Joined: Mar '09
Location: Portugal
Age: 57 (M)
Posts: 1703
Just a thought,
I know poker for alot of serious players is an image thing and at times egotistic regarding making the wrong plays losing money, no one wants to be the donk or be the player who gets ridiculed for calling a horrific hand and playing the hand in a donkish way , Also most players think they are good players some of us cant or dont want to believe it
I wouldn't be surprised if their are alot of players who dont want to admit that they go broke
Joined: Feb '12
Location: Canada
Age: 64 (M)
Posts: 6036
I think folks look WAY worse when they come across like how you describe...!
I guess we're all programmed to be winners and not losers... Pride would be one big reason. Shame would be another,... Some folks just think they're the star on top of the Christmas tree... I dunno....
It's just better to laugh it off if you can rather than make yourself look bad with all the excuses and the overly high opinion of yourself... You win some, you lose some... Oh well...! No sense lieing to yourself...!
Joined: Feb '14
Location: United Kingdom
Age: 52 (M)
Posts: 243
i do not know why - people like to be thought of as successful I suppose. It can be depressing to fail at anything. I have bombed out like a donkey in about 6 or 7 tournys today - I should have been in the money in about 3 of them for sure but got greedy/lazy/stupid/unlucky at the wrong moments. Another day it could have gone my way. I think I am improving though. Yesterday I had placements and did alright. I guess it's not such fun cataloging your errors and losses on a forum.
I don't understand why some people make stuff up though.. I'm not talking poker, but anything. Some people just make stuff up about things they have done. I find it hard to believe why, so I can be quite gullible and tend to believe them. I have some amazing stories to tell and don't BS - I don't see the point, although I have done amazing things I have also failed dismally at stuff. For example, I have been quite good at golf in my life - not great, but good. I have had a good few sub par rounds at some good courses and held a handicap of 4. I'm not boasting, it is just a fact. My best 2 rounds have been 5 under par. I was talking about golf to someone once and exchanging stories and he told me played off 3. So I believed him. It bit him in the arse a week later though when I was talking to his mates about golf and i mentioned that this guy was pretty good and they all laughed and said he was ok but actually plays off 12 and is a bit s**t really. I don't know who was the biggest d**k, him for his BS or me for believing him. lol. Maybe he thought I was lying too and was just trying to out do me, but his mates said that he talks crap all of the time.
There is a statistic that 90% of drivers believe that they are better drivers than most. It's not that they lie about it, they really believe it.
With poker you could just look a the bottom line, as an objective means to measure your success. Just add up all winnings and losses. If it's a positive number you are doing alright.
Don't cheat by discounting money you lost while learning the game, that counts too; you need to recoup your losses before you can call yourself a winning player, I feel.
I suspect there are a lot of players that are able to make money, but blow the lot away every once in a while by bad bankroll management.
They probably think of themselves as better than most, just like 90% of drivers...
Joined: Feb '14
Location: United Kingdom
Age: 52 (M)
Posts: 243
I shouldn't admit this.... but I've always thought I was pretty crap at poker - lol. Perhaps you need to be to learn it. I do not know if recent successes mean I am improving or just getting lucky for a streak. I've watched it, played it and read about it and talked about it a bit and I know I do loads of things wrong. It works from time to time.
Joined: Feb '13
Location: United Kingdom
Age: 47 (F)
Posts: 2372
I agree with marqis, people totally believe it.
Some even see if as fact. Things like 'well I went bust and reloaded a couple of times but I have made loads of withdrawals' are a pointer to this, as they forget the deposit they did was 2 x 100 but withdrawals only 7 x 20. I myself felt like I had a great year last year, but only won about £200. So it felt great but was actually a big waste of time. This year doesn't feel so good but im £150 up already. It is a strange game.
It is why I keep a spreadsheet and in any given year tell you the exact profit/loss per site (though I did make a mistake in discarding data at end of every year and not keeping a log of yearly totals, MASSIVE mistake right there.
Joined: May '08
Location: Lithuania
Age: 39 (M)
Posts: 10090
well then i am so proud to be amongst those 10% who do admit that they are losing players, crappy morons & total degenerates who keep on losing day-in and day-out...actually i am such a shitty poker player that no one wants to be my friend, they feel that my unprecedented shittyness might pass over to them
Joined: May '13
Location: Mauritius
Age: 32 (M)
Posts: 2688
Most people are not honest about their gambling loses, they might not tell you if they loss a good fortune but will boast when they have a small win though they are in the red for the whole play and losing money.
For me it looks like they are becoming gambling addict starting to hide loses and just brag about small loses. In can be another thing too, he always complain about his loses though he wins, this one is a good player imo, just complain too much!
Joined: Dec '12
Location: Bulgaria
Age: 47 (M)
Posts: 1022
This is my story from yesterday. I received an email from Duck Poker that they give me another no deposit bonus of $5 Tournament money. So, I was very happy. I started to play some SNG's heads up and I won all these SNG's. I made $T5 into $8 real money.
Then I sat on the cash tables micro limits $0.02/$0.04. After playing a while I got a profit of $10. I said to myself: "Woow, today is my lucky day". But it is difficult to play against Chinese players, because they call almost everything having sh1tty cards. So, I had flush K high, thinking I had the strongest hand. Everyone began to go all in like crazy, so I called as well, hoping not to see someone having flush A high, but unfortunately one of the guys had flush A high and I lost all the money! There were guys who did all in with one pair and two pairs, this was really crazy.
I am not ashamed to admit that the amount of all my deposits is much more higher, than the amount of my withdrawals which means that I am a losing player. These are the facts. I hope one day to change these statistics.
Joined: May '13
Location: United Kingdom
Age: 37 (M)
Posts: 2219
I am not ashamed to say my overall losses are much more bigger than my wins/profits. Which is sad indeed and probably makes me look like a bad played, but it just means I have to get better.
Joined: Mar '10
Location: United Kingdom
Age: 44 (M)
Posts: 75
i know what you mean about people talking s**t drawacard i was reading somthing not so long ago when one member tryed saying he has cashed in the sunday millions about 8 times so i checked him out and he had a small cash in a sunday storm dont even think he has ever played the sunday millions and he was giving someone advise who won a ticket though a sat me myself am a loosing player i only play tournements and have only been playing for just over 3 years so i know ive still got a couple of more years learning and loosing
Joined: Feb '11
Location: Germany
Age: 31 (M)
Posts: 1859
Normally it shouldn't happen. Downswings are totally normal and a short-term-loss doesn't factor anyones skill. People that don't admit to their losses are either looking at poker too much like gambling in general, or are just straight up losing players that overvalue their own skill.
You can see that very good when people moan about bad luck/bad beats/runbad/"poker is rigged" bla bla bla. They look desperately for a reason why they lose instead of what's necessary, working on their game and inform themself about poker being a grind, not a business that should be looked at daily results-wise.
I had downswings lasting up to $2K in losses, all playing low-midstakes SNGs ($7/$15/$30), this is a huge sum based on the buy ins, but it can happen to everyone playing a huge amount of games, and will eventually happen to most people over a huge samplesize.
What matters is how much you are up overall, as long as your samplesize is big enough (and I don't mean any less than a couple thousand of games at least), if it is you can expect to make money in the long run. If not, it just means one is a losing player and should put time in their game, instead of wasting time with moaning.
There were guys who did all in with one pair and two pairs, this was really crazy. 
