Psychology Of Gambling

[brad01]

Not having a strict stop loss - then you don't really know how much you are prepared to lose.

Before you know It you've exceeded a reasonable stop loss and you are in the mindset of 'oh well I've lost so what the hell I may as well risk it all with the hop of getting it back - all or nothing'

You have just moved form a pro player back to a gambler

[brad01]

Don't place yourself in a position where you have to win a lot of units to feel like you've won. Increase your unit size with a level up approach so that you can see a road that will take you to unit sizes that will allow you to be satisfied while not having to win a lot of units.  I liken this to buying a house or car with cash. You don't have to take the first deal you see. Wait till you see something you want in the price range and then make an offer and if they don't accept then walk.

 

 

[brad01]

Isnt it funny how we know that more than 99% of gamblers are losers but walk into a casino and you certainly don't feel those statistics

Look around you and in fact it appears like most people are winners

Or that losing your money isn't really that bad in the name of entertainment and fun.

Isnt it funny how the environment can fool people form the harsh statistics against them? 

[avion]

2 hours ago, brad01 said:

Don't place yourself in a position where you have to win a lot of units to feel like you've won. Increase your unit size with a level up approach so that you can see a road that will take you to unit sizes that will allow you to be satisfied while not having to win a lot of units.  I liken this to buying a house or car with cash. You don't have to take the first deal you see. Wait till you see something you want in the price range and then make an offer and if they don't accept then walk.

 

 

I fully agree with this viewpoint.  One of the best ever......Norm

[brad01]

Don't try to play exactly like someone else

You are your own person

Play the way that works for you

Sure look at every approach and the way every player plays and learn by it.

But

Play the way that works for you and you feel comfortable with and if that's exactly the way someone else plays then so be it

But most successful players developed their own method or tweaked another to suit them.

 

[avion]

Mentally........it is easy to want to get into a game and go from A to Z and skip all the "letters" in between wanting to win.  That is the challenge , you have to go through all the other "letters" to win.  

Mentally....you HAVE to prepare yourself to win.  It is far more important in preparing to win, than it is in expecting to win.  Professional athletes spend 90% of their time preparing to win.....and 10% of their time in actual competition to win.

Edited April 18, 2016 by avion

[brad01]

Don't take more than 2 x your stop loss to real casino

if you lose a session have a mandatory break

If you lose 2 sessions go home

If you lose 3 go to paper until you regain your focus or get through losing streak

Online is harder to control

Don't put yourself in a position where you can lose control

[brad01]

Heres something:

The 'one hit wonder'

Due to time constraints lately I have limited time and usually stressed and tired when I play - not good

I have lowered my win goal to 1 unit when I wake up and 1 unit in the evening

I am prepared to wait up to a whole shoe to get it

Win session over, lose I will try again flat bet - stop loss 2

My hit rate for the last week was 100% until this morning - now its in the 90's

No losing sessions!

Why?

I can only think that I am being very patient, I am making my bets count, and I am forcing myself not to chase my losses - everytime I play the previous session is forgotten

Strangely enough I always get these results when I play this way

  

[William Looi]

Early morning most of the time is winner and after work tired , you sit at the computer loses happen some time or bad time or hell session come during this time, my experience

[avion]

I don't think it is "strange" at all Brad.  As you know, I played 100 shoes that way, to win +1 unit a shoe.  You have one task to perform correctly in the shoe. So you focus everything you have, and that is to find a bet selection to make, that you have an eye for, with an observed and well thought out potential win.  

The thinking behind what I was doing to accomplish +1 unit a shoe, came from the basis of a baccarat exercise to prove to myself that 1 unit could be consistently won, before attempting to win 2 units a shoe consistently.  It always amazes me, when you come back to the simple basics in what you learn again, and again.  Less can actually equal more.

Edited May 16, 2016 by avion

[brad01]

yes you are right once again this morning hit first up - another win session and another unit towards my level up plan

you have to know how to win 1 unit before you can win 2

in an attempt to win more units we forget about how to win 1 unit

imagine how calm way2fast and oz, norm etc were to be able to win many units at a high hit rate in 1 session?

[brad01]

And lets not forget kachatz

 

Hi Avion that statement has stuck in my mind - less is more

Its so true

That should be on the cheat sheet

 

[avion]

It makes me think of a classic and timeless story because of the great truth in it......."The Tortoise and the Hare"   Who won?

[Pando]

I had a discussion with another member, and we were talking about shuffle types. He liked my observation that -

"I don't make any playing decisions made on the shuffle type, rather I just look at the shoe.

I don't care what they do so long as I can read the shoe"

So I post it here for all to share

[avion]

 What Pando just shared.....is absolutely without a doubt, a PRICELESS gift of intelligence, wisdom, experience and insight to anyone who wants to learn how to play and win at baccarat.  It is SO PROFOUND, it cannot be ignored. It should be EMBRACED for the worth and value that it is.  

It even caused me to think that in sharing how to play and win in baccarat with anyone, that the knowledge, comprehension, and understanding of how to see what a shoe is doing and isn't doing, should be the first priority in the learning process.    Though I already knew what Pando shared, I have never been able to say it as eloquently as he did.  

I hope that in agreeing totally with Pandos sharing of this, that it might help someone, anyone, who reads it and will give them pause to consider it for what it really means, and what it will do for them.   Thank you Pando....for sharing it with all of us.....no matter what level of learning a person may be at.  

[avion]

It is uncanny how things happen.  No sooner did I make my last post here, and I was clicking on a internet business and tech page and this is what I saw.  I would like to dedicate it in honor of Pando, for all he shared with me today.  I paraphrased the title of it (without permission) "Here is the strategy that Elite Baccarat players follow to perform at their highest level.

 

When coach Shaka Smart was interviewed after his team beat North Carolina in a surprise upset last week, what did he say? He didn’t focus on the buzzer beater. Or the strategy. He said his team won because “they followed the process.”

Tony Wroten, a guard for the 76ers, got the same advice from his coaches. “They tell us every game, every day, ‘trust the process.’” John Fox, the coach trying to turn around the Chicago Bears, asked his team the same thing. But what the hell is it? What is the process?

It can be traced to Nick Saban, the famous coach of LSU and Alabama—perhaps the most dominant dynasty in the history of college football. But he got it from a psychiatry professor named Lionel Rosen during his time at Michigan State.

Rosen’s big insight was this: sports—especially football—are complex. Nobody has enough brainpower or motivation to consistently manage all the variables going on in the course of a season, let alone a game. They think they do—but realistically, they don’t.

There are too many plays, too many players, too many statistics, countermoves, unpredictables, distractions. Over the course of a long playoff season, this adds up into a cognitively impossible load. Meanwhile, as Monte Burke writes in his book Saban, Rosen discovered that the average play in football lasts just seven seconds. Seven seconds—that’s very manageable. So he posed a question: What if a team concentrated only on what they could manage? What if they took things step by step—not focusing on anything but what was right in front of them and on doing it well?

As a result, Nick Saban doesn’t focus on what every other coach focuses on, or at least not the way they do. He tells them:

“Don’t think about winning the SEC Championship. Don’t think about the national championship. Think about what you needed to do in this drill, on this play, in this moment. That’s the process: Let’s think about what we can do today, the task at hand.”

It’s this message that’s been internalized by his players and his teams—which together have four national championships in an eight-year span, one Mid-American Conference championship, have been crowned SEC champions 15 times and Saban has received multiple coaching awards.  

In the chaos of sport, as in life, process provides a way. A way to turn something very complex into something simple. Not that simple is easy.

But it is easier. Let’s say you’ve got to do something difficult. Don’t focus on that. Instead break it down into pieces. Simply do what you need to do right now. And do it well. And then move on to the next thing. Follow the process and not the prize. As Bill Belichick famously put it, just do your job.

The road to back-to-back championships, or being a writer or a successful entrepreneur is just that, a road. And you travel along a road in steps. Excellence is a matter of steps. Excelling at this one, then that one and then the one after that. Saban’s process is exclusively this—existing in the present, taking it one step at a time, not getting distracted by anything else. Not the other team, not the scoreboard, or the crowd.

The process is about finishing. Finishing games. Finishing workouts. Finishing film sessions. Finishing drives. Finishing reps. Finishing plays. Finishing blocks. Finishing the smallest task you have right in front of you and finishing it well.

Whether it’s pursuing the pinnacle of success in your field, or simply surviving some awful or trying ordeal, the same approach works. Don’t think about the end—think about surviving. Getting it right from meal to meal, meeting to meeting, project to project, paycheck to paycheck, one day at a time.

And when you really get it right, even the hardest things become manageable. As Heraclitus observed, “under the comb, the tangle and the straight path are the same.” That’s what the process is. Under its influence, we needn’t panic. Even mammoth tasks become just a series of component parts.

This was what the great 19th-century pioneer of meteorology, James Pollard Espy, had shown to him in a chance encounter as a young man. Unable to read and write until he was 18, Espy attended a rousing speech by the famous orator Henry Clay. After the talk, a spellbound Espy tried to make his way toward Clay, but he couldn’t form the words to speak to his idol. One of his friends shouted out for him: “He wants to be like you, even though he can’t read.”

Clay grabbed one of his posters, which had the word CLAY written in big letters. He looked at Espy and said, “You see that, boy?” pointing to a letter. “That’s an A. Now, you’ve only got 25 more letters to go.”

Espy had just been gifted The Process. Within a year, he started college.

What Rosen, what Espy, what these coaches are practicing is a central tenet of stoic philosophy—one which I’ve tried to pass along in The Obstacle is The Way. It’s just a modern take on Marcus Aurelius when he advised:

“Don’t let your imagination be crushed by life as a whole. Don’t try to picture everything bad that could possibly happen. Stick with the situation at hand, and ask, “Why is this so unbearable? Why can’t I endure it?” Seven seconds. Sticking to the situation at hand. Focusing on what’s immediately in front of you. No strain, no struggling. So relaxed. No exertion or worry. Just one simple movement after another. That’s the power of process.

We can channel this, too. We needn’t scramble like we’re so often inclined to do when some difficult task sits in front of us. Instead, we can take a breath, do the immediate, composite part in front of us—and follow its thread into the next action. Everything in order, everything connected.

When it comes to our actions, disorder and distraction are death. The unordered mind loses track of what’s in front of it—what matters—and gets distracted by thoughts of the future. The process is order, it keeps our perceptions in check and our actions in sync.

It seems obvious, but we forget this when it matters most.

Right now, if I knocked you down and pinned you to ground, how would you respond? You’d probably panic. And then you’d push with all your strength to get me off you. It wouldn’t work; just using my body weight, I would be able to keep your shoulders against the ground with little effort—and you’d grow exhausted fighting it.

That’s the opposite of the process.

The process is much easier. First, you don’t panic, you conserve your energy. You don’t do anything stupid like get yourself choked out by acting without thinking. You focus on not letting it get worse. Then you get your arms up, to brace and create some breathing room, some space. Now work to get on your side.  From there you can start to break down my hold on you: grab an arm, trap a leg, buck with your hips, slide in a knee.

It’ll take some time, but you’ll get yourself out. At each step, the person on top is forced to give a little up, until there’s nothing left. Then you’re free.

Being trapped is just a position, not a fate. You get out of it by addressing and eliminating each part of that position through small, deliberate action—not by trying (and failing) to push it away with superhuman strength.

With our business rivals, we rack our brains to think of some mind-blowing new product that will make them irrelevant, and, in the process, we take our eye off the ball. We shy away from writing a book or making a film even though it’s our dream because it’s so much work—we can’t imagine how we get from here to there.

How often do we compromise or settle because we feel that the real solution is too ambitious or outside our grasp? How often do we assume that change is impossible because it’s too big? Involves too many different groups? Or worse, how many people are paralyzed by all their ideas and inspirations? They chase them all and go nowhere, distracting themselves and never making headway. They’re brilliant, sure, but they rarely execute. They rarely get where they want and need to go.

All these issues are solvable. Each would collapse beneath the process. We’ve just wrongly assumed that it has to happen all at once, and we give up at the thought of it. We are A-to-Z thinkers, fretting about A, obsessing over Z, yet forgetting all about B through Y.

We want to have goals, yes, so everything we do can be in service of something purposeful. When we know what we’re really setting out to do, the obstacles that arise tend to seem smaller, more manageable. When we don’t, each one looms larger and seems impossible. Goals help put the blips and bumps in proper proportion.

When we get distracted, when we start caring about something other than our own progress and efforts, the process is the helpful, if occasionally bossy, voice in our head. It is the bark of the wise, older leader who knows exactly who he is and what he’s got to do. Shut up. Go back to your stations and try to think about what we are going to do ourselves, instead of worrying about what’s going on out there. You know what your job is, stop jawing and get to work.

The process is the voice that demands we take responsibility and ownership. That prompts us to act even if only in a small way.

Like a relentless machine, subjugating resistance each and every way it exists, little by little. Moving forward, one step at a time. Subordinate strength to the process. Replace fear with the process. Depend on it. Lean on it. Trust in it.

Take your time, don’t rush. Some problems are harder than others. Deal with the ones right in front of you first. Come back to the others later. You’ll get there.

The process is about doing the right things, right now. Not worrying about what might happen later, or the results, or the whole picture.

Ryan Holiday is the best-selling author of The Obstacle Is the Way: The Timeless Art of Turning Trials into Triumph and two other books. He is an editor-at-large for The New York Observer and his monthly reading recommendations are found here. He currently lives in Austin, Texas.

 

[Pando]

That's quite a contribution Avion

I especially like these last few lines.....

The process is the voice that demands we take responsibility and ownership. That prompts us to act even if only in a small way.

Like a relentless machine, subjugating resistance each and every way it exists, little by little. Moving forward, one step at a time. Subordinate strength to the process. Replace fear with the process. Depend on it. Lean on it. Trust in it.

Take your time, don’t rush. Some problems are harder than others. Deal with the ones right in front of you first. Come back to the others later. You’ll get there.

The process is about doing the right things, right now. Not worrying about what might happen later, or the results, or the whole picture.

I think that sums up our baccarat endeavours perfectly.

As a final thought, I always say to myself, what do I have to worry about today. Hopefully the answer is nothing. I certainly do not worry about whether the sun will come up in the morning. That's out of my sphere of influence

Well said Avion

[Wendel]

In Baccarat, the MOST important part of the process is placing your chip(s) in the correct box.

Its no more complicated than that.

Edited May 18, 2016 by Wendel

[avion]

Couple of days later, after the conversation in sharing with and from Pando.......the mantra I have chosen will always be....."Read the shoe" or as I remember from someone else saying...."See the shoe clearly"   

It is absolutely IMPERATIVE to do so.  " You know what your job is, stop jawing and get to work."  Yes Sir, right away Sir.  

[brad01]

Always remember there is at least 1 or 2 bets per shoe that will expose themselves as close to 100% winners - don't be so impatient to place a bet just for the sake of doing so

Those bets will expose themselves and when that happens you will know it

Until then be patient or you will end up placing a bet just for the sake of doing so that is a lower % and that's just a step backwards

[Pando]

Here are 2 shoes I played today, I think I read them correctly

P461131147412133211

This shoe is screaming S40M1 - starts with a 4 then a 6, then a few 1's, then 4,7,4. Then the shoe changes. At that point we now see 2's and 3's. I quit the shoe after the 1 following the 4 at +10. (Note only 8 x 1's and only 2 x 2's in the shoe)

Heres another

P2115433313612152115113152

Unfortunately I came in half way through the shoe when the best of it had gone. But this is screaming REPEATS. There are only 10 x 1's in the shoe. There are many more repeats than opposites.

Just by reading the shoe we have a very good heads up on how to play it, always being mindful of a change in the shoe

 

 

 

 

 

[brad01]

Good analysis

Couldn't dispute anything you said

 

[brad01]

Sometimes you just have to be happy not to lose.

Today was one of those days for me

Tried very hard to only look for those high % bets but was always 1 win away from getting in front

I just seemed to be 1 decision off and always 1 unit down

Even nailed a 1,2 up as you win which still only brought me back to even and then lost the next bet

In the end I quit at break even minus commission and just wrote it off as one of those days just be happy not to lose. 

[wolfat]

There are some days when it seems you can't hit a decision. When I realize this, I try to get out even or +1 asap.

Change shoe or change day. Hit and run approach break these ones.

[avion]

I understand for all of us, it is about winning.   Yet at times, like Brad said, breaking even beats losing.  A guy once told me, if you walk out of a casino and break even, you actually won against the house edge.  

As for losing, that is where you really learn.  My second favorite quote, next to "read the shoe clearly" is "lose, but don't lose the lesson".