When I was in graduate school 45 years ago, plus or minus, I heard about an incident many years prior to that at the University of Chicago. It appears that there was an elevator for a campus building with a “Students Only” sign on it. One professor entered and was challenged, presumably in a friendly way, because he wasn’t a student. The professor answered, “We are all students. I study much more today than when I was your age.”
I’m that way too. I study gambling as much or more today as I ever did. One “advantage” of hosting a radio show about gambling is that I am “forced” to read gambling books that I wouldn’t otherwise pick up. I read the book in order to try to ask interesting questions of our guests. This gives me a much broader grasp of gambling than most players have.
I have many gurus — in the sense that I listen to what they have to say and try to apply it to my own situation. Two (of many) are Ed Miller and Richard Munchkin. Recently I realized that they said virtually the opposite thing about a subject — although ironically they both respect each other and would probably agree with the point of view of the other guy.
Sounds strange, right? Let me continue.
Ed Miller writes a lot about No Limit Hold’Em cash games with an emphasis on low stakes games. His recent book, The Course: Serious Hold’Em Strategy for Smart Players, is an excellent treatise on how to make money in $1-$2 and $2-$5 games. We’ve spoken about the book on the air, but we barely scratched the surface of what the book holds.
Near the end of the book is a section entitled “The Pitfalls of Running Good.” Miller says, “Running good out of the gate is one of the worst things that can happen to players. If they rack up big wins early on, a couple of bad things can happen. First, they develop unrealistic expectations. . . . Second, these early wins reinforce bad habits.”
I’m not going to quote his entire argument, but I found it persuasive. You need to guard against the dangers of running good. And Miller discusses several ways to do that.
Richard Munchkin, of course, is my co-host on the Gambling with an Edge radio show. However much I’ve prepared to listen to what our guest has to say on the air, I’m always eager to hear what Richard has to say as well. Although I often prepare a script beforehand and Richard knows where I’m going to go in the discussion, I never know beforehand what he’s going to say and I find that interesting and educational.
On more than one occasion, Munchkin has opined that a disproportionate number of successful gamblers ran good at the beginning. Why? Because a disproportionate number of the players who ran bad quit gambling! Somebody who always seems to lose has a tendency to give up and conclude that gambling is not for him.
So Ed Miller says running good at the beginning is one of the worst things to happen to you and Richard Munchkin says it happened to most successful gamblers. Not exactly contradicting each other — but close.
After mulling this over for a while, I decided they’re both right!
Running good does create some unreasonable expectations and bad habits, but gamblers who end up successful eventually learn to deal with these things. (If they don’t, they’re not successful gamblers. Nobody runs good forever.)
However bad running good is in terms of learning to play the game the right way, I’ll take it every day! While I understand Miller’s argument, I’d rather be $10,000 ahead than $10,000 behind. And so would you.
As to whether Munchkin was right about today’s successful players running good at the start, I started to examine whether it was true for me in particular. A case could be made that it was — but it also doesn’t matter. Anecdotal evidence about any one player (including me) doesn’t come close to proving or disproving any statement starting with “Most players . . .”
But I found Richard’s argument persuasive as well. The early loser tends to quit. The early winners tend to keep going. He’s looking at tendencies — not something that is correct 100% of the time.
I like it better when my gurus disagree with each other. It forces me to think about the arguments and come to my own conclusions. That’s how I improve my craft. And the fact that these two gurus are addressing games other than video poker means I always have to see if what they said applies to my game as well. Again, that’s how I improve my craft.
About 9 years ago, when I got pretty serious w/ VP(meaning about 1.5 to 2M/yr), I had 2 pretty good years(+26 & + 21K) playing games that averaged about 100%. That followed w/ several about even years. Two of the last 3 have been my worst(about 16 & 15K losses). Had this been the other way around, I would not have had a decent bank either monetary or mental to continue. I(like many others I suspect) play for the entertainment & comps. As pay tables & comps continue to go down, this gets tuffer & tuffer. I could not have accomplished this w/o Bob & several others including VP Free.
Well written Mr. Dancer as I find this column to be very inspirational. I strongly believe that if a person is not getting better at his/her craft, he/she is getting worse. The willingness to keep expanding your knowledge throughout the years has destined you for success, even though video poker opportunities are devolving over time from when you started. I appreciate the resources you have created for video poker, it helps me gain an understanding although I end up playing for meager purpose, for gifts/commodities, hotel stays, and meals.
My question to you for this week: Has there ever been a greater opportunity presented to you in the past that has made you considering moving on from Video Poker to pursue it?
Good points; by both your expert friends and your commentary. One thing that is a corollary to this is that when you “run good” at the beginning, I think it also whets your appetite to LEARN more. And therefore become BETTER at the game. If you lose off the top, well you might have the attitude that the house is always going to win and not be that interested in playing or learning the game better. But if you “run good”, I think most players who aspire to AP play think if they did “that” well at the beginning, they will do BETTER if they learn MORE. So ‘success breeds success’ to use that old platitude. Just my two cents.
I’m sure that’s true for some people, MJ and for others the opposite is true.
When you run good, I think the tendency for most people is “I already know it — look at my results” rather than “I need to get better.”
Years ago after Tiger Woods won the Masters by a zillion strokes, he totally revamped his stroke from scratch because he wanted to get better. This was so remarkable because basically NOBODY acts that way.
Running good has different meanings to me. I mean did a poker player run good in their first poker tournament where they may have hit it big with a strong finish in the money or did they run good in the cash games for a length of time vs. a nightly session. I think most gamblers who go against the casino and run good, it does reinforce bad habits. Just days ago I watched a NLHE poker player in a cash game buy-in for $200-300, he ran it up to slightly over $500 then he lost all of it, then he pulled out $100 and bought back in. He did the $100 re-buy 3 to 4 times after losing his $500 stack, so this poker player was a big loser so it seemed. This guy had a decent win and then was reaching into his wallet each time the cash poker players broke his ass. I was thinking why didn’t this guy just pull out another $300 instead of $100 at a time when everyone else at the table has $500-$600 or more. To only pull out $100 at a time told me that this player lost confidence in himself when he had more money in his wallet and he left a loser no doubt about it.
Before the cash game began my poker dreams of winning the tournament were dashed and I didn’t do well, but I ran even better in the cash games afterwards to make up for my tourney buy-in loss.
I came across this quote which relates to this article.
“Whatever you do in life, surround yourself with smart people who’ll argue with you.” – John Wooden