How Do You Deal With Losing? MLB Edition.

Spank the monkey 

Walter Abrams (played by Al Pacino) quote from the movie Two For The Money. “You're a lemon. Like a bad car. There is something... there is something inherently defective in you, and you, and you, and me, and all of us. We're all lemons. We look like everyone else, but what makes us different is our defect. See, most gamblers, when they go to gamble, they go to win. When we go to gamble, we go to lose. Subconsciously. Me, I never feel better than when they're raking the chips away; not bringing them in. And everyone here knows what I'm talking about. Hell, even when we win it's just a matter of time before we give it all back. But when we lose, that's another story. When we lose, and I'm talking about the kind of loss that makes your asshole pucker to the size of a decimal point - you know what I mean - You've just recreated the worst possible nightmare this side of malignant cancer, for the twentieth goddamn time; and you're standing there and you suddenly realise, Hey, I'm still... here. I'm still breathing. I'm still alive. Us lemons, we fuck shit up all the time on purpose. Because we constantly need to remind ourselves we're alive. Gambling's not your problem. It's this fucked up need to feel something. To convince yourself you exist. That's the problem.”

greatest quote of all time bennet. just cant believe they didnt knock that ball down to give em the under!

lost 2 in a row before that 13 straight!!  lfe is a game of streaks  gl my freinds!!

If you  are  honest with  yourself and you've  gambled more than a little while,  the  bad  beats  are  usually offset with spectacular  wins......  just  remember for every loss , there is someone on the opposite side who  is  doing the philli dance.  bottom of the  ninth, bases loaded and someone hits a  grand slam to win the game or  hit the over. 

As far as sustained losing streaks,  they  come and  go  to. I rationalize my  gaming by staying away  from the stock market; options, puts/calls, short sales, margin, etc where with  sports , I  get  my jollies but I control my  exposure to  a few  thousand come and  go, but  with trading , the risk can  be higher.

In my opinion,  the  secret to gambling is  not so  much how  good a capper you are, (it  always helps to know something) but

how well you  control your  emotions of FEAR and GREED.

You  could  write a thesis on FEAR and GREED

When I lose a bet, I forget about it and spend some time with my girlfriend. No sense in getting upset. I'll win it back the next night or later that night.

I'm a jobless MBA college kid and bet pretty high amounts, so the bets are important to my well being financially, but getting upset will just make me go on tilt.

Unlike most gamblers, I can admit when I get lucky. I had the under 8.5 last night in Orioles/Cardinals and Luke Scott saved a two run HR in the top of the 9th from Holliday to preserve a 6-2 win for the Cardinals, instead of an 8-2 win.

And this is why everyone thinks your a pompous, arrogant asshole.

Once you realise that betting, especially betting on baseball is simply luck, you start to become at peace within yourself.

100% agreed. People often get angry and upset when i remind them of this, mainly because they think it is there skill that got them the win. That couldnt be further from he truth. It was simply a coincidence.......

@Rostos:

Just for clarification, you believe baseball betting is all luck?

"ALL" is probably an exaggertayion, i would dare say around 70%. Why hasnt there been any back to backs, three peats and dynasties in baseball?

There isnt a salary cap and you have teams with very lopsided talent, yet we see no domination in terms of WS titles.

Have a read of this article in the wall street journal a while ago. This has already been looked into.

How many previews of games do you read and comments by managers and players both winning and losing ones sighting luck as a dominant force in the result. Note i said winning ones as well so it isnt sour grapes, just telling everyone how it is,

https://online.wsj.com/article/SB115109391791589205.html 

Excellent, insightful post, SJP, and excellent responses from the respondents.

I bet -- "invest" -- professionally for a living, so winning is essential for me, so bad beats -- like I had with the damn Over with the Cards/Orioles last night -- really do get to me right now. And this bad beat was preceded by another bad beat the day before that really should have won. I was really fucking pissed. I also had Yanks RL, RL and Over, Alt RL last night, so that really helped mitigate the bad beat from the Cards game.

After my bankroll will have grown and I'm well into having substantial "house money", compared to my initial investment levels, then I won't stress so much over bad beats, as I know for certain that I'd win all the losses back, and then some.

So how do I handle it? I used to beat up empty boxes -- kick them around, smash them and tear the mutherfuckers to pieces, then calmly take the pieces to the recycling bins 'n stuff them. Then I'd pound a few more licks on the big, plastic recycling bins. But the energy spent being full-blown angry was damaging to my own energy field, so I had to stop doing that.

But now I eat ice cream for the healing phase of my bad-beat medicine. Chocolate with huge chunks of chocolate... Chocolate Fudge Brownie by Ben 'n Jerry's... now that's awesome! Or any chocolate Haagen Daz would do... no fluffy, commercial ice cream is tolerated.

But I no longer eat store-bought ice cream, as that's fattening, so I make my own ice cream with the use of raw ingredients -- raw cream, raw milk, unheated honey, organic fruits and loads of organic chocolate syrup.

I have a simple ice cream maker that I use and keep in the freezer, so it takes a good 20 minutes of constant stirring that cold thing to make the ice cream, so I do that after I take a walk to the nearby snow-swollen creek to splash cold-assed water on my face and pour the cold-assed water on my head to cool myself off first before working hands-on with food. And that's at night with 45-degree weather right now. The cold-water trick REALLY does work very well to literally cool me off.

The home-made ice cream is healing medicine for me emotionally, as well as physically, but I first cool off with my face/head being washed with cold, snow-melt water.

My buddy, Aajonus Vanderplanitz, www.primaldiet.com , had an obese woman make and eat home-made ice cream from raw ingredients for nearly a full year and she lost all her obesity and now is fit as hell. Losing weight with ice cream -- imagine that.

So the cooling-off with cold water is the first and most important phase in dealing with bad beats; the healing phase is the eating of quality ice cream. Oh, when I make the ice cream, I don't eat all of it and save the rest for future bad beats that surely will happen from time to time.

And I'm glad that you -- SJP -- got rid of that "Dr. Philli" thing -- I really scowled when I saw that, as it's an insult to those who have real Doctorates that they've worked hard to earn the right to such a title. I suppose that it was done with humor, but such humor won't carry well with people, I suspect, and this would be solid grounds with which people would bash you.

If i lose a bet or two i usually just throw some darts at a SJP picture, usually does the job

@buntyketti

I appreciate it. Thank you.

Wow...then that whole "Hail to the King" and "Cordially invited to the coronation (insert laughter really here...welll everywhere) of the King" when LeBlah gets his 4th quarter rolling musta really been tough.

I found those posts by a "paid" covers columnist to be ridiculously biased and obnoxious and, of course, way off wrong. So, that is why I have been reciprocative.

Done now harping on ya. Good luck dealing with all your losing.  Myself...I run a mile for every unit lost....so 20-25 miles a week and sit the equivalent of 60-70 miles a week on my arse watching sports.

Can't wait to see your posts for college football. Oh boy...or girl! 

@evilelvis:

It wasn't the first time I was wrong and I'm sure it won't be the last.

Maybe that's a coping mechanism for me? Understanding that even at my best, I'm going to be wrong 45% of the time.

On really close losses I brood for a couple of days, but I tend to get over it.But the whole crappy bullpen is enough to be livid. Went to bad last night with the Nats up 5-3 vs, Angels, then woke up and an 11-5 loss. Was steamed. What actually keeps me going is the existence of the San Diego Padres and Oakland A's. When i get in a slump, I parlay the unders for these two teams, or I pick  low team totals, or I pick them as one run games, which happens a lot. It's torture watching those two teams, but sooner or later you will hit on something from these two teams.

I went 2-1-1 for the second straight day 

I channel my inner Carlos Perez

@vetdrm:

I cut myself with a protractor.

why are you suprised? sports betting is responsible for 87% of domestic violence. Domestic violence reached its peak in miami during the NBA finals.