Any losing players out there?

[Penguinfan]

Talking Poker, thats kinda what I had in mind. Seems like Joe average deposits, busts out, deposits, busts out, deposits, busts out, deposits and gets ahead a bit and is all the sudden a winning player, before busting out again of course. One of the keys to winning at this game, in my opinion, is being brutaly honest about your own play, especially with yourself.

When I first started out playing I was getting crushed and constantly said "Damn, I just never get cards". Took a while before I realized it was my bad play that was costing money, not bad cards (though a few good ones now and then sure help).

[Charlie Frank]

Studies of human behaviour (sorry don't have a link or footnote) have shown that the vast majority of gamblers use denial as a method of dealing with the fact they are massive financial losers. It is my opinion that many of them would know, deep down, that they are losing money, but they trick themselves into "minimising" the losses in their head - for, if they were to face the truth, they wouldn't be able to justify their expenditures to themselves, let alone to anyone else.

I run a weekly game and my dealer keeps records of all cash-ins/cash-outs so we know exactly who the long-term winners/losers are. You have to smile when you hear someone bragging about being up a couple thousand for the year when you know they are down a couple thousand. The books don't lie (unless those books are Enron's, I suppose).

CF

[Talking Poker]

Do you think they truly believe they are winners? That's my question. Because the people I am talking about do.

[PShabi]

Some of them might. Once I started keeping records, I was like, "Damn!"

I mean, say you're at work (who would play at work?) and you're playing little 45 minute to 1 hour stretches two or three times a day. It can be hard to get an idea of where you're at if you're not keeping actual records.