Jan 03, 2020  Gambling Losses. You may deduct gambling losses only if you itemize your deductions on Schedule A (Form 1040 or 1040-SR) (PDF) and kept a record of your winnings and losses. The amount of losses you deduct can't be more than the amount of gambling income you reported on your return. Jul 10, 2017 Dealing with the Death of a Child. You may each find that your experience of grief, the ways you express your grief, as well as how you deal with the loss are different. Poker downswings evaluation. Poker is a game of ups and downs, and unfortunately, the downs always feel a lot worse than the ups. There is nothing that you can do to stop the long losing sessions, you just have to let the downswing take its course and ride it out as best as you can.

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Most people who play poker at the lower stakes these days have at least a general idea of what they are doing. For the most part they know what hands to play, when to bet, when to fold and so on.

But something that very few people are prepared for is how to deal with lengthy winning and losing streaks. From my experience playing online poker and coaching at the micro stakes for over 10 years now I know that both of these are major problem areas for many newer players.

I mix it up for a few hours going down but then clawing my way back above my buy in with overall solid play. Experienced a lot of people who handle their losses in interesting ways: The whiners looking for sympathy – If your looking for sympathy at the poker table (or often in the game of life) you are barking up the wrong tree.

In this article I am going to discuss several ways you can control your emotions and play your best whether you are winning or losing big at the poker tables.

How to Deal With Heaters in Poker

Let's talk first about how to deal with winning big — after all, this is what we all play for. This is the goal. Hopefully this is a 'problem' for you (and not just occasionally).

A lengthy period of winning in poker is often referred to as a 'heater.' If you have played poker for any decent amount of time, then you have probably hit one at some point.

All the cards just keep falling your way no matter what you do. It's almost like you entered some cheat codes and you are playing the game in 'God-mode.' If you need the flush, it comes in. If you have , they have . If you have a set, they have a lower set and so on.

Sometimes these heaters can last for weeks or even months on end. This is when you hear about people doing crazy stuff like winning several tournaments in a row.

However, it is very important not to get ahead of yourself during these good runs. For one thing, when you're on a winning streak, it becomes dangerously easy to overvalue how much of your own skill is involved.

Yes, it is likely that you are playing well. Everybody plays well when every card falls perfectly for them. There is no tilt. You almost expect to win. But this can become a big problem if you start inflating your skill level and thinking you have solved the game. Because believe me, what goes up, must come down.

The best thing that you can do during a sustained heater is to play as much as possible. But you also need to stay humble. Don't jump up in stakes unless you are properly bankrolled to do so. And don't quit doing your homework away from the tables because you think you have it all figured out.

Enjoy the success, but also stay grounded.

How to Deal With Downswings in Poker

All right, let's talk about the most depressing part of poker — the downswings. I'll bet you have encountered a few of these along the way as well.

Downswings tend to remain in our memories and stick out much more than heaters. They are painful. They cause tilt. They are frustrating. You can't seem to win a hand to save your life. All your draws miss, you are getting coolered nonstop and when you finally do make a hand, they don't have anything.

Sound familiar?

This is the crash that inevitably comes after every big heater. A losing streak can be the most difficult thing to deal with for any poker player, because it can shake your confidence to its core.

A losing streak can make you question if all of your previous success was just luck. It makes you wonder if you will ever win again.

But once again, it is important not to blow these situations out of proportion by blaming yourself. The fact is, sometimes it doesn't matter how well you play, you just won't be able to win with the cards that you are being dealt currently.

This is a big reason why it is extremely important that you are doing regular session reviews during these downswings in order to make sure that it is in fact bad luck that is bringing you down.

If that is indeed the case, then it is important to avoid getting too down on yourself. Remember, everybody is going to go through one of these downswings at some point. The only question is who is going to handle it better. As long as I know that I am playing decently well, then I have learned look at these periods as opportunities to get ahead instead.

I see downswings as my chance to separate myself from everybody else by handling the adversity better than they will.

Neither of Them Are Real

The mark of a true professional, though, is coming to an understanding that neither the big heaters nor the terrible downswings are actually 'real' — or at least really indicative of how things normally are.

Both are aberrations. Both are outliers. Most of the time when we play poker we are actually running somewhere within what some might call a 'normal' range of luck. That is, sometimes we are on the right end of the cards and sometimes we are on the wrong end, and usually we don't remain that long on one end or the other.

Both heaters and downswings represent extreme cases during which we remain well outside of the regular boundaries of variance for longer-than-usual periods. That means the key to surviving lengthy winning and losing streaks at the lower limits is to understand that neither are 'real' or representative. Used casino poker chips.

In other words — you are't that good and you aren't that bad.

If you can learn to keep an even temperament throughout the endless ups and downs, then you will go a long way towards figuring out the true key to success — namely, playing for the long run and not being a slave to the never-ending short-term rollercoaster like so many others.

When you truly realize that neither the big ups nor the big downs are even real, then you can just calmly make good decisions no matter the circumstances and find true long-term success.

Final Thoughts

Dealing with the large swings that occur in poker is one of the hardest things that you will have to deal with in this game. This is especially the case at the lower limits because you expect to beat these games soundly. But sometimes you simply have to accept the variance that exists in poker and just ride it out.

When you learn to prevent yourself from getting too high during your big wins and too low during your big losses, then you will start seeing the true nature of this game.

Each time you sit down to play poker, the thing that you really control is how well you play each hand in the present moment. This is all you should be focused on.

Don't be controlled by short-term results — whether good or bad — and you will be miles ahead of your competition.

Nathan 'BlackRain79' Williams is the author of the popular micro stakes strategy books Crushing the Microstakes and Modern Small Stakes. He also blogs regularly about all things related to the micros over at www.blackrain79.com.

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If I lost $100 per week at poker it wouldn’t really affect my life. If I lost $1000 then I’d have some explaining to do and… if I had it to lose! – I spewed $10,000 I’d be in serious trouble with my girl, my bank manager and countless others! For some players, however, even that $10k is simply pocket change – enough to pay for a weekend away somewhere or even fuel for their private jet!

With Daniel Negreanu recently explaining how losing $1million would be “like, whatever” and David Williams laughing about his $5k to almost a $million and then back to -$250k all in the space of one ‘degen’ weekend at the tables, I thought we should take a look at the top 5 of poker’s biggest losers – and then laugh or cry depending on your take!

Viktor ‘Isildur1’ Blom

Let’s start with the smallest of our losses, a paltry $4.2 million give or take a few dollars! The loser? None other than Viktor ‘Isildur1’ Blom, the Swedish online sensation who had ruled the nosebleed stakes in the late noughties, crushing the likes of Tom ‘durrrr’ Dwan for $4million .

As Phil Galfond describes it:

'Isildur went on to challenge himself in ways that we still have never seen in online poker. Seared in my memory is the image of him nine-tabling $500/1000 against Dwan, Ivey, and Antonius all at the same time.”

All well and good, but when Blom finally crashed it was horrible to watch and sparked huge controversy in the poker world. In December of 2009 he played a match against Brian Hastings and had almost his entire bankroll wiped out in the space of five hours on Full Tilt poker, a $4.2million downswing which was unthinkable for the all-conquering Swede.

And then it hit the news – Townsend had collaborated with both Brian Hastings and Cole South, exchanging and discussing hand histories against Blom and new strategies to wipe the Swede out. Blom was devastated and didn’t play for several months after this. Hastings may have been over $4million richer but to this very day is looked upon with disgust by many poker fans and players for his unethical play.

Back to Galfond for a final word from when he eventually met Blom in person:

'My impression from talking to him was that he genuinely doesn’t care about the money. I know some people say they don’t care… but they care. I’m not sure Viktor does. He plays poker because he has fun playing and he enjoys the competition.”

Phil Ivey

There can’t be a single poker player on the planet who doesn’t know about Phil Ivey and his gambling excesses, although to be fair to the man these excesses have brought him a fortune estimated by some at $100million!

In recent years, however, his one-time legendary skills on the virtual felt – basically a licence to print money for Ivey – have failed him and in 2014 and 2015 he was the biggest online loser in the game.

Hundreds of sessions and hundreds of thousands of hands brought nothing but woe and misery to Ivey as he dropped $2,481,266 on PokerStars and $1,250,806 on Full Tilt in 2015, to add to his $2.3milliondownswing the previous year.

Now when you have $100million to your name and can still rake in money from the endorsements, live tournament winnings and big Macau cash games – not to mention the sport betting, baccarat and other loves of Ivey’s life – then a few million might not mean so much to you. But even so, it must have hurt Phil’s pride if not his wallet to be known as the year’s biggest loser!

Gus Hansen

Moving up the losing stakes a bit we find ourselves at the door of the Great Dane, Gus Hansen – a firm favorite of the fans and unfortunately a man who would become a firm favorite of the other high stakes kings!

His amazing run on Full Tilt prior to Black Friday in 2011 had seen Denmark’s long-time number two amass over $8million – but this turned into a horrible $20.7million loss over the next two and a half years. His online play never seemed to recover after the Black Friday shutdown, his re-appearance resulting in massive losses, while his live play was good but unspectacular during the same period.

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The reason? Well according to the man himself:

How To Deal With Poker Losses Without

'If you should rate my table selection it would be about the worst that has ever been seen. Also, my tilt factor is about the worst in the world and my stubbornness is about the worst. It's obvious that some of these factors have weighed in a led to bad my results.'

Never a good combination – even less so when you’re facing some of the all-time greats of the high stakes community. Gus is back on the comeback trail now, but the memory of this massive loss still haunts him. He stated honestly:

'One has to be honest and say that sometimes somebody catches up to you and sometimes somebody surpasses you.'

Guy Laliberte

When a ‘whale’ comes along, the sharks sharpen their teeth in anticipation! This is what happened to ‘poor’ Guy Laliberte, the Cirque du Soleil founder who managed to spew a phenomenal $28million on the online tables.

Of course the term whale is only relative – Guy being a decent poker player by most standards – but pitted against the world’s best he was shark-food. The billionaire appeared under a variety of names on Full Tilt back in 2008 and 2009 - including 'noatima’, ‘patatino’ and ‘LadyMarmalade’ - but word soon got out and he was ruthlessly targeted by the big boys.

In an interview he confessed to having been “bent over” but “provided the Vaseline himself,” adding that:

How To Deal With Poker Losses 2017

'I should have remembered that I am a dinosaur on the internet. The story of Full Tilt is clear. I have been totally ripped off. And by people I knew personally. They played with uncovered bank accounts and paid no money.”

Laliberte claims there would often be two or three “scam artists” playing against him at any one time, finding himself “squeezed out of pots” by the alleged collusion of his opponents. He said:

'I was an idiot. I was drawn like a school boy.”

Andy Beal

Even Guy’s enormous poker losses are nothing compared to those of Andy Beal, the billionaire banker, businessman and mathematician. Beal not only lost $16million in his challenge match against ‘The Corporation’ but also allegedly lost up to $50million in private home games!

The famous and riveting book - ‘The Professor, The Banker and The Suicide King’ by Michael Craig - chronicles the first of the matches between Beal and the Corporation (a pool of the world’s best players including Jennifer Harman, Chip Reese, Doyle Brunson and Ted Forrest) which Beal emerged from over $13million ahead. However, in a later ‘rematch’ Phil Ivey “proceeded to embarrass Beal and emerged from the tables having won $16.6 million”.

The other, even bigger, losses which Beal is alleged to have accrued were in games with Tobey Maguire and Beal’s fellow billionaire Alec Gores. Although undocumented, Maguire is known for his love of high stakes private games and was one of the prime movers behind Molly’s Game, which will soon begin filming as a Hollywood movie.

How To Deal With Poker Losses Free

So, my $100 or thousand bucks pales into significance when we see just how much these players have spewed over the years, but I’m not sure it’ll work as a defense with my girlfriend next time I bust out my local cash game 2 or 3 buy-ins down however!