Stop Losing at Poker

There are three possible outcomes for the professional poker player.

Winning, losing, or breaking even.

Your play is either EV+, EV-, or EV=. (Expected Value)

Even breaking even is preferable to losing.

You are going to lose some hands. Some games you will come away hurt.

But if you can significantly reduce the # of hands you lose, the amount you lose on lose on those hands, the # of losing sessions....you're going to do a lot better, even if you don't win anymore hands than you do right now.

I have told every single one of my poker students, "Poker isn't so much about winning as it is about NOT losing."

You have a lot more control over capping, or containing your losses than you do over increasing the number, or size of your wins.

There are also huge psychological benefits to minimizing your losses, and losing sessions. Your self-image as a winning is invaluable. Every loss, every losing session robs you of a bit of that confidence that is so important in this game.

Just as you can't play with "scared money" you also can't play with a negative self-image of yourself as a poker player.

Over six years of playing poker, both for real money and for play chips, that I could look at every single one of my losing hands and point to a rule I had broken.

Not hard and fast rules, never to be broken, but guidelines I created specifically to avoid unnecessary losses. Stupid losses. Getting stacked. The losses that made me hate myself, or say "I knew it, I just knew it."