I've been doing pretty well since April 1 (until this month) when I resolved to just become a 100% devotee of mental game of poker. May as well throw the results out there, if only to help me regain a bit of confidence after a chastening few days!
The first 4 months above, I was super hot on all mental game issues. Yesterday I engaged in some brutally honest introspection, and it struck home to me just how bad my mental game has gotten in the last 4 months.
Having 'good mental game' doesn't just mean 'being calm' or 'not tilting'. Just being calm, or not tilting, is impossible without addressing the fundamental beliefs and core values that are at the heart of all tilt.
I realise that I've kinda gotten away with it in the past 4 months........ though not exactly I guess, as at present it's 4 months breaking even. During this time I've been paying 'lip service' to the mental game, telling myself and others that I have it, whilst not doing anything day to day in order to maintain it and correct erroneous thoughts.
I'll give a few examples....... say I sit down to play and I don't feel 100% right about it. Maybe there's something nagging at me from real life, maybe I'm slightly light headed and a bit hungry. Currently, I'd probably give playing a shot anyway, because there's no core belief stopping from me from doing so.
When mental game is good though, I walk away from the computer and have the complete belief that I'm actually earning money by doing so. This isn't tricking my mind or anything close to it, it's 100% truth. Money lost is money lost, and money not lost through good mental game is as good as money won. So your month ends up being more like heater heater heater heater, actually legit downswing, heater heater heater and you end the month up 40BIs instead of the 10 you would've won.
Think about how a typical month goes if you're a winner. Something like, heater heater heater, downswing, downswing, heater heater, downswing. Well, I'm a big believer that 'variance' (in the sense that all variables such as player ability and mental state stay the same) is overstated, and the variance in your months comes largely from the variance in how you play and the difference in your mental state. I had so very very few losing sessions in those first 4 months, simply because I 'knew' I was going to lose before I even started, and felt a real buzz in walking away and going for a run instead.
This obviously also goes for being tilted mid session. Bit annoyed about something? Then boom, quit and you've just earned yourself a ton. And you don't even have to sit and grind to earn it! You can load up the wire, and you're sitting watching and printing the reciprocal dollars that every other reg is burning in the same spot.
To further prove my point about variance being overstated, when was the last time you played tilted and actually won? (from the point of being tilted). What I realised last night is that I've probably played like 400 tilted sessions in my life....... and I can't remember winning, literally, any of them! If variance was such a factor, then you should get away with being tilted from time to time and still come out 4 BIs up or whatever. Just never happens. Ever.
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Another example......... you know when fish in a casino go on about how AK always loses for them, and you sorta do an internal eye roll at their stupidity. Well, this is in fact a mental leak. A really obvious and easily understood mental leak, but a mental leak nonetheless.
Now, when on top of my mental game back in June, other poker players in my Skype groups would come out with the pro-equivalent stuff like 'OTBaron runs so hot constantly', or talk about their own short term wins and losses, or post bad beats or coolers........ and I can remember doing the exact same internal eye roll as I would do for a casino fish. Probably more pronounced in fact, cos this shit is coming from actual professional poker players........ who don't seem to understand that bad beats happen and will happen again, and will very likely clump together in twos or threes from time to time.
That kind of chat is very common in skype groups, and hasn't gone away. Have I been having that same reaction to it though? The answer is no. I've become absorbed in it again, and maybe even posted my own hard luck stories. I don't believe doing so is compatible with not giving a fuck when your AA loses to JJ pf the 2nd time in a session. When mental game is good, then mental leaks in others and how they're going to affect them are instantly noticeable. My plan is to get back to that.
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So yeah, I need to turn around this mental oil tanker, keep reminding myself and affirming this stuff until my unconscious brain actually believes all this stuff again. I'm very close to it now actually just from writing this blog.
Next step is to play a very short session and grade myself only on the quality of the play, not the $ won. (Which I've been obsessed with for the past 3-4 months). Think about mental issues before and after, and slowly build up my session time until I'm playing really well again.
That's all. If Dodgy is reading this, then let's arrange something to do with watching some of the Ashes together!
Bye, Dan
