The Thresholds of Misery and Happiness

It goes without saying that the more poker you play, the more losing sessions you will endure. Even the best players take frequent losses, but in the end they will come out ahead. What separates the true winners is the way they handle both their winning and losing sessions.

The real question for some people is whether they can handle losses at all. Some players, even experienced ones, feel an irrational need to get even on a given day. They might think to themselves that, since they have a “refuse to lose” attitude, they are playing to win. I would argue the exact opposite: These “chasers” are not playing to win. They are playing for psychological satisfaction. In short, they want to avoid misery.

Chasers clearly have trouble dealing with losses, so they play in such a way that they lose as infrequently as possible. Maybe they win nine out of ten sessions. Not bad, right? They get the joy of winning 90 percent of the time, so they usually go home feeling content.

The problem is that, in the tenth session, they will almost always go off for a big number. As hard as they try to get even, it’s just not their day, and they will continue to dig themselves deeper into a hole. Whatever money they made in their nine winning sessions will often be wiped out by that disastrous tenth session, and they can often end up losing in the long run, even when they manage to win 90 percent of their sessions. Clearly that’s not a formula for success.

Here’s the part that’s tough for some people to understand: Those same players still come out ahead psychologically. The good feeling from nine small wins is not negated by the bad feeling of one huge loss, even though the profits might be negated and then some. The reason for this has to do with a concept that Mike Caro originally referred to as the “threshold of misery.” Once a player has reached that point, further losses really don’t have much effect on his psyche.

As an example, let’s say that you play $1-$2 no limit hold’em daily and are content to quit anytime you can lock up a $50 win. You win nine times in a row over the course of two weeks. You’re ahead about $500 and feeling high on life. But then a day comes when you are down $200, and you try to get even. It doesn’t happen, and now you’re down $400 and steaming. At $400, there’s a good chance you’ve already hit your threshold of misery, which is where mental strength comes into play.

Being able to come back from a $400 loss would provide a great feeling of satisfaction, whereas losing any further money really wouldn’t make you feel much worse than you do already. From that standpoint, why not continue playing? It’s a no-lose situation. You’ll either feel great by coming back, or you’ll feel the same level of lousiness even if you continue to lose.

Of course, you should easily see the flaw in that logic. Maybe you won’t immediately feel any worse when you end up losing $800 instead of $400, but once you reassess your bankroll the next day, you’ll realize how foolish it was to continue playing when nothing was going right.

Still, you had two full weeks of feeling good and only one day of feeling terrible, so you probably won’t change your behavior. You’ll just continue the same cycle, feeling good most of the time, feeling like crap every so often, while your bankroll suffers the cost of your psychological needs.

This is when you must make a decision. If you are playing primarily for the fun of the game, then there’s no pressing need to change your behavior. But, if you are truly playing for profit, then you can’t continue the same pattern. It’s an extremely difficult thing to do, but you need to leave the table while you are in the midst of feeling the pain of losing, even when you have more money in your pocket. As KGB said in Rounders, you’ll feel “so un-sa-tis-fied,” but if you are playing for profit and not for psychological satisfaction, it’s a feeling you’ll have to deal with and accept.

All of that has been discussed before by Caro and others, although it’s never bad to be reminded of those concepts from time to time. However, I’m not sure whether the flip side of the coin has been explicitly examined. Namely, just as clearly as there is a threshold of pain, there is also a threshold of happiness.

In our example, our hero was happy to win $50 each day. Why? Because he’d rather win $50 and know he’ll have the satisfaction of a win than risk that profit to try for a $100 win, which wouldn’t provide much further satisfaction than what he already has. $50 is his threshold of happiness. It’s what he has mentally set as his goal, and as such, he is happy to reach his goal on a daily basis.

But is it logical? Of course not. What if he wins $50 in his first hand? Should he quit? That makes no sense for several reasons. First, who travels to a cardroom (or even logs in online) just to play one hand? Second, he is voluntarily giving up the positive image he gained by winning his first hand. Third and most important, he is limiting his earning potential. He is essentially saying that he will never win more than $50 in a day, since he is going to quit once he reaches that point.

Again, this is where we must examine his motives. If he’s playing for psychological satisfaction, no problem. If he’s playing for profit, then his logic is completely backwards. He has a cap on his win, but no limit to his potential loss. Any winning professional player does exactly the opposite. The professional sets a reasonable limit on his losses. When he reaches that limit, he sucks it up, accepts the pain of losing, and quits for the day. Meanwhile, he sets no limit on his potential win. Sure, he runs the risk of giving back what he’s won, but he also gives himself the possibility of booking a big win, and every long-term winning player needs some big wins along the way.

Here’s the bottom line: It’s easy (and incorrect) to keep playing once you’ve reached your threshold of pain and are losing. It’s difficult (but usually correct) to keep playing once you’ve reached your threshold of success. If you are playing primarily for the enjoyment of the game, then those tendencies are acceptable. But, if you are truly playing to win, you have to be able to stomach a loss when necessary, just as you sometimes need to risk losing your feeling of satisfaction that comes from booking a win. Recognize your thresholds of misery and happiness, but make solid financial decisions independent from those thresholds. ♠

Matt Lessinger is the author of The Book of Bluffs: How to Bluff and Win at Poker, available everywhere. You can find Matt’s other articles at www.cardplayer.com.