mental game accountability blog
Hello.
This will be focused solely on the mental/psychological aspect of grinding poker.
The plan for this blog is sim
medium session of 6tabling yesterday, pleasant, fairly good focus
medium session, 2 hours
mixed bag:
positive: no distractions, not even music, and quite engaged, making a lot of higher intensity decisions
negative: getting jittery/tense, and multitasking is failing to an extreme degree. This in particular is unsettling as I used to be very good at multitasking compared to bad grinders (i.e. not blanking out some action when you have 2+ important spots going on).
But I'm going to try to work on it, maybe with practice I can get the multitasking working again too.
also, maybe noteworthy that on my morning run today body felt somewhat tense/painful, which is unusual - could be related.
very long 2nd session, 2.1k hands in just under 6h,
happy with mental game, improving
medium long session, very good apart from some slight lapses in concentration, especially whilst ending the session. Played 6 instead of 8/9 tables and it seems to be much better for me atm. Surprising, but maybe makes sense.
yes, I'm sure stress plays a part. I'm not really in a position where I can chill rn though.
Cardio like long jogging is unhealthy
Try short high intensity intervall training
Long zone 2 cardio causes heart-hypertrophy
That's why marathon runners die like bodybuilders
Dont eat plants, they are trying to kill you
Oxalates, lektins, Phytin etc etc
Dont eat fruits, it's genetically modified candy
Fructose is poison for the liver, same as alcohol
Just eat ruminant meat, eggs and fish (maybe dairy)
Thank me later
Cardio like long jogging is unhealthy Try short high intensity intervall training Long zone 2 cardio causes heart-hypertrophyThat's why marathon runners die like bodybuildersDont eat plants, they are trying to kill you Oxalates, lektins, Phytin etc etc Dont eat fruits, it's genetically modified candyFructose is poison for the liver, same as alcohol Just eat ruminant meat, eggs
Plants, bad. Animals that eat plants, good. Fruits are gmo, bad. Cows, chickens and pigs that have been selectively bred and are by enlarge factory farmed, good. Got it.
Try googling all the words you obviously dont understand, lol.
fairly long session,
fairly happy: again no distractions, fairly good focus, and was able to be OK when a lot of hands went south.
how do i do multi quotes here?
@GetCreative: more like 80BI. I don't think I'd say it's impressive, more like.
@Parasense: I can't say I find any of that remotely reasonable. But I suppose it's nice to have confidence in ones views.
correction: looking through the hands and I actually had a micro-tilt during a rough patch, made a play that should be easily avoidable.
medium-long session,
good, things are going in the right direction: relatively good focus. feeling more comfortable and enjoying play more.
especially the last 2 points are hard to unentangle from technical aspects: as you get better at playing a spot, you feel more comfortable in it and more often play it in a way that is enjoyable because a) it feel right/fitting/elegant and b) you maximise the EV.
medium session, aggravating stretch of everything going wrong. Seems hard to stay detached from results atm. Stayed disciplined this time and quit at some point when I just wasn't enjoying it at all.
1k hands in 2.5h before breakfast, quite good mentally despite a doomswitch stretch, feel fresh afterwards. Maybe pre-breakfast sessions are good.
long session - 2.2k in 5 hours.
success overal. After 3 hours or so I realized I had been slipping into a zombie mode, my body shutting down so that I was missing action, losing attention. At first disheartening and I considered just ending the session, but instead I decided to try to continue. The way I do this is I give myself one more chance: I will continue until I make another focus mistake. And it worked - it brought my mind back into the game, constantly putting in effort to keep track of things, and after 5 minutes or so I was happy with how my focus had improved. From there I allowed a minor mistake every 5-10 minutes, and my focus was good enough. This felt like a significant success considering how finished I was feeling at the lowpoint.
3rd session, medium length, played mainly fine but extreme fatigue set in the moment I decided to blind out, and then I made some big mistakes whilst blinding out... Seems like a leak.
1.5 hour session for leaderboard, bit fatigued from suboptimal sleep schedule, oh well. Next time could plan the day better.
first session of the grind day after morning run - 1.4k hands in 3 hours 20.
overal OK, although feel that my focus was below what it should be, suspect some bad auto-piloting. not sure why, will try to improve that next session.
2nd session, 1.4k in 3 hours. fairly good most of the time, although there were some moments where things were going too fast for me and in at least one of those moments I failed to keep a handle on my decision process and situation suddenly got out of control. I managed not to let it tilt me though, and the session continued well after that.
3rd session, just under 3 hours i think. tired and stiff, felt like i played badly. Didn't tilt or get too unhappy though.
morning session before breakfast, 550 hands in 1:25.
Played much better than yesterday, almost feels how it should - fresher, clearer, more balanced and more creative. And this despite not sleeping as long as I'd like and kind of badly. Maybe the optimum is before breakfast and without going for a run...
played a long session before breakfast, probably too long. on the one hand it looked like I was playing OK, was stable mentally, and wasn't losing too much energy, but on the other hand I just didn't find confidence or rhythm and after breakfast felt exhausted and crashed. Maybe abandoning this grind day.
well, i'm going on monkey tilt literally every session and i have like 400 euros to my name. so not much point in posting about sessions.
life just isn't easy. It would be easier with less rake and without daniel negreanu dancing in front of me.
heuristic for mental-game developement or more generally personal developement:
When you see that you've gone through the steps:
1) make a mistake, tilt;
2) face your weaknesses with courage and honesty, find the cause, learn, plan, practise;
3) shockingly make the exact same mistake again - like some kind of unconscious robot or animal;
Don't choose the conclusion that you are incapable of learning from your mistakes, that you are incapable of keeping a promise to yourself. (dispair, hopelessness, defeat)
Instead, realise that your unconscious mind is trying to tell you that, actually, there's a lesson here that you haven't learnt yet*, something that you haven't understood yet, something that you haven't been aware of yet.
*Or maybe when this first happened, you learnt the relevant lesson. But that was for then, in a past stage of life.
You think too much.
Shut that mind up and be yourself.
You good.
😀
