other cards will appear that could improve their hand. This could include straight and flush draws, but also calling bets in order to pair an Ace or a second card for two pair. Calling on a draw isn’t necessarily a wrong, but the mistake that beginners often make is chase getting improper pot odds to do so. While you might hit the card(s) you need in one particular hand, if you are chasing without the right odds you will lose money in the long run.
#6 – Overvaluing Marginal Hands
A very common mistake among beginners is playing hands that look good on the surface, but in reality hold little value or are easily dominated by other hands. In hold’em, examples include suited cards or face cards with bad kickers (K3, Q5, etc.). Additionally, this includes high hand combinations like QT, KJ or A9. While these hands are not unplayable, knowing how to play them comes with experience. The challenge with these face cards is that there aren’t many flops that you can be confident that you have the best hand. Even if you do make a pair, you can easily be out-kicked or beaten by a higher pocket pair.
#7 – Letting Emotions Affect Your Play
Whether it is from a bad day at work or a bad beat at the table, emotions can affect how you make decisions. This can result in unprofitable poker actions like chasing losses, making desperate moves or allowing your ego to take over. Beginners will often make rash, emotional decisions that can act like blinders, preventing them from taking in all the information they need to make a smart decision. Stuff happens. So if you feel like you are starting to make emotional decisions in a poker game, just take a step back and reset your mind.
#8 – Playing Out of Position
There are many other factors that weigh into a poker decision beyond just the cards. Your position in relation to the order in which the action occur is one of them. Being able to act last in a hand allows you to see how everyone else is going to act before making your decision. This is a very powerful concept. The mistake beginner poker players make is entering a pot or calling a raise out of position without a plan. They get lost in the hand because they don’t have enough information about where they stand.
#9 – Bluffing Too Much
Some players who are new to the game think poker is all about bluffing. While it is satisfying to bluff someone out of a pot, you should develop an optimal percentage of bluffing in order to not become predictable. For a bluff to work, your opponents need to think you have a real poker hand. If you are always bluffing, your bluffs will not be believable and people will start to look you up. Another component to bluffing is that your bets need to tell a believable story and you should be representing a particular hand instead of just random aggression.
#10 – Playing Above Your Bankroll
Even if you are only playing poker recreationally, it is still important to manage a poker bankroll. Most beginners do not understand the role that variance plays in poker. You can be playing great, but still go through a long losing streak. If you don’t manage your poker money properly and play within your limits, you will burn through your money. Even if you develop the skills to play at a higher level, if you don’t have the bankroll to withstand the inevitable variance that comes with poker, you will go broke.
Mistakes Are an Opportunity to Learn
Mistakes at the poker table can prove costly but as a beginner you should see them as an opportunity to learn. Don’t worry if you’re guilty of making any of the mistakes listed in this lesson. Everyone who plays poker makes mistakes all the time. Skilled poker players just make fewer mistakes. Hopefully now you know what needs improving and what parts of your game you should consider working on.
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By Donovan Panone
Donovan started playing poker in 2004 and is an experienced tournament and cash game player who has a passion for teaching and helping others improve their game.