mental game

[kewljason]

Hey Kewljason,
I just had another thought for you.....Out of all the characters i have met in my life of AP, i know of 2 people who are the luckiest people in the world... They never run bad. If they only have one ticket in a drawing they will win. 10,000 to 1 oh hey i win again. I will take that new Mustang in a red color please!!!!!! LOL
And then there are the poor sobs that couldn't win if they had those 10,000 tickets ...!!
The there are the rest of us grinders. Trusting numbers...
Maybe you are one of those LUCKY guys...!!!!!! I just thought as long as we were thinking about the due theory, and such, chew on that for a while.
Hey and if you are a" Lucky person", lets just ramp them bets up.... I can say that i have "gotten out of the gate fast " numerous times. It's a great feeling when that happens. Much easier to take when you are at the top of the barrel and fall back in , rather than at the bottom trying to crawl out. LOL
Now if you are truely blessed , with that Golden Horseshoe, i want in!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Take care all
Machinist

I think we all know one of those types of seemingly always lucky people, machinist and no, I am not one. (color me green)

Last year, a month and a half into the year, I was ahead $10 after about 12,000 hands, and I remeber thinking that it was pretty difficult to live off of $2 per week. :laugh: My year ended up being pretty close to expectation. So when you get off to one of those fast out of the gate starts, you start to think irrational thought that have no basis, for how to better preserve that fast start. Excellent analogy with the barrel. Most of us have been at both ends of the barrel at one time or another.

 

[Billy C1]

All about numbers

I constantly tell myself I'm a straight "numbers" guy that goes with nothing but odds.Then find myself refusing the cut when it's offered. But that is simply a superstition thing.

I would NEVER leave a good + count (or lower called for bet size) no matter how bad of a negative variance being experienced because that discipline is a neccessity.
"Balls" are a requirement.

BillyC1

 

[Josh Axelrad]

I find it shocking and disappointing that my mind still even entertains these voodoo thoughts.

Your knack for observing and contemplating your own thought processes may account in part for your success. Analyzing one's own mental game is a part of mental game. Even when you disappoint yourself, your ability to be disappointed for reasons like this is a noble, auspicious trait. IMHO.

Absolute indifference to near-term results is, like enlightenment for Buddhists, a needful if elusive goal. I've known one person who had it. Not coincidentally, he's the richest card counter I've met (the bulk of his wealth derives from other games than blackjack, but, essentially, he's flourished by applying his counterly mentality to other things). If you can kill this sort of thinking, really and truly kill it, you'll be a stronger player than you are now, and ultimately richer. The only way to have a $300K year is to hit $150K and keep going.

You know all of this. You also know yourself. If it's not in you to manage your bankroll like a machine, manage it humanly. That ain't a crime. As you also know well enough, there other things worth optimizing in life than the rate of one's asset growth.

 

[kewljason]

Your knack for observing and contemplating your own thought processes may account in part for your success. Analyzing one's own mental game is a part of mental game. Even when you disappoint yourself, your ability to be disappointed for reasons like this is a noble, auspicious trait. IMHO.

Absolute indifference to near-term results is, like enlightenment for Buddhists, a needful if elusive goal. I've known one person who had it. Not coincidentally, he's the richest card counter I've met (the bulk of his wealth derives from other games than blackjack, but, essentially, he's flourished by applying his counterly mentality to other things). If you can kill this sort of thinking, really and truly kill it, you'll be a stronger player than you are now, and ultimately richer. The only way to have a $300K year is to hit $150K and keep going.

You know all of this. You also know yourself. If it's not in you to manage your bankroll like a machine, manage it humanly. That ain't a crime. As you also know well enough, there other things worth optimizing in life than the rate of one's asset growth.

Very nice post, Josh. Thank you.

 

[Automatic Monkey]

I look at in in baseball terms. Lets say KJ is my newly signed free agent superstar. For the last five years, he's averaged .315 with 25 HRs and 99 RBIs.
After 41 games( a quarter of the season), he's hitting .375, with 15 HRs and 55 RBIs., on pace to hit 60 HRs and drive in 220 runs.
Obviously, he can't keep up this pace for the rest of the season, as no one in 140 years of baseball ever has.
Do I cut down his playing time, assuming he will regress towards his normal production or keep him in there? The next baseball thrown to him will have no memory, right?

You'd keep him in there. If he's going to go back to his normal production, he's getting 75 more RBI's that year, for an outstanding but plausible 130. There's nothing about that first quarter or any part of his career to make you think he's going to become a mediocre player over the next 4 months. You also realize that even though he just got lucky that first quarter, he can get lucky the next one too.

 

[Automatic Monkey]

I constantly tell myself I'm a straight "numbers" guy that goes with nothing but odds.Then find myself refusing the cut when it's offered. But that is simply a superstition thing.

I would NEVER leave a good + count (or lower called for bet size) no matter how bad of a negative variance being experienced because that discipline is a neccessity.
"Balls" are a requirement.

BillyC1

I'm with you on that, superstitions can be good. Ritualistic behaviors provide comforting patterns that reduce stress. I take the cut card because using that is part of my game, but I always park in the same place and walk into my usual casinos the same way. It feels good. Recommend everyone find one little thing that you truly enjoy in every venue you frequent and make it a point to do it on every visit, even if just for a minute.

That's the basic skill in this game, to force yourself to bet the count, the whole count and nothing but the count no matter the situation. There are guys who chicken out after losses, and others who resent the losses and keep the bet up after the count has dropped.