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Server Time: 2/13/2012 12:00:47 AM PACIFIC |
 Emotional & Mental Aspect of Poker, Big_Slick, 7. Jun 2003 13:51 | ||
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| I was wondering how some of the better players handle the emotional and mental aspect of the game. We all talk about how to play the cards, but what about the other side of the game? What do you tell yourself when you run into an especially bad beat, or make a series of poor plays, find yourself in the middle of a losing streak or even a winning streak. What happens you let emotion play your cards? Any thoughts would be great! | ||
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| Re: Emotional & Mental Aspect of Poker, MozMan, 7. Jun 2003 17:03 | ||
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| That's a really tough one. I will talk myself down in most cases, it's really all I can do. I do feel a little fortunate (hope I don't insult anyone here) to be a man, because I think it is much easier for men to compartmentalize their lives and be a little more emotionally distant. I tend to think it would be much more difficult for me if I were a woman. Maybe the lovelies wren or Easy E can give us some feminine perspective and let us know if I am really off base. I also find that the proper preparation helps in this comparmentalization. If I have mentally prepared myself, I don't get too high or too low from the session. -Moz "Leave the gun. Take the cannoli." | ||
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| Re: Emotional & Mental Aspect of Poker, psuasskicker, 7. Jun 2003 18:48 | ||
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| I'll try to go through a few things, as I know I go through many emotions at the table... Rushes - Rushes are a great thing in higher limit games where people are forced to respect your bets. If you catch a few big hands, and people see them (I make it a general rule where if I win a huge hand in a showdown, and catch another big hand, I show it to the table regardless if I get callers or not), you can start to take command of a table for a while. If you catch a rush, and find people respecting your action, I generally run with it. The one thing you have to be careful of is, if you're running without a hand, and someone starts to push you back, be careful. If they're a top notch player, they may just be trying to bust up your run. But regardless of skill, someone bumping heads with someone on a rush probably has a very strong hand. Bad beats - The biggest thing you need to avoid is going on tilt. Something I do every time I take a bad beat is to just mentally say to myself "I'm really glad to have guys/girls like this in the game. Even though I'm gonna take some bad beats, they're gonna feed me money over the long run." If you can say that every time you take a bad beat, AND BELIEVE IT, you'll be able to mentally recover from a bad beat without much of a problem. Tilting - Going on tilt is a very dangerous thing for your game. I have a friend in our weekly $2/$4 game that dropped $400 in a night when he went on tilt. The first thing you need to do is to figure out what puts you on tilt. What puts me on tilt is when someone bad beats me, and thinks that they played it brilliantly, not poor play while getting lucky. If you can figure out what's tilting you, you're a step closer to being able to avoid tilting. You're never going to be able to completely avoid tilting all the time. But if you can recognize what puts you on tilt, and start to play in such a way that keeps you calm when something happens that would put you on tilt, you've made great strides. The next thing to work on when tilting is your style of play when you're tilting. I've seen many good players go on tilt, and just bleed chips because they start becoming calling stations. Probably the biggest thing I've seen with good players going on tilt is, they tilt when they take a bad beat from a bad player. Then, they start playing any cards whenever that bad player is in a hand, hoping that every hand they have will beat that bad player. What I've concentrated on, and become fairly adept at, is becoming SUPER tight when I'm tilting. When I recognize that I'm on tilt, I start folding everything except first and maybe second rate power. I don't care who knows it. My primary concern is starting to get back into some money and winning hands. Maximizing value is not my main issue if I'm on tilt. What I need is to win hands, and start growing my stacks again. When I do that, I take myself off tilt. Other players - I play both in casinos and in a home game with friends. I'm about to start playing online as well. The best thing you can remember is that no matter who you know and how you feel about them at the table, you're there to take your money, and they're there to take yours. If you start getting nicey nicey, someone else is gonna start taking your money. Never mistake this for a friendly game. You can be friends and have friendly conversation with any of the players, but at the table, no one is your "friend". Another thing to consider is "making enemies". Let's say you know a good player can go on tilt by taking a bad beat. Then, you find an opportunity to limp or call a raise cold from the BB with a crappy hand. Suddenly, you drop a bad beat on him and start chiding him a bit to put him on tilt. Is this ethical? Depends. If I don't know the player, I guarantee I'd do this in a heartbeat, especially if I know I'm a better player than he/she is. If it's a friend, then you've gotta decide on your own whether you want to do something like this, and whether or not they'll be able to accept it if you do. Something to remember is that someone may do the same to you. If you play for money in a friendly weekly game, it's a good idea (whether spoken or not) to have the rule that you know that no one is a "friend" when you sit at the table. What happens at the table, stays on the table...no one gets upset off the table at anyone for any reason for something that happens on the table. Misc - Probably the biggest weakness in my overall game happens when I lose a few hands in a row. All of a sudden I start to get this general feeling where I start saying to myself "Man, you just don't know how to play cards." Literally, I suddenly feel like I'm the fish at the table, and nothing I do can work. It's a form of tilting I guess. Basically, the best thing you can do is tighten up, try to start winning a few hands, and get out of the funk. Something I do sometimes is getting up and going to the bathroom. While there, I just wash my face off, take a few deep breaths, clear my mind, and just take a few moments away from the table. Generally, the best thing you can do is try to put all emotions aside. This is a game that's best played without emotion. So the more you can put it on the sideline, and do whatever's best to win you the money, the more money you'll win. These are just my thoughts/opinions. Good luck! - C - | ||
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| Re: Emotional & Mental Aspect of Poker, Andrew Wells, 7. Jun 2003 22:03 | ||
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| This is one of the best posts I've read here in a long time. | ||
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| Re: Emotional & Mental Aspect of Poker, 4 POKER, 7. Jun 2003 19:58 | ||
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| What I do to keep my emotions in tact is this: If I take a tough beat, I simply just take a deep beath and shrug it off. I know that it is impossible to win every hand regardless of what cards you may be holding- that is what makes the game interesting and keeps the average and/or the week/bad players coming back for more. In the long run I know I will be getting the money and will be able to have profited from these players as well. I also know that I, too put tough beats on my opponents; maybe not as often, but it does happen- I just shrug it off. If I feel for whatever reason that my emotions are getting the best of me(and sometimes that occurs also, we are all human), then I quietly get up from the table, act like I'm going for a cigarette break, and I'll take a few minutes(maybe longer) to give myself a silent pep talk. I will reevaluate my "play" as to make sure that I am not tired or angry about something and if I'm not, I'll go sit back down.But, if I am the least bit out of sorts, then I will remove myself from that game immediately. I have done it before and I have good discipline skills to know that I can't profit at the table if I'm not at my best. As far as tilting goes; there was a very small chapter in one of Tom McEvoy's books that discussed the ZTF(Zero Tilt Factor) which simply talked about never playiing a bad hand because you may have just taken a tough beat. I had read that paragraph over and over and believe it or not, it has helped me to do just that. If I catch myself looking to "get lucky", before I throw my money into the pot, I'll pause for a second or two, think about the ZTF and say to myself,"Don't do it, just have patience, things wil turn around." (It has been helpful to me thus far).They may not turn around that particular day but that is what experienced players are capable of doing- they have the ability, smarts, and the discipline to stay in focus as to why they are there in the first place($) and they also have the common sense to call it quits when things are not going their way. There was also an article in Cardplayer Magazine that was written by Mike Caro.I had read that article many years ago and he talked about, when you lose a hand, play the next one as if it was your very first hand that you were playing. They may have not been his exact words but I knew what he was trying to put across-Don't let your emotions cloud your abilities to making the right decisions. It must have had some kind of impact on me for I can still remember that article as if it was written yesterday. These are just some psychological mind games that act as positive re-inforcements for me and I believe that if we chose to want to succeed than you will be able to psyche yourself up for anything. They are some of the factors that separate the winning poker player from the average and/or losing player. 4 POKER | ||
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| Re: Emotional & Mental Aspect of Poker, gary ford, 7. Jun 2003 20:28 | ||
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| DISCIPLINE=MATURITY When I was in that treatment program, ( I called it drunk school ) they taught us an acronym---H.A.L.T. it stands for hungry ,angry ,lonely, tired. Those are the times when you are most vulnerable to taking a drink-- they are also the times you are most likely to go on tilt and play badly. Gary | ||
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| Re: Emotional & Mental Aspect of Poker, stdioh, 10. Jun 2003 11:06 | ||
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| A lot of it comes from boredom, to be honest. Once you've been playing long enough, you've seen it all. Then when somebody makes so increadibly stupid and slim draw against you, it might still get you mad, but it won't throw you on tilt. You'll shrug, shake your head, tap your hand, say "nice hand" and play the next one. | ||
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