MENTAL GAME
 

Has anyone heard of good advice to manage the mental game. When you have success with an method and it runs your bankroll to a new high. Then for some reason you seem to go haywire and start betting tons of different wagers. Things not in your "system" because you get the cant lose mentality from all the success. Then you start to lose, get behind , start chasing and blow your bankroll. I have done this 10 times or more and seen friends do the same.

I think its as hard to defeat as the game itself. Please no silly answers like dont go haywire and bet other races out of boredom. We all know thats impossible and we are all guilty of it.

Mr R Taulbot

Quote:

patience with a capital "P"

http://www.americanturf.com/pace/ray...m?articleid=22

Is this meant to imply that you agree with Mr. Taulbot's wagering advice Charlie?

Nope!!


My post does however, imply i agree with him regarding patience is needed in this Great Game.

I hope you don't think that this is a silly answer...because it is something that it took me years to learn.

The most important quality that a horseplayer can have if he hopes to profit in this game, is discipline. Without discipline...even the best handicapper in the world is flirting with financial disaster.

What is discipline?

It is not easy to say what it is...but it is much easier to state what it isn't.

If you change your system or method every time you hit a losing streak...if you cannot accept a losing day at the track without making desperate efforts in order to get even...if you increase your bets when you are losing...if races that looked unplayable at home, suddenly become playable at the track when you are losing...then you don't have the discipline that we are talking about.

And if you are playing with insignificant money whose loss can easily be chalked up to entertainment...that's fine.

But if you are playing for serious money, and you lack discipline...then you are dead.

You just don't know it yet...

:ThmbUp: :ThmbUp: to that post thaskalos.

Thanks, the article was very good and it cracked me up because I'm a place player haha..... The article really reinforces the disapline needed to be successful. The silly answer is the best answer and really is correct. Stop betting when you win your profit goal. That would stop my issue of going wild and playing after I am way ahead. Removing profits from my bankroll would reduce the sense of wasting my time trying to win $100 when im ahead 3k for the week. With a low bankroll I would feel less likely to bet large amounts and to deminish mentally the accomplishments of winning $100.

I've thought about this a lot and would agree with you that mental skills are the absolute dead-centre key to success in this game. We don't need 'more, better, best' analysis tools or wager decision tools - just pick a good one and master it. We need to master ourselves during the often counter-intuitive process of making decisions on imprecise information, in a risk environment where anything can happen in the short-term, over a long-term series of events.

You may find the following link useful: http://sartinmethodology.com/betting...istent-results

Ted

in a nutshell

Teddy


Not sure if it would help, but can you not make use of these conditional interfaces that are available.

Input your bets and leave them to trigger while your relaxing doing something else, if your conditions are not met no damage done.

I am still new to the game (not quite two years), and I have already done his too many times to count. I am modest hobby player, but I have run my bankroll up to serious money as defined by my means, and then crashed and burned exactly how you described.

1. I tried writing those :bang: moments down and the date so as to have a reminder to "never do that again." Worked for awhile and I still avoid certain tracks, but was not the complete solution.

2. Next I tried putting aside a small portion for action bets, but realized those action bets really add up when playing with a small bankroll.

3. Right now I am trying the cold dime super with live longer odds horses for action. That seemed to work and even hit a cold $200.00 dime super. Recently however, "I did it again."

My wife is supportive and impressed when I am playing smart, but says I don't have the traits to show the discipline over the long run to not have to reload the bankroll. (At least, that is what she told me when she took the majority of the cash from my first signer.)

Fact is, she is right.

The mental game has to be learned and become ingrained.

The best thing is to KNOW yourself. Keep a diary of your logic, wager choices and why. REVIEW....It is where I discovered two situations that hemorrhaged money for some time before I was even aware of it.

Understand that handicapping is not wagering but only the first step in isolated contenders before you THEN tackle wager creation if the odds even warrant it.

I find that most people new to the game have a hard time passing a race. If the money is not there simply look elsewhere as simulcasting offers many prospects each day....BE SELECTIVE.

First hand I learned from the best which was Andy Smitts who mentored under Ray Taulbot and first and formost was patience, the taking a win pool down came next. I never had the chance to meet Ray as he passed on in 69 but I met Andy in 1970 and he passed on his time with Ray.

Not handling the mental ups and downs of this game has ruined many a top notch handicapper. You can pick em great, but when it comes to investing hard earned money (and lots of it) at the windows on unpopular opinions is the toughest thing to master.

Handling vicious beats and unwarranted DQs is the hardest thing to get over. As the years go by, you'll get better and better at dealing with the heartbreak, but its definitely something you have to master.

Never get too high when you win and never get to low when you lose as the next opportunity is 20 minutes away.

Winning and an expanding bankroll, for many people, is like Viagra for your ego. It expands your ego till you THINK you are a handicapping GOD! Stop expanding your ego when you win and you will stop those UP/Down cycles.