Let me guess: judging by the title of this article you all probably reckon I'll be talking about winning and losing as the two opposed factors in poker, winning: the very reason the game is played, the fruit of a well thought out and acted out strategy, the definition of "good", and losing, the lousy, bad, negative and ugly aspect of the game everybody hates.
Well the thruth is I'mnot aboput to present things like that at all. Losing might be bad, it might be something everybody tries to avoid, but it is just as much part of poker as winning is like it or not.
By the nature of the game, a player is a lot more likely to lose then win, and losing will happen most of the time even for players who eventually end up winners.
Given the fact that around 80% of the time a player will lose money, and only 10-20 % win, I suppose it's safe to consider it a bigger part of the sound poker strategy than winning itself. As I saw somewhere quite cleverly put: money not lost should be just as sweet as money won. The problem is that human nature loves money won twice as much as money that is not lost. This is basically a misconception, and a common human tendency online poker sharks have learnt to capitalize on.
It may come as news to some ( possibly to all the rooks) but damage control in poker can be the detail that'll make or break someone's game and make the differentiate winners from losers. Whenever I think of loss management in poker an important event in modern history keeps popping into my mind: the battle of Midway. For those who know not what I'm talking about, it's the battle that turned the tide of the war in the Pacific in favor of the American Navy and it finally led to the defeat of the Japanese Empire and the demise of its navy.
The small thing that made all the difference in that battle (besides the materials the carrier's flightdecks were made of) was an apparently unimportant issue that the Japanese paid little attention to: damage control. The Americans recognized the importance of this matter, thus managing to keep many of their ships afloat even after they'd been severely mauled by the Japanese Zeros. On the other side it took little pounding from American warplanes to unleash a blazing inferno aboard most of the Japanese ships, as damage control there was kept at a minimum.
To this day I believe there is no better way to illustrate loss control in poker. Upon taking a ship to war, one should expect it'd be hit sooner or later. The same goes for poker. Upon taking a seat at an offline or online poker rakeback table one should expect to lose. It is as natural as a battleship being put in harm's way. All is well so far, and most people realize and acknowledge this fact. Most though, fail to also understand that it's not the same to escape with a few dents, or even manage to extinguish the effects of a serious direct hit, or to take head-on shots and not pay any attention to them.
The latter might be more of a macho, hero-like approach, but believe me nobody is ever going to appreciate it in poker. Knowing how to lose is halfway to winning. That why they often say that winning in poker feels just like losing.
Every time I felt peculiarly pissed about something, ( like losing on a full house) and started acting on impulse I lost even more. I threw damage control out the window and fell victim to attacks. It funny how its human nature to attempt to deliver a stinging reply when hurt, even when it makes no sense at all.
It is easy to tell someone to cool it, but I know I can't cool it either under such circumstances. The best solution I devised is to stop playing altogether until I feel I'm in the right state of mind again.