Going broke in poker - PokerTraining.org

5 most common reasons a player goes broke
Loosing your buy-in can be a result of bad luck, but going broke never is.

1)   No willingness to learn and improve

To me, that´s the no. 1 or no. 2 reason for players to keep on losing. Once a player stops making adjustments, doesn´t care about the rationale of his moves or completely disregards the importance of changing for the better, things usually go down-hill fast. No willingness to learn means making the same mistakes over and over again, ultimately preventing you from being a winning player. The wish to improve your game whenever you can has to be the foundation stone of your Poker strategy. Searching the internet for “poker training” or “poker coaching” is just the beginning, but won´t help you improve your game until your mindset is totally committed to it. I know, changing habits sometimes can be tough, especially when you´re dealing with a topic you spend your spare-time on, however it´s definitely worth it.

2)      Poor bankroll-management

Well, if the lack of willingness to learn is the no. 1 reason for players to go broke, poor or absolutely no bankroll-management is unquestionable no. 2. If you follow the instructions of our bankroll-management guide properly, it´s practically impossible to lose all of your Poker funds. So why do people go broke that have heard about bankroll-management before? The main aspect is that those guys move up too fast and go down too late when it should rather be the other way round. The problem is that it is much easier to lose a bankroll than to build one. If you play against far superior competition or risk too large of a fraction of your bankroll during one session, losing it becomes more likely.

3)      Lack of discipline

Again, it´s the old topic of structuring your actions while undertaking spare-time activities. You won´t believe how often I´ve seen players continue to re-buy into a ring-game despite being massively out-played and out-classed. You won´t believe how many players switch between different Poker games without properly preparing themselves (it´s really funny/disturbing to see players playing micro-limit PL Omaha with a NL Hold´em mindset). Discipline is nothing bad, it´s a quality that helps you preventing something incredibly stupid. Discipline means to set certain limits and playing responsibly, preventing you from losing excessive amounts of cash when being on tilt.

4)      Lack of patience

Nothing comes easy in Poker, sometimes you make all the right decisions but luck is not going your way. Sometimes one of your opponents keeps on bluffing you and all you have is “monster-hands” like 52o. Those are the times when it´s extremely important to stay patient and not doing something crazy. We already mentioned during the “Dealing with losses in Poker”-article, that stages lacking success and bad beats are part of the game and simply have to be dealt with. The worst thing you could do e.g. when seeing the maniac on the table winning hand after hand is to lose your cool, throw your strategy under the bus and trying to imitate such a playing style. When you see a crazy guy winning, you only see a small window of his Poker existence. The situations you´re not seeing is him losing big pots with marginal hands and how he has to constantly transfer new funds to his Poker account.

While playing Poker there´s no substitute for being patient! There´s no need to expect certain winnings to occur during a specific time-frame and there´s absolutely no reason to make your mind up of what to buy and how to spend potential future prize money.

5)      A loser´s mindset

Now this might sound hard at first, but some guys simply don´t have the mindset to be winners. Now, don´t get me wrong, nobody wants to lose on purpose, but in order to play to win; you have to approach the game in a particular way. So, what kinds of thought process turn somebody into a perennial loser? There are multiple potential answers to this question:

Thinking in order to have the most fun, someone has to be involved in as many hands as possible.

Attributing long-term Poker success to luck instead of personal skills, training and the ability to improve.

Reaching for the one big win instead of accumulating many little ones.

Lacking willingness to fight for their bankroll.

As you can see, a loser´s mindset has nothing to do with the way how you act in specific situations, but rather how you approach the game of Poker. Let me give you a quick example:

I once coached a player from Germany who used to play in brick and mortar casinos for quite a large amount of money. He started our program with 50 $ or so and quickly reached 800 $. After two weeks he got back into contact with me and told me that he lost everything. I asked him how he could lose so much in such a short period of time and he responded that he faced a lot of bad beats.

Now let´s take a look why that guy will continue to lose money in the future if he doesn´t change his approach to Poker. He didn´t have a problem with the first two aspects as he played pretty reasonable and read a lot about Poker. However, that man pretty quickly got greedy and declined to observe the most common rules of bankroll management. Basically, he was reaching for the big money when he wasn´t ready for it. Once superior opposition and poor bankroll management caught up to him, he showed absolutely no willingness to fight for his bankroll. Fighting means to move down to a level where you can afford to play without risking too much of your overall stack (for more on the important aspect of bankroll management, please check our article). Since this player refused to go down to a more appropriate level, he probably decided “to go out with a bang”, risking everything he had at one or two tables and subsequently losing all of his funds.

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The goal of this text was to show you the most common mistakes people made before going broke in Poker. Again, no one is forced to make these errors. Be honest to yourself and check if you´re in danger of committing one of these blunders, too and if so, try to work on your behavior, regardless whether or not you´re involved in one of our free Pokertraining.org coaching programs. It´s definitely not as hard as it might sound at first and your bankroll will definitely appreciate it.

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