Emotional Mastery (Part 1)
Here's a fun topic I spent some time working on. It's incomplete but this is an endless topic. Does it make sense to anyone else, or just me? (to give credit where it's due. This is my take on Anthony Robbins - you can do a search for his books.)
Realizing Emotional Mastery, Step by Step.
This is Performance POKER, right? What does emotion have to do with it? Emotion has plenty to do with it, and you need to work this section just like you work all the others. It WILL make a difference both in how much you win, and in the way that poker affects your life.
“Tilt” is poker cancer. You catch it, you die. It is that simple. And tilt is caused by a visceral, emotional response to what’s happening. Make sense?
Online poker is a very “in your head” activity. You stare at a computer screen. Your emotions take a roller-coaster ride. It’s all the adrenaline of a wrestling match without the physical activity. You need to be able to deal with it or it can affect your health. Make sense? {D.U.C.Y.? }
What happens online doesn’t stay online. You have family and friends with whom you interact. You have other activities and responsibilities beyond poker. When bad poker experiences become bad life experiences you’re in for serious problems that can affect both your poker and your life. You still with me?
The most common effects of poor emotional mastery over online poker are:
Sleep loss
Disruptions in relationships with your spouse or family
Losing money by going on tilt
Things getting thrown from your computer desk and broken computer mice (from being slammed down after a bad beat)
Lingering feelings of Extreme frustration and/or desperation
You have to understand that some of these effects are caused by mental stimuli, some are caused by emotional stimuli, and some are caused by physical effects of mental and emotional stimuli. If you don’t have the tools to address the effects and keep them in check then you will:
lose money,
damage relationships,
and hurt your emotional and physical health.
Most poker players are men, and men generally don’t acknowledge emotion. In poker most men see things as mathematical, strategic, good and bad, right and wrong, smart and stupid. “I did this, which was SMART. The idiot did that, which was STUPID. The idiot won, which is WRONG!!” RIGHT?
Bad beats are the most common cause of emotional explosions. Emotional explosion doesn’t mean YOU exploded or did something violent, it means you experienced an emotional surge. Losing sessions are the most common cause of lingering emotional “grass fires" that burn low, but burn long. Not having your expectations fulfilled is the most common cause of frustration and even desperation. We’ll call these common emotional effects of poker, and anything else like them, Emotional Disruptions. (For Star Wars fans they are disruptions in The Force.)
I have to warn you, though, that the solution isn’t a simple thing you will read about and that will magically provide you protection from the effects of emotional disruption. You will need to pay close attention, do the exercises and remember the tools, just like you remember starting hands, betting patterns, and anything else in poker. The skill of staying emotionally even IS a vital POKER TOOL that is Required to be a Performance Poker player. So, knuckle down.
Step 1 – Recognize You Are An Emotional Being
Whether you feel enraged or just a little uncomfortable, whether your head is about to explode or you just feel a ping in the pit of your stomach your emotions do affect your play. What you need to realize is anything other than calm, assertive, positive energy can affect your play and your life negatively. It doesn’t matter if you weigh 250 pounds, bench press 250 pounds, or jump out of helicopters for a living, you are an emotional being. Ignore it and you will pay the price. Embrace it and you will learn that harnassing your emotions can be a powerful and useful poker weapon.
Here’s how it works. When you lose, your body secretes hormones that change your physical state. When you lose unexpectedly, hormones wash over your system causing an immediate and persistent physical reaction. The same happens when you win unexpectedly, from say catching a card on the river. Early in your poker career LOTS of things can cause this physical reaction because almost everything is new and unexpected. As you gain experience it will happen less often, but still more than once per playing session. If you don’t deal with the physical effects they will cost you money.
What are the signs of emotional reactions? They are ALL of the following:
Disappointment
Shock
Relief
Exultation
Feeling Powerful or smart
Dejection
Jealousy of other players’ money or luck
Wanting to take revenge
Focusing on any one other player at the table
Hate
Anger
Giddiness
Laughter
Gloating
Pointing out other’s faults or bad play
Desperation
Feeling “behind”
Feeling unbeatable
Wanting to “catch up”
Wanting to “prove” how good a player you are
Feeling “taken advantage of” or “pushed around”
Feeling “ahead”
“This is my night” or “This isn’t my night”
“It’s My Turn to win a hand”
Plus much more
You see, NONE of these things have ANYTHING to do with the hand you are playing right now. The fact that Johnny Lucky got lucky on the last hand and took half your stack doesn’t change the cards you have right now. It doesn’t change the cards he has right now. And it doesn’t change the fact that there are 7 or 8 other players sitting at the table couldn’t care less that you want to “teach him a lesson”. They are playing poker. And they are happy to intercept the money you’re throwing out to push Johnny Lucky out of the pot.
The reality is that we Do feel this way at times. There will be no session where you don’t feel at least one of the emotions listed above (or something similar). So how should you react if you want to be a Performance Poker player?
Follow Step 2 – Stop, Drop and Roll
Our version of Stop, Drop and Roll is… Pause, Breath and Clear.
Pause…. Breath…. and Clear
That’s how you have to train yourself to react when emotional thoughts invade your Performance Poker execution. In some instances you can Pause, Breathe and Clear before the next flop hits the table. In other instances you will need to deal yourself out for a few hands. And more regularly than you might think you will need to just turn off the computer and leave it off until you can play with a clear mind.
I would recommend that you enter a state of constant emotional examination while playing poker. That you do everything calmly and with purpose (Pause), that you develop a habit of sitting correctly and breathing fully (Breathe), and that you focus all your efforts on what’s happening in front of you right now (Clear). For most players this is too much to ask. Developing and maintaining constant emotional clarity is something that (if achievable at all) takes years of dedicated practice. (Think of a Buddhist Monk.) However, if you are going to be a Performance Poker player you Must take this into consideration during every session. If you’re going to play “emotional thrill-ride poker” then you’re going to erode your winnings consistently.
“I can’t do that! I play with emotion!! When I play with emotion I play better. I’m not a robot!” (that’s you saying that… by the way, if you are… saying that… by the way…)
If you do feel that way, first you need to separate Focus from Emotional Intensity. Some people are very focused, very interested in everything that happens at the table. That’s good. Others are less focused. They recline and relax until they see something that brings them into focus on the game. That’s fine too. However, both of those have to do with Focus, not Emotional Intensity. Emotional Intensity is CARING about what’s happening. There’s a difference. Focus is being VERY INTERESTED. Emotional Intensity is CARING. If I’m interested then I’m observing, I’m watching, I’m gathering information, learning, calculating the most probable outcome but having no investment in what outcome actually occurs. When I care, then I DO have an investment in the outcome. I WANT something to happen. I may not even be in the hand but I WANT Johnny Lucky to lose, because that’s what SHOULD HAPPEN!! Do you see the difference? {DUCY?}
In poker be the chicken, not the pig. You know the old saying that a chicken is “interested” in your breakfast and a pig is “committed” – or some such thing. The chicken gives an egg, the pig gets slaughtered. Be the chicken, not the pig. You can always make more eggs… (it’s a good analogy… you’ll remember it later.)
So, the first skill we are going to instill is PAUSE.
Whether you are focused, interested or obsessed, you need to learn to PAUSE. Pausing is taking your focus away from the game. Redirect your eyes, redirect your body, redirect your mind, redirect your thoughts. You need to make a break in the stream of thoughts and emotions that have been occurring. Sit back, remove your hands from the computer, turn your chair away, look out the window, get up, walk away.
When you notice ANY emotional content in your mind then you have to immediately acknowledge it and PAUSE. That means when you notice it, you take a second (or more) and disrupt your focus on the game. This can literally happen in the middle of a hand. The turn hits and it’s the one card you didn’t want to see. You catch a shot of electricity. “I can’t Believe it!” Right there and then, PAUSE. Disrupt your focus on the card, on the hand, on the game. If even for just 3 seconds.
“Are you crazy?!!! The computer is beeping at me! It wants me to decide what to do!! I’m playing 4 tables for God’s sake!!! I’ll take a break when the blinds come back around, or in 15 minutes, or … or… or…”
Here’s an exercise you must be able to do to play Performance Poker. Walk away from a running poker game, or even four. Get up and walk away. Go to the bathroom, get a drink, answer the door, talk to your kid who is asking a question. Don’t run, don’t rush to get back. Let the blinds pass you. Let the computer auto-fold you. Sit Out!
Don’t watch the computer to see what hands you get. Who cares? When you need to take a PAUSE. And you need to have the discipline and strength and power to just do it. Know that taking a Pause is more important than playing a hand – or even seeing your cards.
Remember:
Tilt is poker cancer.
The physical ramifications of unbroken emotional and mental stimulation are hazardous to your health.
If you can’t take a pause, you damage relationships with people who are far more valuable than poker.
Are you LOSING MONEY because you can’t turn away in times of emotional distress? “I’m going to get that guy back.” “Now I’m behind and need to catch up.” “This damn game is brutal, but my luck is going to turn if I just keep playing.” “I’ll show these guys they can’t push me around.”
Commit yourself to recognize any emotional “electricity”. Learn to spot at emotional content in your mind. And learn to pause immediately when you notice it and move on to the next poker skill.
The 2nd poker skill in our Pause, Breathe and Clear exercise is to Breathe.
Breathing is critical to performance. An athlete who knows how to breathe better than his competitor (with the same skill level) will win. Breathing oxygenates the body and mind. Breathing deeply stimulates stress reducers, it removes toxins, it fills the blood with oxygen and the body with life. Poker is no different. The brain requires lots of blood because it requires lots of oxygen. Online poker causes people to slump toward the screen, focus more on the action than on their posture or whether they are even breathing at all. We hold our breath waiting for the next card. Boom! The next card is the one we didn’t want to see. Quick, what should you do? Bet, raise, check? How much to bet? What’s your position, how many opponents do you have, what do they have, etc.? You’re trying to run mental wind sprints without any Wind! Pause… and BREATHE! Oxygenate your brain cells. THINK! Be the chicken, not the pig.
In Performance Poker we are going to do things deliberately. We aren’t going to react automatically, and we are certainly not going to react automatically when we’ve just had that ping of emotional electricity. We are going to Pause – break your focus for a second. We are going to Breathe – sit up, breathe in deeply though your nose… Make some noise with it. Breathe out through your mouth, and again two or three times. This is one of the blessings of online poker! If you did this at a live table you would be roasted alive! FORGET THE POKER FACE! Remember Performance Poker is about winning money Online.
Step 3, Clear The Emotion. Finally we are going to clear the emotion.
This is the hardest part. It’s also the part that you have to commit to doing. If you don’t commit yourself to doing whatever it takes to clear the emotion AND to interrupt your play UNTIL the emotion is cleared, then you’re literally throwing money away. Here’s the real deal. Listen carefully. If you can’t pause, breathe and walk away from the table for 2 minutes over “small” emotional incidents (we’ll call them “shooters” – where you get a shot of emotional feeling) then you will NEVER be able to walk away when the big emotional hits come your way. In other words, you will have NO ABILITY TO AVOID TILT. And what’s tilt? Poker Cancer! It will kill you.
So, we have to be able to Clear the emotion. Some emotions are easy to clear. Some are much harder. Some can be cleared in 10 seconds, others take 10 days. You must commit yourself to doing whatever it takes for however long it takes to clear you mind before continuing play.
Here’s a scenario. You’re playing 4 tables. You just started 15 minutes before. You’re just getting a feel for the action. You get pocket queens in early position. You raise. Another player calls. A third player reraises you. “Hmm” you think. “Does he have jacks or worse? I know caller dude has AK or worse, so the chances of the other guy have AA or KK are small.” You want to isolate. So you push. The first guy folds and the reraiser calls and turns over KK. You lose 80% of one table buy-in 15 minutes into the session due to a questionable decision.
You feel disappointed in your decision. Boom! Disappointment is an emotional reaction. If you had the time to really examine all your feelings you would also notice that you feel foolish for making such a bad read. You feel like the other players at the table see you as “a fish”. You know that you’re a better player than that and determine to show them what a tight, aggressive, masterful player you are.
So, what’s really happening is that you have 4-5 emotional reactions all tied up in a knot. You’re only really aware of the most powerful one, however, which is disappointment if your decision.
Three other tables are beeping at you. The players THERE don’t know you make such a crappy move. Oh, except for player TIDYWHITEY who is playing on all the tables too. “How can I use that against TIDYWHITEY? He thinks I’m a fish.” And on you go playing.
Now what’s happening? First, you’ve probably given up on the first table – where you made the bad push. Maybe you replenish your table buy-in, maybe you don’t. Second, you’re caring about what TIDYWHITEY thinks on all your tables. And, third you are committing not to make the “same mistake” again this session.
ALL OF THOSE ARE TILT MOVES. Every, single one! You’re going to lose money that you don’t have to lose. Oh, and don’t forget that now you need to “make up” the money you lost.
Write this down 25 times:
“ANY thought of previous hands with emotional content IS tilt.”
Any, that means any little speck of though about a previous hand WITH EMOTIONAL CONTENT is TILT.
People talk about tilt all the time, but they don’t know the definition. Here it is again.
Any thought of PREVIOUS hands with EMOTIONAL content is TILT. I keep changing the emphasis because you need to examine every word here.
How do you “clear” negative emotions? There are two methods we are going to focus on here. One is through physically dissipating the emotion and the second is through managing our beliefs.
Clearing negative emotions physically.
Remember that even though poker appears to be mental, it is also very physical. As you play hands your body reacts. As hands effect you negatively “toxins” build up in the form of tension and chemical/physical reactions to mental/virtual occurrences. I think this is fairly clear, but if you don’t agree then consider any sporting event that you watch on TV (and care about). You aren’t playing the sport. You’re sitting in your home watching it. And yet you go through highs and lows, physical reactions to something that: is virtual (you aren’t there) and doesn’t involve you (whether they win or lose makes no real difference to your life).
Online poker is much more real than a TV sporting event, and the physical reactions you experience are more real as well. So we have to counteract them; because, again, they will lose money for you if you play with negative emotions.
The best way to dissipate the accumulation of chemical stressors is through physical activity. Get away from the computer and do something physical.
Take a shower
Take a jog
Vaccum the house
Walk the dog
Drive with the windows open in the car
Play with the kids
Have sex
Whatever physical activity works for you then do it. It’s as simple as that. You know you’re ready to play when you are “over” whatever negative thoughts are associated with the cause of your emotional disruption. In other words – when you can sit back down at the computer and play all future hands with No Thought At All of the issue that caused you negative stress, then you are ready to play poker. If you sit back down and have even a passing thought about what happened before, then you need to take another round of relief before you play.
Any thought of PREVIOUS hands with EMOTIONAL content is TILT. I keep changing the emphasis because you need to examine every word here.
If you can honestly say you have no thought of the previous experience with any emotional content, then you are ready to play. Physically dissipating the emotion works and it works consistently. It just takes time.
There is, however, a way to preemptively avoid emotional reactions to poker. You learn to control, manage and manipulate you beliefs.
I’m going to repeat this for clarity. You CAN learn to CONTROL, MANAGE AND MANIPULATE your own personal beliefs about ANYTHING. This skill is valuable in poker, in relationships, in life, in business, ANYWHERE. If you learn this skill you can: insulate yourself from bad beats and bad sessions, quit smoking in a day, stop arguing with your wife or kids, become a money manager not a spender, start your own business, become a professional poker player, whatever you want. The next section is probably the most powerful section for your life, if you embrace it. However, we’re going to address most of it toward poker.
Managing, Controlling and Manipulating your personal beliefs.
What most people don’t realize is that what they believe they CHOOSE to believe. Nothing is 100% real. Nothing is 100% accurate. Nothing is 100% true. Everything you see and everything you think goes through a filter in your brain called “what you believe”. That filter tints every experience you have. Some belief filters are so powerful that they will literally block what you see and totally control how you perceive reality in ways that aren’t accurate at all. Most belief filters, however, simply tint what we see. If reality is a perfectly clear glass of water then we all see it in different shades of color 100% of the time with No Exceptions.
This topic could be a book of it’s own, but we’re going to cover it fairly quickly. So you need to try to move quickly with me. Here’s an example of what I’m talking about.
Let’s say you’re driving in your car on the highway late at night. You’re coming home from a party. A car comes up quickly behind you and rides your back bumper following way too close with his bright lights on. Then he swerves around you, cutting you off, and almost runs you off the road. You have to swerve and slow down to avoid a collision. Then they guy speeds away. You have your children in the car with you. Five minutes later you pass his car sitting off the shoulder of the road in a rest area.
That’s what happened.
In one scenario you had an argument with someone at the party and you think this might be that guy. You BELIEVE the guy in the other car just tried to kill you and your family. How might you Logically and Reasonably react to such a thing? Well you would be angry without question. Depending on your nature you might want to track the guy down. If he’s going to try to kill you then you have a right to defend yourself. If you see him farther up the road you might run HIM off the road before he does the same to you, injuring you and your family. When you see him sitting off the road you consider confronting him but you don’t want your kids to see that so you drive on, keeping a careful eye on your rear view mirror.
In another scenario you know it’s Saturday night and there are people on the road who have been drinking. The guy, you BELIEVE, is probably drunk. What is the logical and reasonable reaction? Probably slow down. Keep an eye out for him. No drunk is going to run into you if you can help it. When you later see him on the side of the road you are relieved that he decided to sleep it off before continuing home. He shouldn’t be on the road anyway.
In the ACTUAL scenario the man is having a stroke. He was barely in control of his car. He was trying to signal you with his lights and he was lucky to get the car pulled over before losing consciousness on the side of the road.
Is the last scenario the ACTUAL scenario? Maybe. But if you decided to BELIEVE that any one of the 3 scenarios was accurate do you see how you would FEEL differently in each instance? Do you see how you would reasonably REACT differently in each scenario?
Well, the next time someone cuts you off in traffic you can BELIEVE:
- I’m a nice guy and that guy is a jerk
- He is trying to kill me
- He’s rushing to the hospital, thank god I’m not him
- I used to be like that, thank god I have my family in my life keep me calm
- Etc. etc. etc
You can color any experience any tint you want through what you choose to believe. Most people doubt this, but it’s true. One last general concept and then we’ll apply it to the topic at hand. Most people believe in God. Most people believe in Love. Most children believe in Santa Clause.
I’m not against God, Love or Santa Clause. We CHOOSE what we believe in and then we adjust our LIVES AND ACTIONS to fit that belief. Another point here is that we are often GIVEN beliefs by others and we accept them without much question. Young children are very easy to manipulate around Christmastime by invoking the name of Santa. Their actions follow their beliefs. I use love and god to express the point that there is NO belief that you don’t control. If you can choose what you believe about God or Love, then you can certainly choose how to manage, control and manipulate your beliefs about poker. There are cultures with directly opposing beliefs about god. There are cultures where love isn’t considered at all in relationships. Are those cultures wrong? It’s irrelevant. The point is that they adjust their lives and actions around their beliefs. If you change what you believe about something, then you will naturally change your actions concerning it. NO WILLPOWER REQUIRED. It just happens.
Once we believe something an amazing thing happens. We start to see Evidence that our belief is correct, and we start to ignore Evidence that our belief is wrong. Our belief becomes self-fulfilling because we start filtering the world through that belief. Good, bad or indifferent. It happens.
Let’s apply it to poker. Some people believe that AK and a small pocket pair are a coin flip. They love AK for this reason more than they love the small pocket pair in most instances. Which would you rather see? AK or 66?
(to be continued)
