The Fear of Losses

If you are scared of losing your money, then you will make bad decisions.

Scared Money is a topic that is more important than one may think. The phrase 'playing with scared money' is used when you are scared of losing the money you are playing with, preventing you from making optimal decisions. You can't play in an uninhibited way any more because the money you bet compromises your decisions. Playing with scared money can be seen as a form of tilt.

On the one hand, we want to avoid playing with scared money ourselves, but on the other hand, we very much want our opponents to be playing with scared money. If we notice that a player is playing with scared money and is therefore playing a style that is very tight, we can put this player under pressure with more aggressive play, causing him to give up a lot of pots. We want our opponent to make mistakes of a psychological nature in addition to those of mathematical nature.