When I was a Donk -- John Kim

In this series, Card Player asks top pros to rewind back to their humble beginnings and provide insights regarding the mistakes, leaks, and deficiencies that they had to overcome in order to improve their games.

Cash game pro John “Nicolak” Kim has been supporting himself and his family for the past 12 years playing poker. The 37-year-old Californian has been one of the most consistent winners in the cash game world during this time span and has won more than $600,000 the last two years alone.

Kim, an instructor at his poker training site stackemcoaching.com, was known for his high volume of hands and efficiency at focusing on 12-15 tables online. He began playing $5-$10 no-limit hold’em online in 2003 and remained a fixture at those stakes for years. In addition to live and online cash game winnings, he has managed to record more than $300,000 in career tournament earnings.

Card Player caught up with Kim to talk about an incorrect tendency that most players make when getting comfortable with the feeling of putting in long sessions.

There is a tendency among poker players to play too short when winning and too long when losing. I was guilty of this early on in my career.

Just like most poker players, I really enjoyed playing and the challenges poker presented. The money won didn’t hurt either. Well the problem with poker is that sometimes you lose money. I’m not a psychiatrist so I can’t explain why people tend to play longer when they lose. Maybe it’s the negative feeling we harbor when going home a loser. Maybe we don’t want to fail at something, even if it’s one poker session, so we keep playing, hoping we end up winning, or at least breaking even. Whatever the reason I know I played numerous long sessions when stuck.

This is bad for many reasons. When we’re losing that means others are winning which means that they’re feeling good and most likely playing their A game, whereas we’re probably not playing ours (we’re probably on tilt). Also we’re probably playing long hours chasing our losses which affects our concentration and ability to focus. What usually happens is that we end up losing a lot more and we regret not quitting sooner. Also we may reach a point of carelessness where we get stuck so much that another 20-50 percent in losses doesn’t seem to matter.

The flipside is that we tend to call it quits too early when we win. Again, I’m sure it’s something wired in most of us. We love the warm fuzzy feeling of knowing we won money playing poker. Whether it’s the extra money we’re leaving with or the feeling that we came and we conquered. We want that feeling. Usually what happens is we mistakenly quit the games too early. Again if we are winning that means others are losing and likely to be playing less than their A game. This is the time we should keep playing and add to our profits.

The way to solve this is to train our minds to understand that the game is usually [negative expected value] when we’re stuck and usually [plus EV] when we’re winning. That’s it. The games will be there tomorrow when you’re stuck. The players will continue to play poorly when you’re winning. Once we understand this, we will stop eating like a chicken and crapping like an elephant. ♠