TENNBEAR said:
Gambling on any level is all about discipline, it is very easy to get caught up in the game and lose 500.00 trying to win back that first 100.00 you lost earlier, and all to common to lose what ever you gained during winning streak.
You must always go in with a plan, set bankroll, buy-in amount, and max bet limit, and stick to it. Win-loss limits can also be set, but that's up to you. The main point is to have discipline, much like drinking, if you do not have a little control it will make you sick. Self control is the key to any system, to win you have to leave the table when you are ahead.
I agree with most of what you are saying, with some exceptions. Blackjack play should be based on mathematical probabilities, not on whether an individual player is ahead or behind at any given moment. While the advice to "leave the table when you are ahead" is sound psychological advice, it is much less so strategically.
In the initial learning stages, self-confidence is directly related to performance; players who lose tend to lose both bankroll and self-confidence. That leads to mistakes, and more losses. However, you should never confuse making mistakes with "losing streaks." One of the most difficult things for serious players to accept is that their present fortunes do not affect the deck in the least bit. The "winning streaks" and "losing streaks" are a perception only, based on a short-range view of long-range events.
Walking away from a table when you are losing seems sound, but it is based on faulty decision-making, and the perception that short-term events should always replicate (almost exactly) long-term probabilities. That misconception is so prevalent that it is referred to as the Law of Small Numbers in decision theory. As far as external reality is concerned, there are no "winning streaks" or "losing streaks"; there are only random variations from a baseline that create the illusion of "streaks."
Casinos leverage that misconception into millions. Take a good look at the next roulette table you pass; especially the display of the last 10-20 coups. The purpose is to activate the knee-jerk reflex in people to believe in the Law of Small Numbers; if the last 5 coups were all red, black must be "due." It is not, any more than the outcome of the next hand of Blackjack dealt depends on whether or not you are up or down for the evening.
Blackjack is popular because, with perfect play, it is possible to gain a small statistical advantage over time. "Over time" can be hours, days, or even weeks for the individual player. There is no advantage or disadvantage to leaving a table when winning, OR when losing. When an individual deck or shoe is seriously negative, yes. But that is a decision based on real-world feedback, not on subjective emotional states or bankroll fluctuations.
How do I know this, you may ask? Because the biggest win of my life came after the biggest loss, at a time when I should have given up and gone home to lick my wounds and wallow in self-pity. Instead, I got really angry, and decided that the whole mind-trip of believing that I was on a "losing streak" was close to delusional. I played perfect Blackjack, and in a little less than four hours won back every dollar I had lost in the previous two weeks of negative sessions, plus a tidy profit.
That was the point that I actually became a professional; rather than believing it to be a "winning streak" or that I "got lucky" I realized that both winning and losing were simply random variations from a baseline.
For a good introductory work on decision-making (that should be required reading for every prospective wagering professional) you might try, "Decision Traps," by Russo and Schoemaker.
Good Luck
