Note: Not at the old Poker1 site. A version of this entry was first published (2006) in Poker Player newspaper.
Fortunately, we are free to make many personal choices in our everyday lives. Unfortunately, wherever personal freedom of choice exists, some people become psychologically disturbed and try to dictate the choices for us.
They envision an orderly world unfolding each day exactly as it does in their fantasies. And when we make choices contrary to those fantasies, it drives the regulators of choice crazy. They want everyone to live like they do.
That’s why, so often, people who postulate extreme views truly are crazy. They may seem sensible in some everyday endeavors, but if you make a personal choice that differs from their secret formula for righteous living, they grow irritated and irrational. Some things that you’d least expect to bother people are advocated with religious zeal.
Sacred secret
In poker, for instance, you dare not challenge the sacred secret to bankroll management called “stop loss.” If you do challenge it, you will wound those who take comfort in the perception of safety it provides.
Stop loss, you see, is a predetermined exit point for losing – a brick wall. If you reach that wall, you must stop playing. Whenever you make personal choices to govern your bankroll more recklessly than stop loss suggests, you challenge its strictest advocates and they root against you.
I’m here today to challenge stop loss and to say that it’s silly. And here’s an old lecture I gave on that emotional subject. I hope it will convince you that I’m right…
Stop loss
For many poker players, one of the most cherished concepts is called “stop loss.” It simply means that you’re never going to suffer a terrible loss, because you’ve predetermined to quit if you lose a given amount.
Let’s say you set a stop-loss at $500 in a $20 and $40 hold ’em game. That’s equal to two-and-a-half minimum buy-ins. As soon as you move beyond $500, you’ll quit on your next big blind. This means you might lose a little more than $500 during the leaving-the-table process, but not substantially more. While other players around you might lose $1,000, $2,000 or more, this will never happen to you.
Should you use a stop loss? I don’t. And, I don’t think you should, either. Before I tell you what’s bad about a stop loss, I’ll be fair and tell you what’s good.
The first good thing is that you’ll never get numbed by bigger losses than you anticipated and start playing poorly and dig yourself into a serious hole it might take a long time to crawl out of – if you ever crawl out at all. With a stop loss, you can accept a more manageable defeat, go home, lick your wounds, and contemplate with your goldfish. That part is good for many players who are afraid they may lose control of themselves if the loss builds too large and who like to hang out with their goldfish.
The threshold
This benefit has a lot to do with Caro’s Threshold of Misery. Did I ever tell you about that?
It states that in poker or in life you can reach a stage where the misery grows so great that you stop caring because you already feel maximum pain. Maximum misery.
If more bad things happen in life or if you lose more money in poker that night, it doesn’t feel any worse. You’re maxed out. You’ve crossed the Threshold of Misery.
I teach that you’re supposed to keep right on playing well, even after you cross that threshold. You’ve got to intellectually remind yourself that even though things don’t seem to matter now, there will come a time when they do matter.
Matters again
So, make good decisions. Maybe right now it doesn’t seem to matter a lick whether you lose $4,495 or $4,125, but there will come a time when that $370 matters again.
Always play poker as if that time is now. That’s important and I’ll repeat it. There will come a time when that $370 matters again and you should play poker as if that time is now.
But, OK, if quitting before you get anywhere near that Threshold of Misery is the only thing that will allow you to avoid logical brain shutdown that will cost you significant money or devastate your bankroll, then – by all means – practice a stop loss.
More good about stop loss
What else is good about a stop loss? Well, you might be getting cheated and not know it. So, quitting because you reached a predetermined limit can keep you out of further danger.
Or you might have misjudged the skill of your opponents. Maybe the game isn’t as good as you thought it was. Maybe you’re not the favorite and you should expect to lose more if you keep playing. In that case, too, a stop loss can keep you out of danger and preserve your bankroll.
And there’s one more thing that’s potentially good about a stop loss. It prompts you to quit when you’re losing, which often can be a good thing in itself, even if the game was originally profitable.
Not superstition
The reason has nothing to do with superstition. It has to do with the fact that when your opponents see you losing, they sometimes get inspired and play better. They think, hey, there’s someone unluckier than I am. I’ll beat up on that player.
When this happens you won’t make the profit you normally would, because players will take unexpected shots at you. And they’ll push their good hands for extra value, because they’re not intimidated by you. In that case, it’s sometimes a good idea to quit the game.
A final thing: For some players a stop loss can keep setbacks psychologically manageable. They can go home and sleep well knowing that no significant damage has been done in a single day. A bad streak can still continue, but it will be broken up into smaller, more psychologically manageable segments.
Bad about stop loss
OK, I’ve been fair. I’ve said all the good things I can think of about stop loss. Now I’m going to tell you that the whole concept sucks. It makes no logical sense at all. It’s just babble.
You see, everything I told you that was good about stop loss can be accomplished by you without it, just by using your own good judgment. You can be aware of the Threshold of Misery and discipline yourself to keep making good decisions. You can decide to quit at any point if you fear you’re being cheated – before that magic stop loss number or after it – whenever you decide it’s right.
How does that predetermined number help you? It doesn’t.
It just takes tools out of your hands – thinking tools that let you decide whether its profitable to keep playing or to quit. Same goes for whether your opponents might be stronger than you estimated.
No good
You can quit or not quit, whichever seems wiser, without a stop loss. Quit very early or tough it out if you think you can still win. What good is a predetermined magic quitting number? No good at all.
Same if opponents see you losing. Yes, they’ll often play better, but it’s up to you to decide right then if this is a strong enough factor to make you quit. You decide. Not a magic number. You decide. Not a magic number. You decide. Not a magic number.
The most illogical thing about stop loss is that it often has the opposite effect of what’s intended. You see, if you’re a professional poker player or even a serious one, you need to think of poker like you would a job. You get paid to make the right decisions and, even though there are lots of fluctuations, you still get paid by the hour.
If you’re a winning player in a profitable game, the more hours you play, the more money you earn. So, if you’re in a good game, you’re earning a given amount an hour, on average. If you take yourself out of that game because you’re losing a predetermined amount of dollars, you’re cutting off your hourly funds, you’re shutting down your profit flow. You won’t work as many hours and, in the long run, and you probably won’t win as much money.
That’s the way to look at a stop loss. If you rigidly apply it, you’ll sometimes be excluding yourself from playing more hours in profitable games and you’ll be costing yourself money. That makes a stop loss a stop win.
Segments
Another illogical thing about stop loss is that people think that by dividing their time into segments, they can avoid long losing streaks. The truth is, if the game is good now, you might be more likely to extend your losing streak if you quit and come back tomorrow when the game is worse than by continuing to play right now.
Interrupting a streak does not kill it. That’s nonsense. The streak will either continue or not continue the next time you play, whether that’s next week or right now.
So, I’m not a fan of stop loss. You should consider quitting when you’re losing, of course. But you need to weigh all the factors working against you and decide whether the next hour is profitable enough for you to play. You can’t make that decision if you’ve taken away your options by setting a pre-determined stop loss. So, why do it? In poker profit comes from personal choice.
This is “The Mad Genius of Poker” Mike Caro and that’s my secret today. — MC
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