Playing stress free continuous c game poker long term to manage and get by healthily
I've been experimenting with fulltime poker, not as a source of income but tracking on pt4 to not have losses overall sample size wise. I only play a practical amount in a day so I can continue to track consistent sessions overall in a week and in a month. Taking breaks is mandatory.
I realized recently that as results add up continuously its more difficult to manage and track. Mostly because +ev results are like a stress in the back of the mind the longer you play, even with breaks. Someone suggested coming up with more to do outside of poker so I've been working on that.
I researched and realized poker elevates cortisol even when you win and I think cortisol helps you play but when it adds up overtime theres problems with consistency and lifestyle factors, not to mention problems with continuous play.
In the mental game of poker, jared tendler talks about improving your c game. Is this a common thing for experienced poker players to play a stress free c game if they need to manage playing more overtime. I dont think playing an improved c game overtime to reduce stress and hyperattentiveness is placebo. It could work to prevent too much cortisol from adding up. What are some thoughts?
Its also health and fitness, and lifestyle factors, ie. Having a life outside poker, but i wanted to get some opinions on how people manage continuous +ev poker as experienced poker players. My take is you have to figure out how to play stress free and practical. Its like not being results oriented to the A game of sessions, but managing your overall average c game overtime.
Thats the only sensible way to manage fulltime poker, bankroll management, tracking your days, weeks, month. What are some thoughts?
6 Replies
Only 1 skill you need
Most people recognize they weren't playing their best (c-game, tilt, whatever you want to label it as) after the session is over.
But the damage is already done at that point.
The skill you need to cultivate is being able to notice you're not playing great in the moment it's happening.
Managing cortisol levels is great - eating healthy, working out, etc. will generally raise the threshold for how much you can take before you start to lose awareness of what's happening.
Once you hit that threshold though, the only skill that matters is being able to notice it's happening, and having a reliable way to interrupt it and bring yourself back to presence where you can once again access all the information you have at your disposal, and make decisions you don't regret later.
That's not something you 'figure out'
It's building awareness of your internal state, even in the stressful times.
The knowledge of how it works doesn't fix this.
It's cultivating that skill, and making awareness of your internal state the highest priority at all times.
When you're aware, you make decisions you don't regret. Most people I've worked with describe the stretch of time where they lose awareness as a blur, or a blackout. They're on an autopilot where they aren't consciously playing.
Again, healthy habits are great and raise that threshold of it happening.
But once you go into autopilot, the only thing that matters is your ability to notice and bring yourself back before too much damage is done.
I get what your saying, Don't tilt don't lose. But I beat the game and don't lose, and refuse to play while tilted. However that means I don't really play that much as an overall, as I can only play not tilted part time.
I'm thinking that in the average of your thinking, your not playing your best every time, but your overall average is good enough to win. However you need to sometimes play your best, and sometimes not play your best, otherwise you'd regress. I think what I was talking about is improving your overall average to play fulltime where it adds volume, but is not really supposed to be your best. But you need to play your best sometimes otherwise your game would regress and tilt.
As someone who majorly struggled with tilt, one of the best lines I ever read (can’t recall the source) was something like:
“Be mad, but still try to play good.”
It just clicked for me. Yeah your opponent caught some lucky hand and your set is now worth jack sh*t. Be mad, mutter to yourself about them a bit; but don’t start ripping it in with weak hands as some kind of revenge.
Another thing I do that I’ve had good success with is writing down the hands right after. Eg, I have set + blocker to flush draw, river brings gutshot and I call a shove & lose.
I write whether the spot was avoidable or not. If it was avoidable, I try to learn not to make that mistake. If not, there’s nothing you’d change about how you played.
I think that has improved my C-game immensely. Or, the back side of the inchworm, as Tendler put it.
Losing yourself in the game can be in line with a Freudian idea about annihilating oneself with gambling, or I might say more escaping oneself and one's life. In this sense, a balance of not seeking too much escapism or not having too much stress while playing is productive and helpful.
Knowing thyself -- and knowing why you are playing in the first place -- is a key component of modifying behavior at the table. A poker session is not a test about how much you know about poker, as much as it is a test of your control of your behavior. Demons surface at the table. Of course there are exceptions to this idea -- in particular those with a very disciplined and academic approach to the game, and who play a strictly robotic style, thus eliminating this behavioral element.
But for what used to be the far and away most common type of player -- the recreational player -- one's personality, demons, impulse control, frustration tolerance, etc. show up in a big way at the table. Less need to win obviously helps alleviate these pressures, but also tends to detract from results.
"Why am I playing?" is the question. For the hardened pro this question is hardly even considered, as it is presumed the answer is self-evident. At one level this is certainly true, and the answer for them isn't as critical or as influential on their behavior at the table. So the computer trained and mathematically trained masses in the game today can draw a blank on this question; their approach to the game eliminated the issue up front. Not true for the rec player, admittedly much less in dominant numbers nowadays.
It’s not about being stress free, but how you tolerate stress. Stress is a normal thing in life, you can’t avoid it. You need to build up resilience. There is good stress and bad stress. If you were 100% stress free, you would die. Stress gives you motivation to breathe, eat, drink, avoid threats, etc. Our “threats” are jokes in our modern life. Ancestors fought with bears and lions, and we **** our pants by losing a hand in poker. It’s resilience. Stop fighting against it, just build your stress resilience by experiencing stress. The easiest way is a cold shower. That makes you go into survival mode. I bet by being under freezing water you won’t worry at all about that one stupid hand that you lost PF with AA.
This post is pretty interesting to me and something I've not thought too much about. I would def play more hours if I had more acceptance of myself playing my C game. In reality I think I would just end up playing more of my B game tbh and usually not end up all the way into my C game. So it def makes me realize I should just be more eager to jump in games and just get some hours in
I've definitely focused too much on my A game at times and to only be playing when I'm playing it. To some degree I think it's good and I believe if you focus a few hours into playing your absolute best and be willing to quit when you're either very tilted or you're losing focus you will start to pull your C game up higher into your B game or D into C etc... I do think you should also balance that with having sessions where you're willing to just keep playing even if you delve into your C, D, F game. I realize my quitting sessions early was often just a fear of witnessing myself playing my C/D/F game and feeling the emotions of witnessing that
I'm sorta at a period in my poker career where delving below C game is almost impossible, however if I go into my C game it probably feels the exact same as a newer player in his F game. If I'm running really bad I experience entitlement tilt as I've proven myself to be a winner over 20 years so delving into my F game isn't really an option for me, however the feelings I believe are very likely identical
