I've been skimming through this forum more frequently of late and figured the best way that I could contribute would be through a thread where you can ask me questions directly. I've done this before on the Stoxpoker forum and it's worked out really well.

Couple things:

1) I'll probably ask questions of you before giving further advice. Its important for me to know a bit about your situation so my advice can be specific to you.

2) For me to ask good questions, be sure to be detailed in your post about the issue and some factors you think are contributing to it. Also please keep your posts to reasonable length.

3) I anticipate answering posts, 2-3x/week, though sometimes less depending on my schedule.


With that, what do you want help with?

Thanks for doing this Jared.

I know theres already a lot of replies in the thread, but I'd like to have your opinion on this:

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/26...bernit-513926/

Cliffs: How not to be a bankroll nit?

Thanks for starting this thread, Jared.

One of the biggest problems with my game that I am aware of is fear of losing. I know by my large sample size of my current limit that I am beating the game and don't worry about not being able to. I simply worry about running bad and losing hands. When I am up a buy-in quickly in a session I find myself wanting to immediately quit so I can book a win, even if it's after 100 hands. I don't like getting AA,KK because I am anticipating suckouts.

What would you suggest to help alleviate this negativity in my game and simply play through the ups and downs?

This too. Same problem.

Could you help with my problem too?

To start, basically i think i have lack of selfcontrol and too much gamble in myself.
It appears to become a problem with folding good but most certanetely
beat hands.I hate doing it and it blows my mind when i have to.And while playing
this habit transforms into talking myself into some bad calls or running crazy bluffs and
playing too risky in general.
If i would be able to play solid, more ABC oriented game all the time i would win at least
2x more.Ive tried to rationally explain myself that its -ev in the long run and that peole dont
bluff in big pots too often etc, this semi worked but i still often have trouble with preventing
myself from doing smth bad.

why does it tilt me so badly when the same person wins 3 or more buyins off me in a relatively short amount of time. But if it's 3 different people than I'm only 'annoyed'.

what can I do about this?

I read through a bit of the thread, and I was most struck when you said this:

Like any complex issue (one where the easy answers many suggest don't work) there are many layers. First layer to this is the results oriented thinking, which basically emphasizes money over what produces money - skill. Your skill in the game over the long-term is what allows you to earn the money you've made. And I emphasize earn, over winning it, since it I'm assuming you haven't luckboxed your way to 100BI bankroll. One of the thing that many other players loose sight of when overly results focused, is doing what is necessary to work on their game, to gain the skill to be successful in the game/limits they want to play in. There's more here, but I want to side step for a minute to the next layer.

Goals. Have you defined your goals in poker? Have you defined what you're going to do with the money you are earning from poker? Obviously even if you haven't clearly define your goals, you want to move up limits. What a goal provides is the first step to determining the HOW you'll get there. When moving up there can be an assumption for the sink or swim method, rather than having a strategy to move up. What skill do you need to acquire to be successful at NL100? How are you going to develop these skills? If you don't have answers, talk with other players, that isn't my domain.

What I can suggest though, and coming back to the result orient part, is to focus on developing skill when you move up. Use the days where you lost as great opportunities to learn. Its likely that you made many mistakes, perhaps even played worse (maybe because of some fear) than at NL50. Those mistakes represent parts of your skill that you may have thought you learned, but not to the degree where they've become automatic. When you train skills to a level called the "unconscious competence", it means that you are successful in being able to execute these skills in all areas, no matter how stress/pressure packed the situation. If you haven't achieved that level of learning, in my book you are in the process of learning, and you don't own it yet.

So use your shots at NL100 as a test and an opportunity. A test to prove what you know, and an opportunity to find out what you don't. Taken that way, will likely take a lot of the fear away and shift you out of a primarily results focus mindset.

Let me know if this helps.

YW.

My suggestion to you is similar to Khyrostenes. The fear of loosing is pronounced because you may not have a clear picture of what makes you a winning player, essentially an understanding of your skill. What is the problem with running bad and loosing hands? Logically you know its part of the game, but emotionally you want to avoid it, but why? There is a lot of benefits that come from loosing and from running bad. Obviously it sucks to loose, but loosing often highlights weaknesses in your game (though clearly not always) and running bad puts pressure on your skill set, and exposes weakness that you thought were strengths. These are good things because, as long as you look, you're given clear direction on what to work on.

Too often players want desperately to hold onto the game they "think, believe, hope, wish" they have, rather than the game they actually have in reality.

Its amazing how many times I have read of players, and the number of players I've worked with directly, who have gained a lot of peace of mind and motivation from facing the hard truth that they aren't as good as they thought. It's only a bad think to know there are weaknesses in your game, if you plan to do nothing about it.

Question for you: When you say rationally explain to yourself, do you ever write your ideas down? or is it kept mostly in your head?

If the later, then that is the major contributor to the confusion that you get yourself into when in the situation. It's a common problem and one that is relatively easy to explain.

The problem is that too often players are tricked into thinking that because you can think about it in your mind, that you can rely on those thoughts being there in when the pressure is on, when your decision making is on the line. That flaw is perhaps the single greatest mistake I see happen time and again. There is a huge difference between being able to think about something in your mind away from the table and being able to do it under pressure. The difference is apples to oranges.

So the key is getting these thought trained to a level where they become automatic, or Unconsciously Competent. This level of training is actually stored in a part of the brain that exists below the emotional level, so when you are under significant pressure, they will still show up.

That level of training is too complex to cover here, but the first thing is that you HAVE to begin to have them show up more frequently at the table. 1) Write out a list of the mistakes that are most common or most significant in terms of win rate, money or frustration. 2) Write out, in detail, the rational or the correct way to play each one. Write them out as though you were coaching yourself. You may need to revise them as your understanding of each one progresses with experience. Think of it as a resource that you're building which gives you a solid reference point to work from. It definitely takes work to do, but fruits of your labor will show.

The next part here is getting it to show up since that's a major part of getting things trained to the UC level. So in those tight moments, take a deep breath to create some perspective for you to think clearly. Then reference your notes. If they are too long to reference when playing, create a short hand version. Similar to an armband worn by a quarterback - giving you a quick reminder. The key here though is that you need to train your reminder, because you can't rely heavily on your ability to think in these moment, the brain shuts off thinking when emotion/stress gets too high.

Does that help?

That's a good question - and I'll ask it of you first. Why does it tilt you so much when one person wins 3 buy ins?

Use a specific example and get into the details of how your frustration builds. What thoughts go through your mind, or you say out loud in the moment or afterwards?

From there I can be more specific.

1 person does any combination of cooler / suckout on me for stacks say 3 times wtihin 15 minutes.

After 2 stacks I'm already keeping my eye on that guy. If we tangle in a third pot I say something like, "omg don't do it to me again Jokerstars". Then after the 3rd one drops its basically, "F that guy. F him for running like jesus vs me all the time. I hope you get cancer for your bday" then secondary anger at the site I play at for allowing said d-bag to take all my monies

I'd easily rather lose four stacks to 4 different people than three to 1 person bc at least I won't be on tilt. I play pro and am not under-rolled.

Hi Jared,

tx for doing this!! You must have waited for me

I believe I have to major problems - sharing one trigger (usually a couple of "bad beats") and ending in the same result: me hopelessly tilting and playing my F-game (which costs me tons of $).

OK, here´s what I believe to be my problems:

1) High Ambition

I defined goals. I wrote them down. And I´m working hard to reach them. I watched tons of videos, read (and worked through) literally dozens of books, posted gazillions of hands in 3,283 forums. I have regularly coaching sessions. Eventually my motivation is to step up in the limits - and I want to do it as soon as possible. And my final goal and the motivation for stepping up is not even "money", it´s more that I like to prove myself that I´m able to do it (still the idea of consistently "earning" money is naturally a nice side effect).

2) Lack of confidence

I believe to be a good, reasonable player (certainly my game is far from being flawless but I think I beat the limit I actually play) - yet I only believe it but I am not sure (enough) about. So I need extrinsic (do you name it so?) confirmation - and that should be my results. I know (consciously) that the results are long-term, yet I cannot resist from "wishing" my results to be good short-term as well. Every 10 mins or so I check how much I won or lost in the actual session just to prove myself that I am a good player.

What happens?

I start my session in a superior mood, playing my A-game for quite some time. Then the inevitable happens (the more table I play the sooner it happens obv.) and I lose a 100BB-stack with a 90%-favorite hand against a dumb suckout on the river. I cannot resist from two things happening immediately:

What do I feel then?

a) I see my goals moving away a little bit further (which means I have to win 100BB back now to get as distant to the next limit as I was before this hand happened).

b) I start to take it personal, as if this "douchebag" who obviously does not play well wanted to show me what a fish I actually am - and I am not confident enough to just tick it off and keep playing my A-game. It gets even worse when I have to read in the chatbox what dumb fish I am for making this or that ...

What is the result?

I start to "open" my game, or more precisely I take greater risks to get lucky and win my money back in short time. I just don´t want to wait and grind and win 3 bucks here and 5 bucks there. I have to win 100 bucks to satisfy myself and find peace again (ideally against the same opp. who took my money - just to "prove" that I am the better player) ... which consistently leads to a huge cut into my bankroll (as you can imagine).

I hope I could make clear what´s spinning in my head (which is already difficult to postulate in german for me - you can imagine how much more difficult it is in english ) ... so what can I do to overcome those senseless emotions - which I (consciously) know are abstruse but which come up regularly?

Thanks for your effort - and looking forward to hear from you!

- Tack -

PS: I watched your Stoxpoker-videos on dealing with tilt, yet I did not find the time to actively work on what you suggested (like train my breathing or the relaxation techniques), but I hoped you could give me some more specific advices - or simply recommend a specific of your videos?

Hi Jared. Nice idea of you to start a thread; I hope a moderator will sticky it soon so it can become a lasting thing. I enjoyed your videos on Stoxpoker a lot, even though it didn't give me an immediate benefit (I'm mentally pretty solid).

A quick question: A friend of mine lost his job in the crisis and wants to start playing poker for a living. The problem is (apart from his poker skills): he's also playing blackjack and sometimes roulette. I tried to discuss this with him but he believes he is an expert/winning blackjack player and that he's just often unlucky. Note: he's not counting cards and even gets some basic strategy decisions wrong, he just believes he has a feel for the game.

I wonder if you have any tips on how to stop him from blowing his bankroll on -EV games. At the same time obviously it shouldn't make him a better poker player.

I'm so much like Tackleberry..I'm really anticipating an answer for this. Thanks Jared!

Hey thanks for doing this, Ive always been interested in how powerful the mind is.

While this question isnt necessarily poker related, it still has to do with mental mindsets.

I dont know how to ask this properly so Ill just tell you what Ive been struggling with. I have a low self esteem at times, I basically let my mind pwn my personality and how I appear to others. I really dont like it. Within the past couple years of my life, I have had events happen I wish I could go back in time and repeat. They were key events in my life I really should of acted different on, kinda like the quote "its not what happens to you that makes you who you are, its how you respond to them" or something like that. Recentley my mind has been in a non stop thought process of how much easier it would have been for me if I acted in x way, or if I handled it in x way. Do you know what Im trying to get at? These events have led to some problems of anxiety which leads to some depression at times. There will be spans of weeks where I just become bummed out because all I can think about how bad I wish I could go back and try again when I know I cant. These thoughts are literally causing sleepless nights. It also causes me to blame others and try to take the easy way out. Sometimes, If Im not feeling sorry for myself, Ill feel angry lying to myself thinking being angry at people relieves some steam. I know this is now good for me at all, Im getting really sick of these thoughts from the past having such a big affect on how I am currently, I should easily be over the events that happend but they still bother me. How can I train my mind to move on from this? How can I become more positive and just be nicer to other people in general. I have been listening to alot more reggae recently and trying to treat others they way they do, "one love", that whole deal.

Also, I dont know why, but along with sleepless nights, during alot of my alone time when Im thinking seriously about things or w/e, the thought of death and knowing I wont live forever is starting to sink in, it terrifies me. I've lived a very blessed life so far and getting closer to the real world. Im afraid im wasting life sometimes. Like my problem of thinking too much about the past, I think about the future and become afraid of it as well. What am I gonna do with my life? What is life? WTF created us? Theres got to be something that did, whats gonna happen? etc.

Im sorry this question ended up taking forever but I figured you prolly know your **** front and back so I hope this was able to make sense. I havent talked to anyone about this btw so Im curious to know how to approach this problem further. Thanks a bunch.