mental game accountability blog
Hello.
This will be focused solely on the mental/psychological aspect of grinding poker.
The plan for this blog is simple but radical: After every session I play, I post here about how the session was mentally/emotionally, including details of mental blunders or successes.
Why? I'm a poker pro fallen on tough times. I never thought I'd start a blog here, but had the idea that it might help for my mental game. Doing this would constitute accountability, supporting the building of stronger mental game.
Also, sharing it publicly will let it be something I'm consciously proud of and thus won't come to take for granted and then let slide. (That's how it goes in my experience: Once having made sufficient mental game improvements, one becomes less pro-active and it deteriorates, resulting in unexpected tilt and mental regression somewhere down the line.)
I will also share some specific mental aspects I'm grappling with. For example letting go of the need to play hands perfectly, avoiding even the slightest mistake. A need based in paranoia around other regs pouncing on my every weakness. Or: having the courage to play hands the way I want to play them, as opposed to how I think they should be played.
Some more detail:
Recently I've already been focused primarily on the mental side of grinding instead of focusing on exactly how I should play hands - and I think that this is the way forward. I think mental game is really the foundation required to confidently and freely improve ones technical game. And I don't want to be doing something many hours a week that is unpleasant, boring, painful. I want to be able to grind for hours pleasantly, relaxed, without mental and emotional exhaustion afterwards.
My relationship with poker has been patchy. I've gone through phases of very resilient mental game, but also very rough, painful phases and low-points, exploring the meaning of 'rock-bottom'. I've made promises to myself - for example that I will never again let myself feel so bad playing poker - so bad that, rationally, It really makes no sense for me to continue living off poker instead of getting a job. I've broken those promises, which that feels shameful and unsettling. I've gone through a period of a kind of burnout that wrecked my mental game thoroughly, after which I took a break from serious poker for a couple of years. Reluctantly returning to poker after not finding a good alternative income, I've been faced with painful experiences of really not being the player I remember being - missing the sharpness and the intuition that used to be part of what let me be a confident regular at mid-stakes.
So why am I even doing this - why stick with poker? Three months ago I seriously considered entering the job market after a stint of half-heartedly grinding in my local casino hit rock-bottom. Re-evaluatung my life the next day, I found new motivation to once again truly try to be good at online poker. Realising it would mean that I could stay in the very nice but slighty expensive appartment where I live and could have the time for the things I love in my life, especially rock-climbing -going out for a whole day whenever the weather conditions are good. Plus I realised that I'm curious poker would go if I actually did try again. I realised that the fear that I'm washed up, that I should admit that I just don't have what it takes anymore, really isn't based on anything, as I hadn't really tried yet, and of course if I don't really try I can't expect anything more than ****. So why not at least try and see what happens.
So since then it's been a combination of: on the one hand fresh motivation and indeed quite fast progress in how my game feels, and at the same time the impediments of the years emotional baggage and of the stresses of my really quite dire financial situation. I'm living as a poker pro in a western country with a net-worth hovering around €2-3k. That really would have sounded absurd to me in the past - but then again it may be freeing to find that it's possible to do this.
Saturday and sunday I tilted in a way I hadn't tilted in a long time. I feel guilty about how self-destructive I was.
To give you some idea of what I can do and how insecure I feel about poker and my bankroll afterwards, one of the worst hands involved me open-raising to 125bb with A5o, then when called I shoved the remaining 80bb on a random flop. (and got it in with 10% EQ)
I have a bullet list of some bad habits and one is "internal and external grumbling over variance". I find that when the internal grumbling becomes external I've clearly reached a point where my emotions are starting to have a negative impact on my decisions. Berating an opponent in chat definitely falls into that category, of course. Question is what do you do about it mid-session? Do you quit? Do you reset? Do you just accept that emotion
sry for not replying.
I think that's great, and in the past I've also thought that that is a kind of threshold and thing to watch out for.
How to react is the hard question, right? I've often tried to re-set, recover, found it hard and then even when I thought I'd recovered, later completely lost control and found myself in a very dark hole... thinking in hind-sight that from the first outburst I must have been firmly on the wrong track, so off-balance that actually everything after that point had just been adding weight...
And of course it's difficult if there are tables you feel like you can't quit.
Took a break due to a mild injury,
and then missed 3 sessions partly because 2+2 wasn't loading in my browser.
All 3 sessions very chill at lower limit, nothing special.
Yes, there were some problems with the site for a couple of days, but everything is working fine now.
short easy session yesterday at the lower limit.
first session after a long break due to summer, injury, focusing on other projects. Need to get back on the grind though...
medium length session sunday evening, smooth sailing.
fairly short session yesterday tableselecting the higher limit.
wasn't in serious grinding mindset. lost a very silly hand early on against a fish, then from there on I couldn't take it seriously and played very spewily against the fish, quitting after losing a bit despite running hot...
medium length session 8-tabling lower limit. Went fine, was able to take it seriously and maintain a suitable level of focus whilst taking it easy.
back on the grind after several weeks of summer break, only playing some light casino sessions.
2 days ago played 1 hour at lower limit, very light and pleasant considering how long I hadn't played.
2 hour session.
OK - first half easy, 2nd half slightly fatigued and missing some subtle dicisions
2nd session: medium length, fairly uneventful mentally.
Welcome back and good luck mate
thanks!
medium length 3rd session last night.
fatigued, but fittingly adjusted my focus to the games.
2 medium length sessions yesterday evening/night, felt much longer than they were.
some minor instances of a minor annoying error and one instance of a major error after which I briefly felt bad but recovered.
problem and solution is primarily technical I think, so if I practice those spots, the error and annoyance will be alleviated.
Have you read MGOP 1&2? If Yes, what are your biggest takeaways?
(Started to read first part myself)
P.S. Gl in your grind!
nope, I never read any poker books. I just picked up some key ideas along the way. Couldn't say what specifically Mental Game of Poker's idea is though...?
fairly long session yesterday
fatigued after 3 days of drinking/partying.
issue that definitely cost me:
While I knew I was in bad shape and should just play very carefully/conservatively, I didn't stick to this and instead ran some huge bluffs, e.g. bluff 4betting river for full stack.
I think this is because when I'm fatigued and try to play carefully, I can easily end up disengaging and feeling bored and then over-compensate by pushing way past the boundaries of my normal game...
Not sure how to solve this.
2 long sessions today
f this ****
Great blog, thank you. Do you play only NLH?
Don't play fatigued?
Treat the game like a sport?
If you were still in recovery from partying and than played bad at (football, baseball, etc.), would you not know how to fix that problem?
short-medium session at lower limit.
fairly fresh and session went very smoothly/easily, which is noteworthy considering my mood was quire bad today. I was worried about how I would feel and play, but seems that poker-motivation and OK physical condition determined the in-session mental game.
Don't play fatigued?
Treat the game like a sport?
If you were still in recovery from partying and than played bad at (football, baseball, etc.), would you not know how to fix that problem?
- Firstly, It's not necessary to avoid playing fatigued.
At least for me and in the games I'm playing, my winrate and mental game can be good enough when at least somewhat fatigued.
Let's say my fresh is 10bb.
My fatigued WR, assuming I adjust my play to my mental state, might be 5bb.
However, if I try to play the same intensity as when fresh, WR might drop to zero or below...
- Secondly, I can't really avoid playing fatigued or treat poker like a sport.
couple of factors:
I've gone through longer-term phases of general fatigue - I would end up basically not playing at all, which isn't an option. I'm not in such bad shape right now, but true a-game is very rare for various reasons. It's given me a different perspective on how I used to be able to play and how other "grinders" play - I can now better relate to many grinders who never really experience what I would call a-game.
Also, I don't live to play, I play to live: Poker isn't my main priority in life like it used to be, it's just how I make money. So I have to balance energy between poker and the areas of my life I care more about. One of those is indeed a sport - and If I have an intense stretch of that sport planned I basically wouldn't drink any alcohol for months. But sometimes other aspects of life take priority, especially during summer months.
- Firstly, It's not necessary to avoid playing fatigued.
At least for me and in the games I'm playing, my winrate and mental game can be good enough when at least somewhat fatigued.
Let's say my fresh is 10bb.
My fatigued WR, assuming I adjust my play to my mental state, might be 5bb.
However, if I try to play the same intensity as when fresh, WR might drop to zero or below...
- Secondly, I can't really avoid playing fatigued or treat poker lik
ok, mushrooms then. 😀
second session yesterday, medium length 1k hands, also went well.
Both phenomenological and indirect game-technical indicators that my mental-game was at a fairly good level throughout.
Feeling more optimistic now than after that session several days ago that was too much for my mental game to handle after such a long break barely playing.
well ****, it happened. i tilted. so much for that. dazed. wanted to smash a beer bottle against my head. at least i didn;'t do that.
Meditate and travel back to the OP where you showed tremendous dedication
