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Mama Said There Would Be Days Like This If
I told you: Winning
is easy. And Losing
is tough. You
would probably think that I was confused, or at that I had things reversed. You
already know that in a casino, winning is NEVER easy.
In fact its darn hard, and even more difficult to do it consistently. You
also know that in a casino, losing is ALWAYS easy. In
fact its damn easy, and even easier to lose consistently. So
what is this winning is easy, losing is tough stuff all about?! Well,
Im talking about how you handle those wins and losses. When
you win, its easy to handle the accomplishment.
You generally feel on top of the world, and you think that youve got
this Precision-Shooting thing perfectly figured out. When
you lose, its tough to handle. You
generally feel like you are in a pit, and you think that this whole Precision-Shooting
thing is way over-rated, or at least much more difficult than it first appeared. Thats
what I mean when I say that winning is easy, and losing is tough. So,
what I am talking about is how to better handle those wins and losses. Because, how you handle those two extremes of the
casino experience, pretty much determines how we feel about our progress in the
Precision-Shooting world. It also determines
our rate of progress when it comes to continually improving our game. It
also pretty much determines our level of belief in what we are doing, and how we view how
well others are doing with the same pursuit. It
seems that if we cant string together enough consistent profit sessions with
Precision-Shooting; then we either start to lose faith in ourselves, or we figure that no
one else could possibly string together enough of them to make a living off of it. Our belief in ourselves sets up how we view other
peoples success, and how much we value our own chances of succeeding to the same
degree. Learning
Precision-Shooting can be SO frustrating because we usually see almost immediate
improvement in our rolling as soon as we start to practice and play. However, we usually soon run into the
inconsistency wall where we sometimes will have great rolls and then
immediately turn in a terrible roll. All of
that will be interspersed with glimmers of hopefulness with moderate-length rolls. At that point, there seems to be no rhyme or
reason for the inconsistency. On
the other hand, when we do have back-to-back-to-back winning sessions; we start to wonder
and even fantasize about making Precision-Shooting into a money-making career instead of
its current hobby status. Either
set of thoughts can be dangerous because one, or two or even five good or bad sessions in
a row does not determine our future. Rather,
it is a small snapshot of what is happening to us at the current moment. It only serves as a benchmark to either indicate
our progress or lack of it. Simply,
our own success or failure tends to shape and determine our own belief systems. The thinking generally goes, If
I cant do it despite all the long practice sessions and all of the
studying and message-boards postings; then no one can possibly do it better than me. Conversely,
a few winning sessions puts us into the I think Ill ratchet up the size of my
base bets now because Ive got this thing down perfectly. Either set of thoughts can endanger our goals and
shroud our view of what is really going on. You
can rationalize almost anything, and you can convince yourself to believe even the most
irrational of thoughts. Well
folks, Im here to tell you that that kind of tainted logic is just plain WRONG! No
matter how good you get at Precision-Shooting; you will still have losing sessions. There aint nothing you can do about it. Also, no matter how bad your Precision-Shooting
may be right now; with continued development and practice, it WILL improve. Losing
sessions are a part of the game, even for the professional player, and they pop up at the
most unlikely, inopportune time to kick you squarely in your testicles. If you dont accept that fact, then when the
inevitable losing session does happen, it will have a bigger negative effect on your game
than if you learn to accept small losses. You
have to use that losing session as one more step towards your next winning one. Listen,
I HATE losses. I hate losing money, and I
hate it when my game is not on par with my normal high level of performance. However, it is how we mentally handle those losses
that will determine how frequently and how big of an effect they have on our overall game. The big effect can be for the good, or it can be
for the worse. Its all in how we look
at things. Our
perspective determines how we view the entire world, and not just our dice-shooting
universe. Our upbringing, our education, our
work experiences, and our lives that we have lived thus far, determines what we believe
in, and what we consider to be likely or possible. While
we all have different life-experiences; in the craps-playing world, we hopefully have the
same goal of making some money from it. I
hope you agree that there are some players who win more sessions and more money than most
other players. Simply, some
Precision-Shooters are better than others, and a few are really, really good. But even the great ones still have losing
sessions. The
worst losses that I have suffered in the last ten or so years, is when I refused to accept
small losses, and I let them turn into BIG losses. I
know that Ive mentioned this before, but it bears repeating. Why? Well,
as Heavy is fond of saying, Any win beats any loss, any day. Its true of course, and its excellent
advice. Lets add to it a little bit,
and say, Any small loss beats any huge loss, any day. Okay, okay, its not as eloquent as
Heavys saying, but hopefully it will still help you out. I
call my own major session-losses, meltdowns, because sometimes, all of the
discipline, and patience, and money-management just seems to erode and meltdown into a
pyroclasmic nuclear-plant catastrophe. Those
meltdowns are never good, and they are never pretty. Ive
previously written about averaging 19-out-of-20 winning sessions. That still holds true. Ive also previously written about keeping
the actual money-losses from those 1-in-20 losing sessions to an absolute minimum. All of that advice comes from my own experiences
in the casinos over the past couple of decades. With
all of that being said, I can admit that I still experience losing session
meltdowns once in a while. They
dont happen very often, but when they do, its always ugly! Yep,
I am STILL working on the discipline thing after all of these years. Mostly, I can stick with those iron-clad,
will-not-compromise loss-limits that I put in place to protect my session bankroll;
but sometimes I slip. So
the question becomes, how should you handle those losing sessions when you break your own
rules and when your losses exceed even your own loss-limits. Well,
let me ask you how you feel after a major loss? It
doesnt feel too good, right? If
you want to avoid those feelings, then you can do something about them. First,
we have to put everything into proper perspective. If
you already havent begun to do so, I would urge you to start making session-notes
after EVERY session. Yes,
Ive suggested it before, but have you done it?
Theres
a good reason to do so, and Ill explain again.
By making note of not only session-statistics like roll-lengths and
betting-range; you should be keeping track of your mood, your energy level, your level of
excitement and expectation before and during your session.
After
your session ends, you should be making notes about what went right and what went wrong. You
should be making notes about what you would do if you had the opportunity to play that
session over again. You
should especially make notes about what you want to do differently at your next session. The
fresher the notes, the better the perspective. The
colder and more analytical you are in your critique of how you performed not
only with the dice, but with your session bankroll, your betting methods, your discipline,
patience and skill, your approach and attitude, and especially your actual thought
processes during your session; the greater the likelihood of carrying-over the lessons
into your next session. By doing so, you
will have a higher chance of reaping greater benefits and bigger improvements in trying to
get to more consistent and profitable results. By
making notes, and being specific about what worked and where you need to make improvement,
acts to force you into a contract with yourself. That is, you are making an agreement for
improvement. By
casting your notes to paper or e-paper in the case of electronic notes, you are creating a
session-diary that you can and should review on a very regular basis. Over
a short period of time, you will hopefully notice if you keep making the same errors and
mistakes, whether mental or physical, and how faithfully you are sticking to your plans. Again,
by doing so, you are critiquing your session immediately after you finish. Depending on how stubborn you are, how long it
takes you to convince yourself to correct and improve certain parts of your game will vary
from person to person. One
thing is certain. If you make the commitment
to make those notes and then to properly act upon them, not once, but ALWAYS; then you are
making a very professional commitment and a very professional attitude adjustment towards
improving your game. There
will be losing sessions, and losing days. That
is the nature of the beast that we call craps. Mama
said that there would be days like this, but she also said not to make things worse than
they already are. In
craps, you WILL have some bad days or at least some bad sessions. The secret to improving your game is to prevent
them from becoming total bankroll-meltdown losses, and we need to prevent any small losses
from becoming worse than they already are. Make
accurate notes; then act upon the lessons that each session, whether winning or losing, is
trying to tell you. Make firm, actionable and
workable commitments to yourself and then stick to them.
Mama would be proud! In
Part II of this article, Ill show you the notes that I made just after a few of my
own meltdown losing sessions. It
provides a little insight into my whole thought-process, but more importantly, the notes
show what happens when discipline gives way to greed, exhaustion and frustration. Until
then, Good Luck & Good Skill at the Tables
and in
Life. The Mad Professor
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