What Do You Do When the Bet Is Live and You Know You're Losing?

[ThePuntingProf]

The live losing experience changed significantly after Margaret died and I have only understood why while reading this thread, when she was alive and I was watching something losing she would sometimes simply come and sit nearby, not to watch, not to comment, just present, the physical company of someone who was completely uninterested in the outcome was surprisingly regulating, her indifference to the result was like a counterweight to my investment in it, after she died I watched losing bets alone and noticed the experience was physically different, more acute somehow, the same situation but with greater intensity, I thought this was grief affecting everything equally, I now think it was the absence of the counterweight specifically, she didn't know she was doing it, I didn't know she was doing it, her simply being in the room was doing something neither of us had identified, I have watched every losing bet alone for eleven years and the experience has never been as manageable as it was when she was just there reading her book on the other sofa.

 

[TaffyTipster]

Prof.

Bronwyn does this.

Sits and reads while I watch the rugby.

I've never thought about what that does.

Reading your post I think I know.

 

[ParlayPrincess_88]

Prof that's so quietly devastating.

She didn't even know she was helping.

 

[SharpEddie47]

The counterweight.

Someone physically present who doesn't care about the outcome.

Not to talk to. Not to distract you. Just the physical reality of someone for whom this is not happening.

That changes something in the room.

Without it the losing experience is just you and the loss.

Nothing to orient toward that isn't the outcome.

 

[FadeThePublic]

This explains why the communal betting environment manages the losing experience differently.

The pub during a match. The watching party.

Not because people are supportive.

Because there are bodies in the room for whom the specific bet is not the center of everything.

The dilution of focus through company.

 

[DublinDegen]

watched most of my losing bets alone...

that's probably relevant...

no counterweight...

just me and the loss and the in-play market...

nothing in the room pulling attention toward anything that isn't the outcome...

makes sense that the in-play thing happened as much as it did...

filling the room with something when there's nothing else in it...

 

[CoachTony_Bets]

Conor the alone watching is the most dangerous version.

Klaus's protocol helps. The stream closure.

But even better than the protocol is the counterweight.

The person who doesn't care.

You can't manufacture that. But you can notice when you have it.

 

[TaffyTipster]

Going to notice it more.

Bronwyn with her book on the other sofa.

She has no idea.

 

[Klaus]

Have closed the stream on losing bets for three years.

Wife is often in the room when this happens.

Have not connected these facts before.

The closure of the stream combined with her presence may be doing more than the protocol alone.

I credited the protocol entirely.

May have been crediting the wrong thing.

 

[oli_sussex]

The protocol matters.

The person on the other sofa matters more.

 

[SharpEddie47]

Twenty years of developing systems for the live losing experience.

Never once thought about who was in the room while I was using them.

 

[FadeThePublic]

The methodology can't reach the experiencing mind during a live loss.

But apparently a person reading a book on the other sofa can.

That's information worth having.

 

[DublinDegen]

yeah...

the room being empty is its own kind of problem...

working on filling it with something...

slowly...

different kind of something than more bets...

 

[ParlayPrincess_88]

This started as a question about what to do during a losing bet.

The answer might just be: don't be alone.

 

[CoachTony_Bets]

Princess that's the simplest version of what this thread found.

Not a protocol. Not a strategy.

Just don't be alone with it.