Daily Tourney Tip #3

[Radashack]

(Is anyone taking anything from these posts?)

State of Mind and your poker game.

You can study all the poker theory, strategies, ect. In the world, master them and still lose. Especially in online poker. You state of mind is a key component to a winning poker game. If you find yourself unable to focus and play poker you will lose. Had a bad day at work and can't forget about your boss? Don't load up a MTT, Tired, and find yourself zoning out, don't load up a game. Despite how much you want to play it will be a fruitless game.

How to get in the right state of mind.

Do your housework, exercise, or do anything ACTIVE. Teach yourself to focus on positive events and feelings, learn to teach your mind how to focus. You have to forget about the everyday humdrum of life, and your anxieties, fears, sadness, ect. These will not help you win, but they sure will hinder you if you cannot focus past them.

Play the game.

Often times in movie's and life you hear people talk about "The Zone", "The Field", what have you. That’s where you have to be. You will know when you are there, you can feel it. This is simply an intense focus on what you are doing, what your opponent is doing, what’s being played, ect. This is when you win.

[soupie]

I am reading them rad, great posts, keep up the good work. Heck you sound so much like me i cant even argue with anything.

Do I have to cut and paste them to my hardrive before they suddenly disappear? lol


Great job Rad

[FlyingSaucy]

Yes, keep them coming. Thanks rad

[Joke]

awsome posts... write someting about bluffs and potstealing... an assey on that would rock 8-)

[DavSimon]

Starting in the proper state of mind is usually not a big problem for me, staying in the proper state of mind sometimes is. During the week I have 3-4 hours to play - probably 3 nights a week....and what I have realized is that I would get very impatient if things were not happening for me. I look at the clock and think that I have only 1.5 hours left to play....and then think about the measly 4 flops I saw in the last 45 minutes - I would start to play too many hands so that I could get my "fill" of play before the evening expires.
There seemed to be very few options for me to combat this. I could simply play on the weekends when I have more time to devote to poker. Effective, but if you have a bad weekend, you are setting yourself up for a bad week and pushing too hard the next weekend. I could schedule more time in the evening to play (essentially stay up later) and be tired the next day at work.
Or what I have chosen to do: Play 2 tables at once. If I am playing in a 1 or 2 table SnG I will play a ring game at the same time. Or if I am playing in a MTT I will play in a 2 table SnG or a ring game at the same time. What this does for me anyway....is help to hold my attention. I have something to concentrate on when I am in fold mode at another table. It significantly reduces the rushed feeling - so that I don't feel as though I have to force a hand just to get into the action. I get to play twice as many hands in the same amount of time - and I has actually improved my results I don't know if it has improved my game...but it has certainly improved the way I play my game (if that makes sense).
At times it can get a little hectic when you are involved in action at two tables...but it is certainly manageable. I do not understand how people can play 4-6 tables at once - that is far beyond my abilities at this point - but I am fairly certain a novice can manage two tables....and if you get bored easily...or feel rushed for time - it can certainly improve how patient you are waiting for those playable hands.
Does anyone else do this? What do the experts think?

[Radashack]

Good point to bring up Dav. My question to you would be what do you do originally to sit down with the right state of mind, and could this process be repeated when you begin to feel impatient?

If you continually focus on what you are doing in a night, you will never sap yourself completely of impatience, because you will always be concerned with your nightly results, and put undo pressure on yourself. My suggestion would be to focus on a what you accomplish within a week, because there will be nights that you will lose and nights you will win, so if you can focus on a week accomplishment or possibly set a week by week goal then you can remove some pressure from yourself.

Goals are a good way to retain focus. Set a goal and keep running tally's it can be something as simple as 10 SNG's played 40% ITM, or maybe a goal of 4bb/100 hands of ring games, ect. Set something that’s attainable for you, and ramp it up as you meet that goal.

If you still find yourself in position of being rushed then you need to add more time to a session or skip the session completely, or combine a couple sessions somehow. Putting yourself under pressure will mess with your game 100% of the time, so do whatever you can to avoid it.

[AJ]

I agree that boredom is one of the major problems in playing good poker online. Like DavSimon, I have a limited amount of time to devote to the game (damn the real world!). I completely understand that feeling he described of needing to play more hands to get my fill. However, I kow that playing more hands (for the sake of the action) is the fastest road to the poor house.

Like him, I have experimented with multi-tabling. Two tables seems to be my comfort zone at this point. I'm not sure how others do 4-6 tables at once. In fact, I saw a marked drop off in results at 3 tables. One thing that has helped me a lot is having two computers set up side by side to avoid all of that clicking between games.

Here's a question for all of you multi-tablers. Do you ever get timed out on a table when you are facing a tough decision on another table?

[Aceofone]

Here's a question for all of you multi-tablers. Do you ever get timed out on a table when you are facing a tough decision on another table?

I haven't had it happen.

But as far as falling into the zone, all of us will sort of phase in and out of the zone, what I have tried to do recently is mentally record all events leading up to and during that session that I was in the zone, for example: maybe I just finished a good workout, perhaps I ate a good meal, read something interesting, took breaks during my session, and general things unrelated to poker. So far it has helped.

[Chicago_Kid]

all of us will sort of phase in and out of the zone, what I have tried to do recently is mentally record all events leading up to and during that session that I was in the zone...

Love the posts on this topic. Here is my experience discovering my zone:

I was looking over my game history several weeks ago and noticed a torrid run of S&G's (80%+ ITM) back in September. I use PT, so I queried my games for everything, but couldn't find a trend that explained the streak. I continued to plod along with good but not great results.

Then, I hit another streak last week. It was during this second streak I recognized these pre-conditions:
(1) No to-dos or general guilt about playing poker (I'm an MBA student as well as having a FT job, so this is saying something)
(2) No urge to make up for a recent bad beat
(3) Well-rested and sober

...and this mindset during the game:
(1) Patience for situations to play to my strengths
(2) Unwillingness to take risks unless I felt in control (lots of outs, a good read, or big stack)
(3) Not thinking about making money

This mindset is my "zone". Notably, I couldn't quantify it using statistics, as it did not manifest itself in one form that could be isolated. Similar to tilt, being in/out of the zone affects my general decision-making rather than one aspect of my game.

Finally, I feel strongly that the pre-conditions above caused the game-time mindset!

Hope this helps.

[DavSimon]

(3) Not thinking about making money

I agree with this wholeheartedly...well everything else as well, but this stood out. I have found that I seem to do better...and have more patience when I do not think about how much I can win from the SnG or MTT and simply concentrate on how many chips are at my table and trying to figure a way to get them into my stack.

[Chicago_Kid]

...simply concentrate on how many chips are at my table and trying to figure a way to get them into my stack.

I like your net here. Focus on winning chips through solid play, not on winning money.

Perfect example of this trap: That guy with a good stack near-ITM who stretches to knock someone out and gets maimed unnecessarily. If there is a greater cause of tourney tilt...I haven't seen it