Going Out A Winner

Been thinking about the psychology of poker a bit this morning. Specifically, I’ve been pondering the different emotions I have when I quit play, depending on whether I’ve played in a tournament or a cash game.

When you play in a sit and go, and you’re up against eight other players of equal skill to yourself, the chances of leaving the table on a winning hand are only about one in nine. Even if you make the money, but die in second or third place, your last hand will be, by definition, a losing hand. Only if you win the tourney outright will your last hand be a winner.

This would imply that you’d most often leave a SnG or multi feeling bad. But unless I play particularly poorly, I generally am able to shrug off a loss pretty easily. I think it has to do with the fixed loss nature of a tournament; i.e., you pay your money up front, so in a sense the “loss” takes place first, before the first hand is even dealt. After paying that entry fee, you’re then just playing for those bright 'n shiny tournament chips sitting out in the center of the table. I can get knocked out of the money in 3 or 4 SnGs in a row and it doesn’t bother me so much. Sure, I’d like to win, and sure, I hate bad beats, but the losing isn’t that painful for very long because it was a pre-determined monetary loss I had already paid.

Now, in a cash game, the emotions are very different, at least for me. Maybe it’s because I’m playing with “real” money at all times. If I start with $40 in front of me, I can lose some or all of it in a rush of bad cards, bad play, or bad beats. The losses are occurring in real time and they are, uh, real. My senses are heightened and I feel like I’m constantly walking a tightrope, with real danger lurking all around. (I definitely play more cautiously in a cash game than a tournament.)

The psychological payoff, of course, comes with the actual cash payoff. Winning in a cash game feels much better than winning in a tournament. I played fifty hands of $1/2 limit this morning when I got up. In about forty minutes, I turned my initial $40 table stake into $73 for a net $32 profit. I’m still feeling good about it, more than an hour later. If I’d played a $10 SnG instead, and won that same amount of coin, the buzz would have died within ten minutes of quitting. Same profit result, different emotional outcome. Maybe it's because I took a bigger risk with the $1/2 game to win the $32 than I would have with a SnG. Therefore, for some bizarre reason, the emotional payout is also higher.

The mind is indeed a weird and trippy place.

All-in for now…
-Bug