Comments: aokrongly's So you want to be a Pro Player?

Discuss: http://www.flopturnriver.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=111445

I <3 you aokrongly.
Ridiculously good posts. I swear everyone one of ur posts should get stickied.

By the way, that chart you sent me, I pull it out every time I play a SNG and I get lost. It brings me back to my roots. THank you very much.

Outstanding post Aok!

In my opinion, anyone who doesn't take this on board, or somehow choses to ignore what is said here, will simply learn the hard way.

From a personal p.o.v., I can chart many of the things you have identified as things I did and, if I am frankly honest with myself (as all poker players should be), I am only recently, gradually identifying and eliminating.

One minor example of this would be last night. I had my KK cracked by 10 4 suited. Was I annoyed? Yes. Did I feel like hurling abuse at the guy who did it? Of course.

However, I took a great deal of pleasure in my reaction to it. I am the first to admit that I have a pretty bad temper and six months ago I would have been steaming BIG TIME and would have promptly gone and lost a shit-load more money. Last night however, I shrugged it off and told myself that I would take that situation any day of the week, because in the long term, I am going to win.

It is only through posts and advice from players like Aok and others that my game has really come on in the last couple of weeks. I am in no way a pro player and I doubt I ever will be. I am a recreational player but I am a player who wants to win. Hell, why should my CDs, DVDs, iPod, Vacation, new clothes etc come out of my salary?!! Let the mugs who don't heed this advice pay for it.

Thanks again Aok!

Great post aok,

I played my first real money online game last night and already I can see that what you say is spot on.

Before I played last night I had spent a lot of time on this site and others trying to garnish information from all the seasoned players who so willingly offer up tips. I had heard many stories of people testifying the dangers of 'tilt' and of course I myself vowed that it would never happen to me!

However things seemed to change last night when my chips were in. After having QQ beat by J9 that hit trip 9s on the river I didn't seem to notice my attitude morph into one of '**** this'. Next hand I stupidly proceeded to go all-in on top pair with A kicker, even though I knew the dangers, promptly loosing me my last $3.

Its through posts like yours though, that I realise that the fact that I have realised what I did and can perhaps try to fix the situation the next time it occurs (and I'm sure it will) is worth more then any ammount of $3 chip stacks. And so to a certain extent, even though I lost last night I perhaps gained something more important. (Ahhh...)

So heres to striving for poker perfection high in the sky! Keep up the good work!

Amazing post aokrongly

I can't agree more with the fact that state of mind is the single most important factor in playing winning poker over time.

I consider myself a 'serious recreational player' and definitly the greatest leak in my game is handling those times when you can't win a session regardless of what you do (and anyone I know who plays poker has those times).

Posts like this one help me fix this kind of leak

Thanks

Thx for a great post aokrongly.

Wonderful post. I kind of wish I'd read it last night, when I was uninvolved in my play, lacking concentration, and vacillating between ultra-rock play and weak passive limpsville. Do you know, the more I lost, the worse I played? Who'd have thought it...

Poker is a funny game.

Do everything right and get kicked square in the balls.

Do everything sub-par and walk away 2 grand richer.

(Sub-note: I just lost my first 2k pot last night.)

-'rilla

aok, you rock

Excellent post. Worthy of a sticky.

aok, we've never talked much but this post is very well written. I appreciate you taking the time out to write it.

Thank you.

Printing it now and adding it to my 'FTR Holy Grail of Poker' Folder!!

Very Happy

*Last edited by aokrongly on Thu, 07 Sep 2006, 9:18am; edited 1 time in total*

When i think of how poker psychology works, i'm reminded of the book 1984 and "doublethink" (please don't steal my lunch money). Although every hand is in a vacuum, and no other hand affects it, you also must remember exactly how simmilar hands played out. You can't think about how you got bad beated by 67s, but it is vital to remember that he will call an allin on a flush draw (i'm just making stuff up).

This post doesn't have a real point, its just some random crap i've thouht up about poker that is sorta related to this thread.

that's very true from a tactical standpoint.

Now lets break out the "Victory Gin".

Another great post aok - thank you.

Another great post Very Happy

All of your posts should be put together, there's a lot of useful information in them Smile

Thanks AOK. Reading this and your post on the psychology of losing has explained quite a few things to me. About a week ago I lost almost my whole bankroll (which wasn't very big) through what I thought to be horrible luck and not through making bad decisions. As well as that, I lost most of it to players who I had judged as morons who were getting lucky. This put me on what I recognized to be serious tilt, but I COULD NOT leave the computer. I mean that I stayed up ALL NIGHT until my eyes and fingers were aching. When I lost hands I swore and hit myself, and when I won I gave my virtual opponenets the finger. It was really crazy. And something happened which NOW I recognize might be the most dangerous result of all - I made back all my money.

Your posts have made me think about positive and negative reinforcement and how we do it to ourselves, and getting that positive reinforcement for playing through the night on tilt might have been a very, very bad thing for me as a beginning poker player. The consequences didn't matter too much this time because my roll was so small and I was prepared to lose it. But if I somehow "learned" from this that when I am losing I should just push and push until I win again, that could put me at serious risk when I am moving up to playing with larger stakes, and when my bankroll is big enough to make me cry to lose half of it...

So anyway. Thanks for these posts. I feel like my head is a bit clearer about it and I have resolved to apply your advice about walking away when you recognize the symptoms of tilt. By the way, your describing them as physical emotional responses which I can't control was VERY helpful. Can't explain exactly why. But knowing that something is HAPPENING my BODY somehow makes it easier to deal with...rather thank thinking of the whole thing as an exclusively mental process. My body doesn't much like sitting in a chair for 8 hours straight while my head plays poker...and when the stress chemicals come pouring in it takes the opportunity to say to my brain "Right, I told you you couldn't do it, let me take over, I can play tennis pretty good can't I?" and everything (sometimes) goes to hell.

I don't know if I'll ever be a pro, but I actually think I'd LIKE to be, purely because it would be such a curious and hilarious and unexpected turn of events in my life. But I know myself quite well and I know that my biggest of all problems is self-discipline. So it's good to be aware that discipline is so important for a professional, because it makes me more realistic about what I would have to do if I was ever to get to that point.

Thanks again.

Sury,

The two most important skills, I think, to long term quality poker results are:
1. Patience
2. Patience
3. Discipline
4. Consistency

Knowledge, experience, skill, agression, etc are all trumped by lack of patience (squared), consistency and discipline. Those are the bedrock to your game. That doesn't mean you play weak or whatever. Patience means you can't FORCE the issue. Discipline is knowing your game and applying it 100% of the time, plus knowing yourself, your limits, etc. Adn Consistency is just that. If you're inconsistent is applying your game, inconsistent with patience, etc. then there's no way to MEASURE your results over a reasonable period of time and ADJUST your game to improve. Game adjustments come in increments. You add a skill or apply a theory and then test it.

It sounds like you understand that you need to understand. And that's critical. All the people who don't care what they don't know and refuse to examine their own game (and mind) are doomed. Not potentially doomed. Just doomed. They are perpetual fish on perpetual tilt.

Good luck.

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Comments: aokrongly's So you want to be a Pro Player?