Anybody who has played knows that poker is a very emotional game. One day you can feel great and have everything going your way while the next day could see you receiving garbage cards and tilting like crazy. Unfortunately, short-term mental lapses can have huge repercussions on down the line. So it’s very important to know what you are up against, and how to avoid experiencing these losing sessions.
Thinking Long-Term
You might not realize it when you’re in the midst of a short-term mental lapse, but it can have major long-term consequences. To illustrate this point, let’s look at someone who brings an average stack of $1,200 to a cash game table, and makes around a $400 profit per session. If this person happened to tilt and start making poor decisions, it could cost them their whole stack which essentially wipes out 3 playing sessions.
Online Mistakes
While losing $1,200 can be a huge blow to any live poker player, it’s nothing compared to what a person could lose playing online. If you’re sitting at a live table and lose the $1,200 you brought into the cardroom, there’s nothing else to lose. If you are playing online and lose $1,200, you can always go into your account and get more money. With this being the case, you’ve really got to focus on the short-term since having a meltdown here could be devastating to your bankroll.
Learning from Mistakes
If you stick with the game of poker, you’re going to have a blowup where a large chunk of your bankroll is burned. It could be due to something that happened at the table, the way the cards are falling, or an argument you had with a spouse. The point is that you’ve got to realize when you’re suffering a short-term lapse, and stop it before anything terrible happens. The best players know when they’re entering this zone, and they also know how to avoid burning a big part of their bankroll.
