Building mental control
Hi, welcome to my thread. I made one of these before but I gave up playing after failing to move up to NL100. http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/174/po...
I know the biggest leak I have is not having good emotional control, just all across the board. So I purchased MGOP and MGOP2. I'm going to actively practice methods from those books to see if I can get better because I believe that is the main thing holding me back in poker. Right now I'm working on MGOP1 because my C-game is horrendous and needs improvement. Short of moving up 5 limits and putting my whole roll on the table, I have every tilt problem imaginable, which causes me to quit and not get in the volume necessary to succeed in poker. I've done some of the practices advocated in the book like writing out a tilt profile, injecting logic phrases, and playing out my fear.
With that said, I've created some goals. I will be focusing on my short-term goals for the most part one at a time and re-evaluating after a week.
Long-term goals:
-Be in control of emotions
-Be fearless
-Not feel anxiety while playing or during big pots
-Build endurance
-Work for a little bit everyday
Short-term Goal:
-Lower anxiety/adrenaline while playing, especially during big pots (currently at conscious incompetence)
I believe this is the most important thing to start working on because I've always been a very risk averse person, so I can't handle it well. I realize poker will have a bad effect on my health if I'm constantly stressed out while playing. So...
How I'm going to work on my goal:
-push myself to take on more risk by setting aside an amount of money to take risks with
This is basically pushing myself to be comfortable with being uncomfortable. Now, I don't want to do this by developing a gambling addiction, so I"m going to set aside $1k to play $1/$2 live poker with for the next three days and just have it already written it off in my mind and understanding that this money is being used to help me grow as a person. I currently play NL10-NL25 online so this is much higher stakes than I'm used to. I played a little bit live yesterday and feel like this is a profitable risk. This is not money I need, fortunately, and because I did get my Full Tilt money a week ago I'm essentially free-rolling anyway.
I am creating this thread to receive feedback in what I'm doing to see how I can do it better. If you are a Mental Game of Poker student I would love to hear your thoughts on what I'm doing. I will try to update this thread frequently.
Key logic injections:
"doing what is less fun now, means you can have much more fun in the future." -MOTIVATION
"work harder when it's hard, and eventually it'll become easy for real." -MOTIVATION
"What's one thing you can do right now to make this dream a reality?" -MOTIVATION
"These pots don't really have much significance in the long run." -BIG POT TILT/HEART RACING
12 Replies
On a sick heater lately after a lengthy break…it’s still a little weird winning sometimes in one hour what I make in one paycheck from my job…multiple times…consecutively(!).
I’m playing high enough now (still NL200) that it’s now DEFINITELY uncomfortable to bring the topic of poker up to anyone I know irl which kinda sucks, because now I only have this forum, which already thinks I’m village idiot candidate worthy, to express stuff about it to.
However, being on a massive heater makes it all worth it…haters.
Here’s some HH if you made it this far. (still trying to stay anon so these are from long ago)
NL100
Mp r 2.5x, co calls, I 3b KQs to 15, both call.
Flop T87tt (no flush draw for me)
I bet 15 into 45 both call.
Turn Ax (bingo!!!)
I shove $100 into $90 both fold.
And my other favorite hand.
Last orbit of the session at NL100 (ive already clicked sitout next bb)
$200 deep, whale raises to 3.5. I’m in BB with JJ and 3b to 13. Call
Flop: AK6r
I cbet $9 into $27. Call.
Turn: Qx
I feel sick because I’m about to…i bet $40 into $45. Call.
River: 4(?)
I jam $130 into $125. Whale tank calls with KQ and I snap leave and think…what a shitty outcome from following a gameplan to the letter of the law can end sometimes…but that is why I’m prospering.
You talk funny about poker that is good.
Poker can be good teacher if listen.
Listen to where the tilt comes from.
The space from which your primal fight or flight springs from hides your peace.
Care so much you don't care anymore.
Poker for the process.
Cash is for suckers.
Spend that ****.
Buy land.
Sit.
Be.
Go you.
Discipline = Freedom
Ty sir
Bankroll hit $15k not too long ago. Will be taking shots at NL500 if I win a couple more thousand or so. I could probably take a shot now, but I'm going with having 35 buy-ins for that stake before I take a shot because it's absurd how big the pots are at NL500 so I'm just being more cautious because I know **** could happen...I mean, I did just climb out of a 6-month long breakeven stretch 😊. I'll be taking 2-3 buy-in shots.
In the midst of my last month, something weird happened. The mental game stuff that has always been a point of focus for me fixed itself overnight. One morning, I just woke up and started a session, and all those problems were gone. Just gone. I've been playing with no anxiety ever since, and alot of the mental game stuff I was struggling with had seemingly disappeared. Crazy.
I guess if you focus on something hard enough eventually it becomes your default state subconsciously. Just takes a whole lot of forceful effort to move it there...
Ok had to take a long break due to bs non poker-related reasons. (Mental game trick here is that if something in your life is weighing you down by even a small amount, you can't play poker. You need to be strong and healthy to compete.)
But anyway, it’s now time...I have the results. I have the roll. It's the biggest moment of my poker career...
NL500 SHOTS INCOMING
**BANG BANG**
Let's dance.
SHOTS FIRED.
Bagged my first $1,000+ day.
(Definitely ran well though.
)
And that's a wrap for this month. Finished +$1300 this week over 14 sessions (all around 30min-1 hour in length) while mixing in 500 tables here and there. Ran around ~$600 over allin EV and even though a few sessions went poorly, I literally couldn't ask for more.
For the month I'm up ~$2350 over around 50 sessions so hell yeah.
Oddest thing I've experienced since starting playing higher is that time seemed to move very slowly, like it's only been a week of playing but it felt like I lived through a month! Anyway, this whole week was the most important period of my poker career and one of the most important, frankly, of my life. If I can keep this going, I would be in a position where I can start earning +$100/hr playing poker and start having real success in the game. Just need to avoid running bad for the foreseeable future, and we all know there are no guarantees...
Gonna party my ass off tonight, then gonna recover, let my brain get acclimated to this new reality I'm in, take care of work and other responsibilities til I hit the tables starting again around July 4th weekend, which should be fun.
Took another few months off not playing just doing fun **** the rest of the summer, restarted seriously in the middle of November... My shots, infrequent as they are, at 2.5/5 are still going well. Over 31 sessions in November I made $2300 which is about, $74/hr.
Biggest stack I've had so far. **** still doesn't feel real sometimes because to me that's still an absurd amount of money to have in play on an online poker table.
I am getting pretty close to playing and being rolled for high stakes (one level away from 5/10)... I can't believe it sometimes, but yet I've always known I could do it, believed I was gonna do it, and...yeah! I'm gonna do it!
Played my biggest pot ever today at 2.5/5: ~$2000.
QQ vs 4-bet 200bb deep, board ran 93273, I called down 3 streets and I won.
MONEYYY
It's been a pretty intense past few days with me starting to mix in some 5/10 now, and I'm doing okay there. It's a little aggressive bankroll management wise but I was testing the idea that 5/10 is softer than 2.5/5, since it seems to run more often. So far, I found it to be about equal in play quality, and I'm still doing okay there so I'm sticking with it for now. I'm totally prepared to cut it back out if things don't go well there in the future.
I've long since stopped being overwhelmed by the dollar amounts being substantial in real life terms, though when I won my first stack at 5/10 I did have to do a little stand up and screen covering action lol (for an all in pre flop with KK vs a worse hand).
The bottom line is though...
I've played high stakes poker now. I've won at high stakes poker. My dream that for a long time myself, and many other people thought was impossible, is now true, and I hope continues to be true.
Total graph:
Taking a few days off and working for a bit, and then back to the grind!
The ridiculously high number of colluders at mid-high stakes online is such a shame...I've only been able to play like one solid 1 hour session per day on days that I'm looking to play poker, rest of the time I'm just periodically scanning the lobbies and seeing the games are no good and choosing not to play. So, I will be looking to take more of my play to LIVE POKER.
BR sitting at ~$27000.
Damn already 3 months since the last update?
(Nothing ground breaking happened)
I haven't played much, maybe around like 10 hours total at meaningful stakes since March. I also put some money on another site and just grinded smaller on there sometimes but overall, truth of the matter is, online poker just sucks at mid-high stakes. Games are hardly ever good, just thinking about checking the games there gives me a dreadful feeling.
However, my first real foray into live cash poker has been fun. I finally got an opportunity to put in some decent hours playing live (@ 1/3 stakes) and so I played like 10 sessions. For the first 9 of those I was down, a small amount, and it felt pretty bad honestly. Inside my head I was like CAUSE YOUR BOY IS WINNING AT ONLINE 5/10 AND YET CAN'T BEAT THESE IDIOTS AT LIVE 1/3 LIKE TF??? Lol, thankfullyyy tho, on the final session of the week, I recovered all my losses and then some when I tripled up in one hand in my first $1000+ live poker pot. It was the first time I've stacked a player as fully stacked myself, and to do it basically to two people at once was amazing. It happened a good while ago now and still has me buzzin, despite it being fairly small compared to what I'm used to online. Just was huge to have something go my way for the first time playing live though, felt like the time I broke out of microstakes... I will be moving up to live 2/5 soon, as I'm already overrolled for it anyway.
I did plan on going to the WSOP for the first time for some of the smaller side events this summer but some things came up so I'm postponing that til next year. I also wanna go to Vegas during the fall or winter and just do a proper first time solo trip there to enjoy it properly, before doing the WSOP.
Also, it feels to me the WSOP seems like it lost all of the remaining aura it had left and I'm not missing much there this year anyway, even with it being on ESPN and all. I see the clips on Instagram 'wsop' of guys tanking forever and I'm like, "Nope!" and swipe up, or even like guys who are all-in and I'm like, wow this **** is boring af too."... Streamed cash games are king now and that's the way it should be.
