Poker News

John Vorhaus

Dear Loser, I’m sorry to hear you’ve been running so badly. If I understand your situation, it’s this:

You’re getting spanked right now and there doesn’t seem to be anything you can do to stop it. The last few weeks have been a perfect storm of bad beats, bad luck, and bad decisions, and it’s combining to chew a hole in your bankroll, your confidence and your normally sunny disposition. And it’s not like you don’t know it’s happening. To paraphrase Paul Kelly, “You see the knives out, you turn your back. You see the train, you stay right on that track.”

You’ve tried all your conventional tricks to pull yourself out of this tailspin. You’ve taken breaks. You’ve changed games and limits. You’ve screwed down my starting requirements till you’re tighter than a nun’s, uhm, girdle. You’ve tried short sessions and long sessions. You’ve adjusted your image so many times that you don’t even know who you are anymore. And it’s all for naught. You’re running bad.

It’s ugly.

What should you do? Quit altogether? Just hang up your mirrored sunglasses and iPod and never play the game again? Could you stand to do that? Nah. No way. You can’t imagine life without poker. You don’t want to imagine life without poker. You just want the bleeding to stop.

Part of your problem now is that you’re feeling so spanked it’s hard to get your head on straight. When you think of the losses of the last couple of weeks, you think, “Man, how am I ever going to dig myself out of this hole?” The burden of that need — the need to get well — is enough to skew (and by skew I mean screw) your performance completely. You’re now so hung up on not winning that it’s hard not to lose.

But here’s something you know about losses for sure: It’s easier to lose fast than it is to win fast. When you’re running bad or playing poorly, you hemorrhage at the wallet, and a trickle of mistakes and bad attitude can swiftly turn into a flood. Try to win back that money at the same pace and you just compound the problem. You force situations. You make marginal raises and calls. You try to get as unnaturally lucky as you’ve been getting unnaturally unlucky, and the hole you’re so desperate to climb out of just gets deeper and deeper and deeper and… stop!

Stop thinking of it as a hole! Yes, you’ve been running bad, and yes you’ve had some setbacks. But poker is a lifetime experience, and it’s ridiculous to take the short-term view of your losses and wins. You’re still in the game, aren’t you? You’re still alive, aren’t you?! Then stop obsessing on your bottom line and go back to the only thing that matters: making the right decision right now. Eventually the odds will even out — the odds always even out — but if you’re not playing your best game, you won’t be in any position to take advantage of more favorable conditions when they come.

And above all, cheer up, friend. Better days are coming. Better days always come.

-Best, -jv

PS: You think I’m talking to you? Hell, no. I’m talking to me.

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