Good comments in this thread. Many thanks for that video, which I'll watch with a beverage this evening.
Quote:
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.
|
If you have identified a system that you believe can be successful, and then make bets that are not dictated by it (whether ahead or behind, makes no difference), think about what that means you are doing.
It means you are doing something you yourself recognize to be suboptimal practice. You are now making bets not primarily because they represent the best calculating you can do, but for emotional (or at least less rational) reasons. You are now doing more hoping and less figuring. By your own determination, if these bets are not supported by the 'system' approach you've decided to adopt,
then these bets should not be made. Unless of course you feel like you really need the action (but see below).
I keep coming back to:
Why are these bets being made? Aren't the system bets enough? Can't you remember (of course you can) that the reason you're ahead is not because you "can't lose", but because you've applied a system well? So why are they made?
Always for emotional reasons. If they're made too often, there's good evidence that there's an emotional problem there. Tellingly, we try to minimize the importance of these habits in ourselves by calling them "leaks" or using other euphemistic language to describe them, when in fact these habits can lead not only to the potential ruination of a good approach to betting the races, but also one's life (if you don't just blow back your winnings but then also lose the mortgage money, for instance).
The successful system player needs to find something else to do for action than betting. If he can't find anything, then I think one has to consider whether one is gambling compulsively.
And Greyfox, the use of the word "You" is not meant to refer to you, obviously, since I don't know you. It's meant as a generic "you"