"Gambling is difficult.
In some respects,
it's the most difficult of all endeavors.
To succeed takes
enormous conviction and commitment.
Most individuals
don't succeed because of the inability to know themselves and/or
the inability to control their own actions.
In gambling,
the only asset you have is yourself. ...the self-developed habits
or traits that undermine the very structure you're dependent on....
In gambling,
you set the guidelines and make the rules.
In effect, you
become God. When you're God, it's easy to change the rules. You
simply say: well they don't really apply to me."
The above lines come from the book
"Trading, Sex & Dying" by Joel Anderson. The subtitle
of the book is The Heart Of The Gambler
and if you can get a hold of it, you may learn quite a bit about
yourself.
It rightly points out that your mind
will play tricks on you if you do not have in place a systematic
process for entry, exit and money management. When are you going
to bet? Sounds a redundant question but if you have a systematic
approach in mind, can you stick to it? If you only want to bet
on the higher class of races (e.g. 0-72 and better), do you have
the strength of mind to sit out the early maiden races and 0 -68
and 0-58 races without regret?
Do you know in advance when you are
going to walk away - either in a daily winning or losing position?
Or is it just one long and endless downhill slide to either oblivion
or riches? (Trust me, it will most likely be oblivion if you think
it is one progression without end!)
Is your money management plan sound
and "do-able"? Are you content with small and regular
rises in your "bank" or do you crave the big hit? The
huge win? The massive payout? If it is the latter, you are odds
on to be disappointed - LITERALLY odds on!
The 95% of Australian punters who
lose in the long term, are, in fact, doing nothing more than creating
opportunities for the 5% who regularly win.
Here are a few personality gambling
types mentioned in "Trading, Sex & Dying" . You
may recognise yourself in this list - or "someone you
know"
1) The Adventurer: Always looking
for action and adventure, when at times it might be wise to wait.
Adventurers need to be in the game, and are prone to over gambling.
Adventurers do not fear much, but this can also lead to a lack
of discipline.
2) The Aggressive: Ego is a powerful
factor for Aggressives, who value winning very highly. Discipline
is a strength, though Aggressives may overreact in the heat of
battle. (position exposure) is a likely problem, as The Aggressive
wants to win big now, and this impatience can prove costly.
3) The Emotional: Here the strong
feelings can prove to be barriers in the Emotional mind. Internal
self-talk may prove to be excessively critical as Emotional feel
even small situations more intensely. Emotionals may feed off
the excitement or lack thereof in a market, which may cause them
to jump on (firmers) too late.
4) The Reflective: They may get tense
and nervous in a new situation. Reflectives are more at risk of
not pulling the trigger due to too much introspection.
All in all, "Trading, Sex &
Dying" is a pretty good read.
Horse
racing systems and research
