Dealing with the big loss.

[Casino Kid]

Advantages of non-professional or supplemental play: 3.) Affords you the opportunity to take a break for various reasons. Fulltime players, especially fulltime, grinder type players like me can't do that. We are all about continuing to accumulate EV. It's back up on the horse.

KJ, in your humbling year thread I believe you mentioned you profited over $100K in 2013 and that basically all of your food is comped, and in a different thread you mentioned you share a living space with 3 people which I'd imagine would keep rent costs pretty manageable. I live a pretty basic lifestyle so if I had a year with that kind of profit relative to the expenses I mentioned, I'd be sitting pretty and not needing more profit for a little while. I guess I'm wondering what money is to you - is it a means to an end or an end in itself? Being in a stable relationship I'm assuming you don't feel the need to project yourself to the outside world as a "high roller" in order to attract a certain type of partner and if you're willing to subsist on casino food I'm also assuming you don't have the need to display opulent tastes just for the heck of it.

Are you wanting to live a satisfying lifestyle where you have the things you need to feel comfortable or are you on a keeping up with the Joneses type of treadmill based on outward signs of wealth? I'm not intending to judge you either way - you're certainly entitled to do what you want with the money you wager and earn but I'm wondering what fuels your need to never take a break. Love of the game? If that were the case you could lower your stakes/risk for awhile and play with less stress (and heat). Do you not take well to rest and relaxation and thrive on the frenzied casino atmosphere? Is it that you "can't" take a break or simply don't want to?

I'm certainly in no position to advise you on the subtleties of the game, but maybe this series of events combined with your dissatisfaction with your results in the previous year would make it worthwhile for you to reflect on what your goals truly are as a player and a human and to clarify your psychological relationship to money. Barring some kind of drug addiction or outlandish taste in cars/jewelry/collector's items/etc, I'd think your earnings in 2013 and the preceding years would allow you to take a step back and a few deep breaths, maybe visit a country or two (preferably without casinos) that you've always wanted to go to assuming your relationship situation allowed for it.

You've obviously put in an enormous amount of hours - I wouldn't be surprised if you saw patterns of spades and diamonds when you close your eyes. Not to mention smelling tobacco smoke and hearing incessant dings of slot machines. Even if they aren't now, don't you think burnout or fatigue may come into play eventually? Why not take steps to avoid them and the economic penalties that come with them before they come up instead of after?

[metronome]

ya know KJ, i can't even wrap my head around a Blackjack loss of that magnitude. Yet you are living it...
My hat's off to you.
Sincerely,
met

[metronome]

I've posted too much in this thread.
But if I read or was told that AP's are immune to lingering emotions re: very large losses, someone is either lying or psychologically unsound.

[Aslan]

This is a duplicate post of my post on BJ21, so I apologize to those that are members on both sites. I am posting both locations as to hear as many thoughts and responses as possible, especially from the fulltime type players.

Yesterday, I suffered my worst single day loss of my BJ career. For me, at my level of play, 5 figure losses in a day are fairly infrequent events. I guess I see 5-7 such losses in a day, per year. Yesterdays loss was the equivalent of 2 of those as I suffered a large loss on my first session of the day exhausting my available funds, replenished my typical single day BR and suffered a second similar large loss, later in the day.

It comes at a time that I was experiencing a fast start to my year, so I guess if there is a good time for such an experience this would be it. I am sure that statement will be disputed, so let me just say, I am not saying there is ever a good time or such a loss 'acceptable'.

So here's the thing and reason for my post. This loss has been weighing on my mind pretty heavy the last 24 hours. I am not talking beating the wife and kids kind of stuff. (I don't have kids). I am just saying I have really been 'dwelling' on yesterdays events much more so than normal, replaying events over and over. I feel like this is a flaw, especially for someone now in his 12th year of playing for a living.

Any thoughts, criticisms? Would love to hear if others go through similar emotions?

Sorry to hear the news. Dont' overthink it. The emotions cannot be turned on and off like a spigot. They take time. Just try to live in your rational mind and realize that the emotional effects will continue to dog you for a while.

I remember when you broke all records in winning a phenomenal number of units in one shoe (780 units???). That was good variance; think of this as the reverse. If you had all the figures for your past 11 or 12 years of playing, I'd wager you are right on your expected win amount/rate. So nothing has changed.

We are more emotional than we realize from day to day. Sometimes, it takes a big event to confront this reality. Thankfully, card counting at BJ is not as susceptible to emotional influence as some other games, such as poker. If the emotions won't let go, it's a good time to take a vacation trip to refresh you mind, experience some well-needed good vibes.

[counter19]

From the movie Rounders:

"In "Confessions of a Winning Poker Player," Jack King said, "Few players recall big pots they have won, strange as it seems, but every player can remember with remarkable accuracy the outstanding tough beats of his career." It seems true to me, cause walking in here, I can hardly remember how I built my bankroll, but I can't stop thinking of how I lost it."

The emotional toll from winning is not equally proportional to the emotional toll from losing. Or put more simply, you never feel as good about winning as you feel bad about losing. This may be common knowledge, but it is still true.
Why is this? I suspect that evolution has something to do with it. We are hard wired to feel a loss very heavily. I wish that the emotions of losing "balanced out" with the emotions of winning in the same way that the numbers balance out, but I have found that this is never the case.
I think this is just the nature of what we do. You asked if any of us ever struggle with this in your original post. I think the real question is "is there anybody that doesn't?"
We think both logically and emotionally. Sometimes these two overlap and cause confusion. The way I see it, counting is better than the stock market or real estate. With these markets, truly anything can happen because these investments are often governed by fear and greed. The thing that attracts me to card counting is that if I have counted correctly, then the battle is already won. All I have to do is sit back and let the laws of nature (math) do the work for me. But in the stock and real estate markets, my investments, though they are solid, may get hit hard due to human weaknesses (fear and greed). Of course, this fact may not be enough to tame my emotions. I'm hard wired to react to a loss as we all are.
Just keep counting. Assuming you don't get 86'd, you have already won because unlike investments governed by human emotion, math will always be on your side.

[BlackHead]

Some pretty harsh comments seen on BJ21 on your thread, better cards to you.

[ZeeBabar]

Some pretty harsh comments seen on BJ21 on your thread, better cards to you.

BJ21 has some a$&@'s who are macho types who probably cannot share their feelings and emotions. They tend to get on that forum to get their hostility out.

[ZenKinG]

I dont understand why anyone would have a problem with a big loss. If you live minutes away from casinos, you should never have feel bad after a loss. Why would you? If you have problems after a loss and need to 'deal' with it someway instead of just shrugging it off and banging in hours the next day, you have bigger problems to worry about, ie. weak minded or confidence issue, both very problematic and AP blackjack might not be for you. (This is not an indirect to KJ lol, he's obviously been doing this for over a decade)

If I had casinos nearby within minutes and had a proper bankroll, I would laugh off every big loss I had because I can go right back to it whenever I feel like it, but also because I know my game is nearly flawless so wouldn't have to worry about me being off. Things like a losing session would never faze me if I had the bankroll you guys have and the close proximity to stores.

[Aslan]

I dont understand why anyone would have a problem with a big loss. If you live minutes away from casinos, you should never have feel bad after a loss. Why would you? If you feel bad after a loss, you have bigger problems to worry about, ie. weak minded or confidence issue, both very problematic and AP blackjack might not be for you.

If I had casinos nearby within minutes and had a proper bankroll, I would laugh off every big loss I had because I can go right back to it whenever I feel like it, but also because I know my game is nearly flawless so wouldn't have to worry about me being off. Things like a losing session would never faze me if I had the bankroll you guys have and the close proximity to stores.

I was at a pool room in Las Vegas when an old timer card counter I was acquainted with walked in carrying his head and saying out loud, "I just lost $20,000 at the blackjack table." He was in apparent shock. This guy was probably counting cards when Richard Nixon was President. Losing large in a session is a traumatic event-- make no mistake about it. From what I've heard, this guy has plenty of money.

[ZenKinG]

I was at a pool room in Las Vegas when an old timer card counter I was acquainted with walked in carrying his head and saying out loud, "I just lost $20,000 at the blackjack table." He was in apparent shock. This guy was probably counting cards when Richard Nixon was President. Losing large in a session is a traumatic event-- make no mistake about it. From what I've heard, this guy has plenty of money.

Well he shouldn't be playing then. But to each their own. For me it wouldn't faze me one bit if I knew I was playing perfectly. Of course if I started losing multiple times substantial amounts of money I would question if I was getting cheated, etc to not hurt my bankroll any further but if i rule that out, i wouldn't sweat it one bit.

[stopgambling]

So at my red chip level of losing $8000 in a day with a max bet of $125 . IS it comparable ? It felt like a nightmare. It is ok if i was properly bankroll which i was not. I just want to get a sense of your lost .

[ZenKinG]

So at my red chip level of losing $8000 in a day with a max bet of $125 . IS it comparable ? It felt like a nightmare. It is ok if i was properly bankroll which i was not. I just want to get a sense of your lost .

That's quite unlikely for a day? To lose 8000 with a max bet of 125, you must have literally played all day to have that kind of negative variance. Did you pull a 16-20 hour shift at the tables? Even with a shift like that, it's still unlikely to lose that much. Were you pure wonging or playing off the top and and wonging out? White rabbit? Even if you took a 'play all' approach, an 8000 negative swing for a 125 max bet is still unlikely as that is a good chunk of standard deviations in the red. You mention not properly bankrolled. Do you mean you had no money for a double down or split thereby causing you to lose that round on top of a bad day then having to leave the table to replenish at the ATM? I'm sure you then started to lose control a bit after that incident and caused you to overbet or maybe you were overbetting before you ran out of money, or maybe you were just off on your count and TC division that day that caused you to have such a negative swing. You were probably playing a mediocre game and your concentration was off or maybe you got flaws in your game that need to be fixed.

[Three]

Did you pull a 16-20 hour shift at the tables? Even with a shift like that, it's still unlikely to lose that much. Were you pure wonging or playing off the top and and wonging out? White rabbit?

the way you lose this kind of money is have a dream opportunity of many really fat and juicy counts to bet max bet into and you get your ass kicked the entire time. It happens. Fortunately it is a rare event but it comes with the territory. It should have been a session you won a boatload of money because of all the plus betting opportunities but having an BIG advantage doesn't always go hand in hand with winning your bets. A great shoe head to head may be max bet at 2 decks in. In that situation you are using about 5 cards/round playing 1 spot maybe a little less. That is over 30 max bets per shoe. Get a few such shoes in a row and you made 100 max bets in less than an hour. Normally you would expect to be way ahead but in these situations the dealer has an ace under every face and hits out every stiff usually to 21. You just can't win. If you are playing 8 deck with I assume he was that is 50 max bets per shoe. If you get a dealer letting you play 200 rounds/hr you get an extra shoe in every hour being very approximate. Anyway that is how these things happen. You get a bunch of dream count shoes in short order and get your butt kicked through the entire time. This is all part of the long run and once you start playing enough you will get the displeasure of experiencing them. Then maybe talking to people about dealing with them from experience will have more incite.