Hey 2p2, recently ive been reading "Mental Game of Poker" by Jared Tendler.

He suggests a method of correcting flaws in your mental game in 5 steps.

Resolution:
1. Describe the Problem
2. Why does it make logical sense that you would react, think, or feel that way?
3. Why is that logic flawed?
4. What is the correct way to handle the situation?
5. Why is that correction correct?

My first attempt of doing a list like this:

About Autopilot:
1. I dont think about ranges, once i go on Autopilot and play Fit or Fold Poker without exploiting opponents leaks.

2. Because i expect to be still a winner when on autopilot playing many hands, since my knowledge is way ahead of the general field of my limit.
Edges i gain from playing back at opponents dont seem to be necessary.

3. Grinding too many hands without thinking drops my winrate probably to
breakeven. I probably am even loosing when on autopilot without the
edges i gain from playing back at my opponents.

4. I am not winning by playing on autopilot! Rakeback is not enough to even that out and variance will eat up my Small winning/Breakeven play! By playing more edges, more of my Agame gets into my Unconscious Competence and therefor i improve at a greater rate.

5. Beeing way ahead of the poker competition with my Autopilot game is
an illusion. I yet dont have enough knowledge in my Unconscious Competence to make my Cgame a winning play.


I highly suggest reading "Mental Game of Poker" and probably people who have read it can give a little more detailed answers then those who dont. But still i am very thankfull for every comment that is helpfull.

Excellent book,

It looks like you have created a logical path to resolving your issue. Out of interest have you noticed a change in your style of play since utilising this technique?

yet i only played 1 session after i did this first use of it. I do feel a lot more relaxed already tho. Also that i had a lot of mediocre results in the past view days, i seemed to build up a lot of stacked emotions. He also talks about that in the book, where your past tilt comes up combined with your current one if you didnt fix it from the past and there is only a short timeframe between those two.
But now i take things a lot easier and am a little better at removing part and part of those flawed mindsets that are the reason for bad emotions.

Try to constantly think about jared tendler's words during your sessions to keep focus and not to tilt/go on autopilot.

tbh it seems to be helping a lot for me.
Next thing i will do is a "Mental Hand History" for people who show up with good hands, eventho there stats dont say it, for example someone who is 4betting 50% of hands over some sample and once u pick him up with JJ, he has Aces.
If there is intest in me posting that, let me know. Otherthen that i will just move on improving my mental game to a way better state then before :P.

I have a major leak atm that is killing my RIO. It's def a mental game issue it's now been going on for so long without improving I'm going to use Jared's mental HH also.

The problem I have is as follows:

When deep in mtts, last few tables, I keep spewing off stacks on either extremely ambitious 4b jam type spots or hero calling way lighter than I should be. I find myself rushing decisions and levelling myself into thinking villains are trying to outplay me when in reality they're just 3betting QQ+ for value haha.

I notice that I'm impulsively making decisions based on a short, linear thought process rather than deliberately giving myself time to think about the spot taking in all factors.

I'm going to use Jared's steps above in OP for working on the flaw. I'm interested if anyone has had, or has problems like this and what they did/are doing to resolve the issue.

Anyone wanting to share ideas and discuss mental game books, techniques, leaks, mistakes etc... add me on skype to be added to a discussion group.

skype = gidsta800

I am currently reading this book and going to school for a degree in psychology as well. Understanding how the brain interprets information from poker has been key to advancing my mental game. Accumulation tilt, revenge tilt, these two have had negative effects on my mental approach.

The mental model by identifying triggers and reading my thoughts about my mental profile among other information of importance before I play a session; writing down my thoughts in a journal to cross-reference my mental profile has helped in seeing small improvements otherwise I might not have seen if I had not started writing down weakness, and then grading my sessions afterwards.

The mental makeup of my opponents beyond the notes that have been taken now I can identify other mental mistakes my opponents make and add additional quality information about the weakness in their game.

Looking towards the backend of my game has led to fixing more of my mistakes that were not visible until I started reading this book. I have also recently read How to be a poker player by Haseeb Qureshi. He talks about Jared Tendler in his book. Both of these books have helped in opening up new avenues of thinking. I believe to help advance my play, an advancement in thinking is better than concentrating on advancing my “A” game because my leaks are in my sub-par game not in my “A” game. The adjustment in thinking has transferred to my play at the table. Glad to have met you and have a great holiday.

looks good OP. The key is to keep at it, even when you think it's really working well. It takes a while before it fully sticks.

I think I've been like you lately,when deep I'm stealing a lot,but instead of folding when 3bet I'm calling,then maybe calling flop or even raising with rubbish,as you say from thinking they are trying to play me!
So I've tried repeating to myself when deep "don't do anything stupid " and actually analyse the hand and player and take my time.
If you take your time and think logically you will even feel better when you lose aswell

There are many variables into why we do what we do at the table when under stress, when our decisions are the toughest. Our unconscious thoughts have been shut down and conscious thought has to be done in these situations. If we do not have good experience to reference in these areas or no mistakes have been made to see why we do something; the same conscious thoughts come to mind just like how you describe getting three bet for example. The result of this is when we routinely make the same play when put in this situation and we fold or chase without a clear plan, we are just simply repeating a routine, then we repeat consciously until we repeat these movements unconsciously. Unless we address the mental mistakes that our brain has told ourselves to do, in these situations our brain is using us when under stress we just repeat the same move without thought or knowing why?


Poker is many routines that have identifiable patterns. Old mapping is the reason for your folding or chasing without thought. This is trenched in your mind however long you put yourself in these and similar situations. Without new mapping, new thoughts about old information and new theories about old situations, that is the beginning of new thoughts about new mapping in our brain.


For example, I was experimenting with 3 and 4 betting pre-flop and post flop. I understood why my opponent was doing this to me but I did not understand how to counter their play properly. I made proper plays and I made mistakes. I just could not break this down in my mind from this point because this was not the beginning of my trouble, for example, I was not at the “root” of why I was still not fully recognizing and grasping was going on at the table. I still have not found the proper way for me to recognize the “root” of why at or away from the table?


I was still having problems understanding why I was frustrated and not making any significant progress. Once I started making my mental profile of leaks and wrote down all of my troubles at or away from the table. This let me get out all of my frustration, leaks, strengths, what I have identified good and bad about my research, journal my thoughts, desires, and goals. These are some examples.


At the table I was already taking notes on opponents but I started to take specific notes on paper to identify good and bad information. Working on what I have posted from above and more about myself and opponents about my play, their play, strengths, weaknesses, etc… I was starting to focus on new things instead of what was going wrong in real time or from past sessions. Accumulation of tilt, anxiety, emotion was balanced better than in previous sessions and my notes on myself backed this up.


The results from doing this so far, I recognized the problem and I had the information all along but could not identify the problem because of how my brain was using me instead of the other way around. For example, I mentioned routines and patterns. This was the “root” for example, the brain wants to recognize and are drawn to patterns. However, in poker the brain is drawn to and recognizes routines, poker players will repeat routines because of doing them unconsciously. Patterns have to be identified consciously and they are only transferred to the unconscious when we get them to where we identify them without thought. For example, after years of driving the same way too work we could do this without focus now because we now have drove this road to the point of unconscious thought. This is why people will day dream and wind up driving then snap back into focus and wonder how they traveled so far without remembering how they got to this point because they do not remember the last few minutes.


The pattern of the road taken to go to work is now in our unconscious thought our brain now recognizes this as a routine because we are now doing this without thought, but it is still a pattern of our original routine of going to work; we are just thinking about the pattern unconsciously. This understanding has helped me recognize routines and patterns properly in mine and my opponents play. This can be mapped in my brain and on paper to see mine, my opponent’s strengths, weaknesses, properly. Now my focus can be put on new mistakes and flaws in my game.


When the brain is put in this situation at the table the small differences of terms, small %’s for example, the 2% difference between 7% and 9% cannot be identified, polarized situations of being way ahead or way behind the brain will not work optimally. When put under stress of not understanding this or identifying this at or away from the table our brain’s unconscious thoughts have now been shut down. Now mistakes from old routines will be made. We have to make a conscious decision now and decisions from old routines are now being activated in our brain. The pattern of folding or chasing can now be observed in our play and now can be corrected from our past routines from three betting as an example. The leak is in the routine, the pattern is the result of a bad routine. The person who has more mental muscle will make proper decisions consistent, over a longer period of time, now will have an advantage.


People just confuse these two terms, people just identify routines as patterns incorrectly because of not fully understanding two similar terms and applying them properly. Thus, just like in poker we will just routinely identify these two incorrectly at and away from the table. Routines we do in everyday life, for example, we eat, sleep, dress, and go to work, because we do these things unconsciously without thought of having to do them. The pattern for going to work would be the road taken to go to work from the routine of going to work as an example. Now I am using my brain and my old routines of making mistakes can now be addressed, and new mapping has begun.


Once I corrected my thinking this actually let me understand my flaw in thinking even though, the answer was there all along I could not recognize because of my other mental issues always in my thoughts that was blocking this information. What happened my focus in new areas of poker let me understand the old information properly and now my thoughts consciously and unconsciously are now firing together.


The answer was in Jared’s book I just had to get to the root of why my brain had control from the understanding of what I was learning in school about psychology as well and now I have begun correcting issues. Mastering any part of the game of poker is incredibly hard but what is harder is to recognize consistently when these issues are creeping back into our thought process. Glad to have met you and hope your year is filled with success.

I am assuming you are saying playing on Autopilot is a problem?

How many hours can you play without playing on auto pilot?

How many hours do you need to play to meet your longterm profit goals?

A wound doesn't heal because you pick in it. Just keep it clean and take care of the rest of your body. Translated to poker: Stop analyzing why and how you react because that is a part of the problem. You need to stop thinking about tilt. You play until you've had enough. Then you take a break. Maybe for days. You don't push yourself to be better at coping, you just work your way through it by being persistent and gradually your mind will adapt to the new environment and what is required from it there. Stress breaks people. Don't spend time in that state of mind.

If I understand you correctly, are you saying just ignore the problem? Because if so, you're running counter to all the current psychology that is proven to get results.