Poker Sessions - Winning requires losing at some point

Gaming and sports normally have winners and losers. In poker we have new winners and losers literally every minute or so. Since most games are played with eight or nine players, it is a lot easier to be the non-winner in a poker hand than to be the winner. Despite semi-constantly being in non-winning situations, most players handle winning much better than losing...

Players tend to put little focus on the non-winning aspects of the game. They focus on winning pots. They think about ways to get more money in their pockets by winning it from their opponents. Obviously this is important, but poker income is made during an exchange of money. The different players shove money into pots. They take money out of pots. Money moves back and forth around the table, over and over. A single chip may be in the possession of a dozen different people within the same hour. Poker income is not made in a nice, regular, easy to see fashion. Money is made in literally dozens of small, innocuous, cumulative ways.

Money not lost spends the same as money won. But also, the nature of poker is that you must lose in order to win. You aren’t going to win 100% of your pots. Except when playing head-up, you will always lose most of the hands you are dealt in. You will usually lose most of the pots you play. The door to poker income swings both ways - money has to go out for money to come in.

Do you know any group of people anywhere who get more emotionally involved on what they are doing than poker players? You have to lose in order to win, but losing sends poker players off the deep end. Most poker players HATE to lose.

A key to winning is the ability to lose well.

Tilt is just the first thing to control. You need to push yourself to play with self-control at all times, even when God seems out to "screw you". But if you are in fact trying to be a winning player you won’t have tilt episodes that often. You will lose pots many times each hour though. When you win pots it is important to extract extra money from your opponents.

You WILL lose pots. The price of being a winning poker player is to lose pots regularly. If you lose sensibly, calmly (chip-wise, I don’t care if you scream and holler when you lose so long as your betting is under control) and with the strategic understanding that bets not lost are just as valuable as bets won, you will increase your hourly win rate just as surely as if an opponent put extra chips into each pot you win.

Take it into consideration, why put more money into a hand you know you cant win? Better save those chips for a better scenario later on your game.

All the best,

USC ;)