7a. THE LAST ROUNDUP
Date: Tue Apr 29, 2008 11:41 pm ((PDT))Howdy
I guess I will never learn. How many times are you ahead, say an uneven amount
of credits…like 385 and you say to yourself,self, I will round it up to 400
even and call it a day or night as the case may be…(you are getting ahead of
me) and you start loosing and loosing till you have lost everything you have won
for your session and worse yet, you lose everythng you started yet. What is it
about those two zeroes that foster that irration move. Past experience has
taught us better. What is wrong with cashing out at 98 dollars and 75 cents? Why
has it got to be 400 even. It's a PUZZLEMENT.
I friend of mine once advised me, long long ago when I played blackjack as my primary activity, not to lose $1,000 trying to win $100 - or in your case, not to lose 385 trying to win 15.
When I get in those situations, I decide to quit if I get to 400 - OR if I slip back to 300 (300 becomes a stop-loss, and I try to have the discipline to adhere to it when I get there). If I'm planning on a longer session, I may give myself a little more loss-margin when I'm ahead - say I put in 100, got to 385, I might make the stop-loss at 200 instead of 300, knowing that it's not that uncommon to slip down to 300, and wanting to play a little longer -- but if I'm getting ready to quit soon, for whatever reason (food, bathroom, tired), setting a nearby point to quit with either a win or a loss is the best approach.
If you don't have a stop point in mind, but don't want to walk away with that "I had a win, why didn't I quit" - set the stop-loss, but let the winnings run up, and if, for example, you get to 600, you can move the stop-loss up a notch, to 400, and continue in that manner.
In that case, you don't need a stop-win point, because you're happy to let it run if you're lucky and good enough for that to happen.
Sometimes writing down your stop-loss on a scrap of paper will reinforce the discipline it takes to quit when you hit it.
And of course, sometimes you're at 385, set 400 as your "win" quit point, and 300 as your stop-loss, and then get a long stretch where you float around between the two -- so this technique, while it will work eventually, won't always get you out the door in the time frame you'd like.
Sometimes it's best to just to say "I'm going to play an hour (or 24 hours, or whatever!), and no matter what the odd change is on the meter, when my time is up, I cash and walk.
And there's the ultimate motivator to quit while you're ahead - the non-gambling spouse who doesn't get it. When you report you were up XXX and then lost some or all of it, they always ask "why didn't you quit when you were winning XXX?" - a question to which no rational answer will ever provide a satisfactory response for the person asking the question!!
--BG
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