I STUDIED 50 PEOPLE WHO SEEM "LUCKY" IN LIFE.
None of them journal. Or wake at 5am. Or have a "system."
But They All Do These 12 Things Religiously:
1. They don't wait for the weekend to live.
Places Women Love to Be Kissed:
1.Her neck - don't kiss her there unless you're
ready to take full responsibility for the sins that
follow.
2.Inner thighs - it makes her weak... and ready
to beg.
3.Lower stomach - just above the line, where
she knows what's coming.
4. Her eyes - kiss them gently, like you could get
lost in them forever.
5. Her face - don't forget to mention how soft
and glowing her skin feels.
6. Her lips - nothing on earth beats this feeling.
7. Her forehead - it's sweet, intimate, and makes
her feel truly cared for.
🧠Longer Gambling Psychology Post - How to Handle a Downswing 📉
I got a few DM's over the last month from people who seemed to be suffering a downswing in betting. As someone who's battled through a bunch of those and generally come out the other side ok, I figured it'd be worth posting my general responses to this question publicly in case anyone out there is experiencing this or could benefit.
Managing your own psychology is one of the most important but often a glossed-over part of the overall strategy of an advantage player. If anything, the psychology aspect is often ignored. If you just make good bets over an over, you'll eventually win, right? So what's the problem, just don't worry about the negative variance.
Well, unfortunately we're all human. And "not worrying" about the negative variance is something that's really, really hard to do. Here are three things that I would strongly advise doing if met with a downswing.
For the purposes of this advice, we're going to assume that you have
- Been a winning player and grown your bankroll over a decent sample
- Are now met with a downswing that is causing you to question what's going on
1) Don't ever try to "get back" to a certain bankroll
This point is so critical and honestly points 2 and 3 probably won't even work that well unless you really internalize point 1.
Most people, during a downswing, fondly look back at the tippy top of their bankroll and assume that's what their bankroll "should" be, and start attacking the problem through the lens of first "getting back" to that amount of money.
STOP
This is the #1 source of bankroll busting everywhere. The moment you have framed the problem through the lens of "I used to be there, so that's what I deserve to get back," you're about to go down a very bad road full of suboptimal decisions. In fact, you're probably already betting as if you were still at that top bankroll number instead of appropriately lowering your unit size.
If you currently have a $10k bankroll, I guarantee the gambling universe does not care that you used to have a $16k bankroll just two months ago. It doesn't matter. You should re-frame the problem as "how do I continue to find edges and grow my $10k bankroll"
Once you've passed this first psychological hurdle, things get so much easier. Remember, you do not "deserve" to have a certain amount of money just because you used to. That's not how betting works.
This was by far the hardest lesson for me to learn.
2) Downswings happen, going bust should never happen. Don't make it worse
Ok this should be obvious but sometimes it isn't, especially if you started betting recently, mostly got some quick wins from promos/signups, and have been off to the races ever since. It might seem impossible that you could ever actually blow the full bankroll.
As someone who has blown their bankroll >1 times before, trust me, it's so much worse than just a downswing. I mean, it's a good thing in the long run probably because you have to learn these lessons somehow, but damn I would do anything to go back and scream at my former self one or two times.
A downswing of 30-40% of your bankroll is fine. It shouldn't happen often, but it can happen. A 100% downswing is not fine, should never happen, and typically goes very quick and painfully towards the end. As some people put it "stairs up, elevator down."
The worst part? You then are forced to stop betting for a while, you don't get to take the break on your terms. Make sure you set the terms at which you get to take a break, don't let it be because you blew your entire roll.
Slow down, make defense a priority vs offense, and make absolutely sure you are not risking more than your bankroll can afford. As long as you do that, you'll suffer downswings, but you shouldn't go bust. Take a short break if you need.
I recognize this point is somewhat related to point 1, but it's probably worth repeating anyway.
3) Take a productive break - less betting, more analyzing
Nowadays, what I typically do during downswings is make sure that I'm keeping busy without actually risking much money. Instead of deploying my normal betting volume over a week, I'll deploy maybe 1/5 or 1/10th or sometimes make no bets at all.
I replace the time I spend making bets with a deep dive into everything that I bet on over the past month or so when I was losing (obviously, you should be tracking as much as possible).
This exercise is great because it typically leads to two possible outcomes, both of which are positive:
Outcome 1: We made good bets, got good value, nothing that we can find indicates that anything is wrong here, it just looks like bad variance.
This is a good outcome because it gives us a week to reset, check our numbers, and come back out of it with the confidence that we are on the right track. And we didn't have to sweat a bunch of bets while doing this.
Outcome 2: Hang on, we might have a problem. This one thing that we're betting might not actually be an edge, but we kept showing it as an edge. We didn't notice because we actually experienced positive variance a while ago, but now we're betting it more often, and uh oh now that I look at it I don't think this is a real edge.
Also a great outcome! We took a step back, found a hole in our process, and plugged it before the damage got any worse. Now, we can resume normal operations without that particular strategy in mind, confident that we'll be ok going forward.
In general, you should be trying to track and analyze as much as possible anyway. However, I think it's particularly important to do this during downswings, and it can turn a downswing into even a bit of a fun learning time for you (if you're enough of a sicko to look at it that way).
In conclusion, I know that we all want to focus on how to win, what the edges are, and how to find the right plays. When it comes to mindset and psychology, a lot of people sort of just assume that their brain is fine and they can handle the swings.
As Warren Buffett once said, rules no. 1 and 2 of investing are "don't lose money." And the same could be said for advantage gambling as well. Train your brain as an anti-bust mechanism, and that can be the next major edge you have.
This man changed the game:
Dr. Peter Attia.
He dedicated his life to figuring out how humans can increase their lifespan & live to 100+.
Here are 5 game-changing habits he discovered (that you can start right now):