Dealing With Burnout Part 1: Prevention and Recovery
5/25/2006 12:00:00 AM
I speak from experience when I say there is nothing more demoralizing than an extended breakeven streak.
To my mind, it’s far worse than a losing streak. But how can that be?
At least you aren’t losing any money, right? Wrong. You are. But not in the way you think.
Once you start complaining about things like breakeven streaks, it is the first indication of burnout.
Your whole bankroll may be in jeopardy, and there isn’t a more important task facing you than finding a way to revitalize your enjoyment of the game.
By its nature, burnout won’t affect a casual player. If you only play a couple of hours a week, burnout is not a factor. But if you try to live off the proceeds of your poker playing, or even if you only rely on poker to supplement your regular salary, it is a real issue.
In its worst form, burnout will cause you to hate the game.
Bad beats will magnify in importance, you’ll lose the ability to recognize simple variance, and you’ll forget just how long the “long run” really is.
If it hasn’t reached a serious level yet, you’ll still suffer because you won’t play the game often enough to keep sharp.
After that happens you will experience a death roll that would make a 10-foot Florida alligator proud, just like this:
Play too much
Get bored
Play less [here you are right now]
Lose your edge
Lose money when you do play because your edge is gone
Get disillusioned; question your skill
Play even less
Lose more
Use your bankroll to buy video games
Decide you can’t face playing at a lower level for the sake of your bankroll
Busto!
It’s not very pretty. But that kind of thing can’t happen to you, right? Because you’re way too savvy, correct? Hmmm, don’t be so sure. This morning I read a post on a poker forum from a player whose game I admire, and who undoubtedly is a better player than I am.
“After running bad for a month and finally going busto I have decided to retire. I wish you all good luck in the future. I will probably post here from time to time but not as often as I do now because I am going to get a proper job.
PS Don|t 24 table, it will slowly send you insane and kill any love you ever had for the game.”
Burnout can end a poker career, so it is critical to learn ways of preventing it.
If you’re already there (so it’s too late to prevent it), you’re in luck because prevention and cure are synonymous in this case.
Here is a list of “burnout tells”.
Changing the way you react to losing sessions
Berating players who you view as less skilled
Finding excuses that keep you from playing
Not concentrating when you’re at the tables
Starting to worry about your bankroll because your confidence is shot
Here are things that you never want to catch yourself saying (or thinking) while you’re at the tables.
“I hate this game.”
“I just can’t win, no matter how well I play.”
“I knew he’d suck out. That Bleep Bleeper always chases me down.”
You know better. But you’re helpless.
It just isn’t fun any more. So you develop a passion for “Law and Order” reruns and learn to your delight that it’s on about 4 times a night if you have cable.
And by the time you finish watching all that quality television you’ve developed quite a thirst, so you have a couple of beers…and anybody with a brain knows that you shouldn’t play after that.
So you take the night off. And that’s fine, once in a while, but reread my description of the death roll.
But enough with the gloom, let’s concentrate on preventing burnout. The most important thing is to keep the game fresh, and you can do that either by convincing yourself that you still have what it takes or by making some drastic changes.
I’ve used both methods to cure burnout, so although I’m no psychologist, I think I may have some insight into the problem. Here’s how I give my game the “once-over.”
Every good player should be spending some time away from the tables working on improving his game.
Some of that is introspective: reviewing play, reading hand histories, looking at the database you use to track your play, rereading books or chapters when you spot a weakness creeping in, or talking about the game with your friends.
It should never get to the point where you suddenly realize that you have been stale for a month. A 3-4 day downswing ought to be enough to send you scurrying to find out what’s up with your game.
First, satisfy yourself that you aren’t playing badly. Review your sessions. As painful as it may be, look at the hands in which you lost the most.
Did you play them well and get beat anyway, or did you spew chips like a blown hydraulic line?
Okay, there’s no problem there, eh? Then look at the players who won the most from you.
Are they all super aggressive? Review your strategy for facing maniacs. Are they all solid players? Look at your pre-flop decisions to see if you have loosened up without realizing it.
Are you okay in the above situations? Then are you getting creamed because you’re playing badly post flop? How about overplaying draws? Time to hit the books again.
There’s one more flaw that can really damage you, and that’s playing with no regard for position.
Check your database, or think about the painful hands that have kept you from quitting a winner the last few times you’ve played.
Make sure that you aren’t playing a lot from up front without powerhouse hands.
While you’re at it, look at how you’ve done when you occasionally do wake up with a monster. Are you winning? Are you winning as much as you should?
Sometimes the problem isn’t that you’re losing the hands you should lose; it’s that you aren’t getting paid off when you win a hand you should win.
When that happens to me I automatically look at whether or not I’ve become too predictable. And most of the time, I find that the old cartoon character Pogo was right: “We have met the enemy, and he is US!”
The message is that you must relive the agony if you want to find the cause.
It’s tough, and it’s one of the things that separate winners from losers, because winners lose, too.
The difference is in how they handle it. Losers blame the dealer, the random number generator, their luck, or the bad players who beat them.
Winners look inward before they resort to looking for blame externally.
This article can’t hope to provide you with all the advice you’ll need to spot leaks, but at least it should point you in the right direction.
Often, you can shake loose from a breakeven or losing stretch simply by identifying leaks that have crept into your game as your edge was leaving you.
All you need is to book a couple of winning sessions and your confidence will be restored, the game will become enjoyable again, and you’ll be more aware of your tendencies toward boredom, sloppiness, or tilt.
In Part 2, I’ll discuss those times when you just really despise the game. Are you going to quit? Or are you going to figure out a solution? Stay tuned.
Part II Coming soon...