Full House
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Mount Holly, NC
Posts: 813
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Section 8
I don’t have a clear plan on where to go with this section, so I may do a little wandering around until I hit my stride. I would like to talk a little bit about a topic that has been covered by many people…Soupie, Radashack, Ripptyde. I think it is so very important to being consistently successful that I will rehash it yet again…..and that is “protecting your headspace”. Protecting your headspace cover a broad range of ideas, but mainly it refers to maintaining focus regardless of what is going on around you or at the table. Becoming very self-aware is an extraordinarily difficult thing to do…many people claim to be honest with themselves but few people truly are. They allow their hopes for who they want to be, or images they feel they are expected to portray interfere with real introspection, and personal critique/growth. Many people are overly harsh on themselves…calling themselves stupid….moronic, essentially saying they suck at poker because they are unable to separate the results or plays they make from who they truly are as people. There are people that take it to the other extreme as well. They will tell everyone they meet how great they are….the very best at whatever they are doing. I can accept that some of this is trying to portray a positive outlook or psyche themselves up but it is not a true representation of who they are. Does being overly modest or overly confident benefit you in any way? I would go so far as to say that it actually hurts you….in that it hinders your ability to realistically look at yourself and your play.
Listen, I am all for the power of positive thought….and I don’t people who brag, so I am a modest person….however I struggle every single day with trying to honestly look at myself as poker player. It is easy to say you are a bad player because you played poorly….it is even easier to say you are a great player because you place 1st in several SnGs in a row. What is difficult, is honestly looking at the reasons why you played poorly…..or you played well. Constantly analyzing your game and mental state is critical for your personal growth. I’m not sure how to teach you to become “honest” with yourself, or how to simply shrug off the inevitable bad beats you will take….I have just recently reached that point myself. All I can say is you absolutely need to find a way to manage your emotions, if you don’t you will never be a winning player. I don’t often speak in absolutes….since poker is so situational, but this is so important and true that I can say it with 100% certainty…..if you don’t control your emotions you will never be a winning player! Perhaps I am more philosophical or introspective than the average person…perhaps I have simply reached a level of experience or seen the required number of good and bad things happen that I am able to shrug off bad luck or bad beats and simply continue playing my game. I absolutely hate losing, and to say I don’t get upset over taking a bad beat or making a poor play would be a lie. However, what I have been able to do is let it roll off my back and continue to play largely unaffected. I will try to describe the feeling, because I don’t know if I am doing a good job explaining myself. I have reached a point where when I make a play I don’t hold my breath waiting for the inevitable beat on the river….I don’t expect to lose when I get my chips in with the best hand…if I in fact do take a beat, I try to figure out why it happened, but do my best to not feel anything about it. In a word, lately I have felt strong. This is not to say I am not hungry for the win or have somehow lost my competitive edge. I feel as though I am better at separating my results from my overall self image. If I lose I don’t feel like a loser, it is simply a cost of doing business. My happiness or mental stability does not hinge on winning that hand or even that tournament…I am happy to just be playing a game I love. Some days I will play better than others, some days cards will go my way more than they should….other days, things will just go very wrong, but in the end that is how poker works. I you aspire to be a long term success at this game you will have to find a way to come to terms with the ups and downs of the game…and this has to be one of the most challenging skills to develop. You can learn the rules and principles of the game, you can count outs and figure pot odds on the fly, you can make great reads and lay downs….but if you cannot control yourself then you will never “break through” and become a huge success. Does any of this make sense at all? What I am trying to express is such an ambiguous and vague concept it is hard to pin down.
I have seen so many people in a perpetual state of low-grade tilt…but how do you make someone who is in this state of perma-tilt see it? Well there is not an answer to that question, they simply have to break the cycle and recognize it in themselves or blow up to full on tilt and lose a whole lot of money in the process. My whole intention for broaching the subject is to make you aware of this so that if you are in this state or get into this state you have a chance to recognize it and are able to deal with it. Many people recommend taking a break from poker to gain distance and perspective (calm down) I will not criticize this, because I am aware that people are very different, and need to handle situations in a way they are comfortable with. I will say that I do not believe in “taking breaks” I do not believe that taking a break after tilting does you any good. Essentially you are trying to hide, or escape from the out of control feeling or poor decision making instead of dealing with the issue head-on. Sure, people take breaks…cool off after taking a beat, and come back feeling better, but what have they actually learned? Have they learned to control their emotions or separate their future decisions from their past results…..no all they have done is swept the emotions or bad play under the carpet. Sure you come back feeling better for a while, but I would be willing to wager that you will tilt much easier the second, third, fourth….or hundredth time. You have not developed the critical coping skills needed to play successful long term poker, all you have taught yourself is when things become difficult run away and avoid the problem….and I am here to tell you that is not the way to become a strong player.
Perhaps you can view it as working out….developing your muscles. If you do a bunch of push-up and wake up the next day and realize you are not buff….do you quit? Of course you don’t, everyone knows that it takes time and hard work to develop your muscles and change your body…and it is often a painful process. View developing mental toughness in a similar way…when you take a break you simply delay developing your capacity to cope with the stress….you are just missing your workout.
I view telling bad beat stories in a similar way. Many people feel that it is unhealthy to hold it in, and that they can move on if they just tell the story and purge the feeling. I can certainly identify with this way of thinking…I used to do it as well. What I have learned over time is that it is counter productive. When you give in to the urge to tell that bad beat story you have just lost control of you emotions…yes you let it out and feel better right now, but you have not developed any ability to emotionally deal with the disappointment, put it past you, get incrementally stronger and move on. I realize it is a controversial subject and there are going to be a whole bunch of people that disagree with me, I have no problem with people disagreeing with me….however I know I am right in this respect. Telling bad beat stories just emphasizes the negative aspects of the game and you condition yourself to have less tolerance for dealing with the challenges in the end. Just because you “know yourself” or know what you limits for adversity are does not mean you should not strive to grow or increase you capacity to deal with it. Believe or agree with me or not, but every single successful poker player I know has given up telling bad beat stories….why do you think that is?
Section 8 Summary
• Strive to be honest and accurate while assessing your play
• Find a way to manage your emotions
• Give yourself a reasonable amount of time to develop this skill
• For the love of poker, stop telling bad beat stories
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