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 he Guardian Poker Column |
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| Victoria Coren |
| Wed 13 April 2011 |
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If you're losing, your best bet is to lower the stakes
A headline in yesterday's Daily Mail read: "My husband's obsession with online poker gambled away £1 million – and our idyllic life."
It's grammatically confusing (did the obsession gamble by itself? What was her husband doing at the time?) but the gist is clear. So, I think we ought to talk about loss. |
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It is not easy to lose £1m playing online poker, unless you're sitting down with tens of thousands at a time – and if you're doing that without being able to afford it, you don't need me to point out you're an idiot. Whether it's shopping, holidays, poker or stamp collecting, it is your own responsibility to keep your pastimes to an affordable level.
If this unfortunate Daily Mail fellow really did lose £1m on poker alone (I wouldn't be surprised to hear that his real problem was online roulette or blackjack on the side), then he either began with stupidly large sums or he made a classic logical error: to raise the stakes in the hope of recouping losses. Never, ever do that.
If you're playing roulette – a game of pure luck, with the odds stacked against you – there is a sick logic in doubling your bets, hoping the luck hits in time to balance your books before you go skint. But poker is a game of skill. If you're losing, it is only logical to lower the stakes. If you're good enough to win, you can build back up from any amount. If you're not good enough to win, you should be playing lower anyway.
Chasing a big hit to claw back your losses is the desperate approach of fruit machine addicts and irresponsible bankers. If you want to be a poker player, the response to a downswing must be to play smaller, concentrate and build.
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