So we agree upon one point that we lack discipline. Well we are all humans and it is in our nature to do mistakes.
Let us try our best to cope with this
You are correct the thread echos in unison we have a lack of discipline and sure
we are human we make mistakes but what is the mistake here exactly?
Yermek confesses he played spins at a buy-in that was out of roll, Luci has a similar problem, start playing at higher stakes and poof gone is the roll. Brandland and tcdukesdood admit they wager their bankroll out on casino games.
But are these the real reasons why we go broke? In order to fix our mistakes we have to identify them first. Hold that thought...
We know the fix what am I talking about, we need to apply "sound bankroll management" duh. That is where the conversation usually ends, take this thread for example it's titled bankroll management but all we talk about is discipline and playing the micros... or not playing the micros.
What you may find out about
bankroll management is something about a strategy you commit to where you only buy-in at X% of your bankroll or in other words you need to have XXX buy-ins in your bankroll and this way you won't go broke.
You may wonder at this point what the value of X should be but it depends, amongst other things, on what games you are playing, what your win rate is but also how desperate you are not to loose your bankroll. This magic number X will then take care of things like variance and standard deviation and all you need to worry about is play your A-game and in "the long run" you will... uhm... not go broke.
Therefor if we only have discipline and never play higher stakes and stay away from the casino we will not go broke. Our mistake is indeed deviating from X ...or is it in fact so?
If it was that simple then why don't we stick to the limits that we are supposed to. Grind away at 1c/2c till we are rich... or kingdom comes. Is it because we cannot win at higher stakes or casino games? If that were true we must be insane and have much bigger problems than loosing our bankrolls. No, we take these risks because we are bored and not being stimulated. We take these risks because our bankrolls have a higher growth potential than what we are currently realizing. We might not be bankrolled for it but we can spot an opportunity.
Lets take a step back for a moment.
What is the problem?
We are loosing our bankrolls.
Why do we need a bankroll?
So that we can grow it.
What do we need to do?
We need to manage our bankrolls in order to maintain a growth potential.
I heard a very successful gambler/poker player (forget the name) once asked what advice he can give others, he replied:
Don't be scared to take stabs at higher stakes but always leave yourself outs.
So lets ask ourselves again, why did we loose our bankrolls? Was it because we wagered at higher stakes or casino games? Isn't that exactly what our bankrolls are for?
If we claim to manage our bankrolls it makes sense that we would only wager a small enough portion which we can afford to loose. You don't ever want to play scared money. This way we maintain enough growth potential to easily recuperate minor losses.
Getting back to that thought... it would be easy enough to apply this principle if we just lost that 1st buy-in and realize oh crap we need to move down. Things aren't that black and white when we win though. Bankroll gets a substantial boost and we keep going. Loosing that buy-in now doesn't matter much anymore because we are still ahead. Then we loose another and another and soon we've lost that 1st buy-in too. Instead of realizing oh crap we need to move down we now desperately try to dig ourselves out of this hole.
The mistake is not the value of the 1st buy-in, there's clearly a stop loss problem here which somehow gets shrouded in a lack of "sound BRM principles" and translates to "playing out of roll". rubbish
I can't claim to know any better as I have no bankroll and mind you no stop loss either but clearly I am not alone. Perhaps it's time for a new strategy one that maximizes growth potential while managing both winnings and losses. I set out simply to explore BRM with this post but end up discovering similar problem areas from my own experience which I may hopefully resolve somehow with time. My apologies if I upset the status quo in any way my motives are simply trying to help. You may none the less submit your critique.
I've tried BRM and it's no fun...