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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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