Hi guys,

I have been playing live for about 3 months and I know that since the first, I have improved tremendously and am one of the best players in those 1/1 games now. But the problem that prevents me from being the best, as opposed to being one of the best is, I keep making small stupid mistakes because "those thoughts didn't cross my mind."

I do try meditating and mental imagery and those stuff helps, but I do not do them everyday, since the games run through out the night till early morning. Just FYI.

Seriously speaking, those stuff are very simple stuff. Allow me to post some examples.

1/1 FULLRING

I was UTG, I RAISED with AAp, MP1 calls, HJ 3bets, folds to BUTTON who calls, action folds to me, I know those players and their tendencies, and am decided between flatting or 4betting to 55$ and I knew that the BUTTON is extremely loose, so I am not worried, the HJ is a fish, not worried either, so I made the call. What's wrong with this? There's the MP1 who's still in the hand!

Turning this game into a 4 way pot with AAp is definitely not something I want. I forgotten to check the tables before betting.

another instance,

HERO : 33p ($133)

OR UTG for 6$. 6 callers.

FLOP : 6hTh3c

I cbetted 24$ into 38$ pot. 1 caller.

POT : 96$

Hero : $103

I betted again for 75$

V Folded.

See, instead of betting smaller and inducing V to call, I pushed V out of the pot.

I know I can make those good decisions but when I am in a hand, I just can't seem to remind myself of those small details.

I forget my hole cards suits, I forget to check the stacks of myself, Vs' the pot size, I forget the hand history just right after I finished the hand, I forget that the FLOP is a extremely drawy board and I should reraise all in with my sets against this V who check/raised me. I forget this and that.

I have read another thread and the OP mentioned that for himself, it could be due to lack of exercise, ****ty eating habits and lack of sleep.

Hmm, was it ****ty exercising habits? or ****ty eating habits? ...

I hope you don't mean small as unimportant. And the best time to remind yourself of the details are at the table. You are playing live so it isn't like you have what amounts to a shot clock on you like you might have online.

Hi Doc T River!

Thanks for taking the time to reply

Nope, small to me doesn't mean unimportant, it's more of like a easily overlooked detail, which is just as important as any other details.

But it just seems like that I easily overlook them as to other details.

As for the forgetting of hole card suits, I have resorted to naming the hole card's value and it's suits together a couple of times in the hand to remind myself of it, just in case.

As for forgetting to check the stack/pot sizes issue, I'm going to remind myself to check the stack sizes on every street and when everytime the action is on me.

But with regards to being in "The Zone", being mindful of what's really happening on the table, this one slips me at times.

When one is in the heat of the battle, it seems like that I at times, tend to think from one angle but not the other.

Now that the issue with forgetfulness is settled, I am left with the issue of being mindful of the actions of those on the table, being mindful of what their actions means, being mindful of the board etc.

How does one practice with regards to this aspect?

Please advise.

I think this just comes with experience. You've only been playing for 3 months and are playing at the lowest live stakes -- you're still very much a newbie. Therefore, I don't think you should expect to be making the right decisions all the time. I'd recommend just playing more -- I don't think you need to do anything special to work on this specifically.

Hi Gangstaman!

Thanks for your advise

Ya, I'm playing like about 5/6 days a week currently. It feels like i am the only one facing the problem. With regards to remembering the stack/pot size and the pot geometry, I'll need to put in conscious effort. After I am done with this, I'll slowly pick up on reading Vs' tendencies.

Jared Tendler discusses this type of weakness in his mental game video course. He calls it decision making issues or something to that effect. This is basically when we are faced with decisions during a hand and we dont access the tactical information we have inside our minds when making critical decisions. A simple example of this is not putting you're opponents on a range of hands. We know that if we where to verbalize the correct thought process that we should be following during a hand, this would be a key thinking point. But during the actual hand we fail to apply this knowledge and make the game allot easier for our opponents to play against us. I made a similar mistake like the one above the other day. Its interesting to note that most of my losing sessions where lost in a similar fashion namely not applying the correct thought process. Why does this happen? Im not a 100% sure this could be a for a number of reasons. But recognizing that this is in fact a huge mental game issue is a start in the right direction. You know what the problem is, but now its time to eradicate it. Invest some time into the Tendler material, im sure you're answer or at least direction will be buried there somewhere. Good luck.

cheers

Hi PLAYTOLIVE!


Thank you very much for your advise! Ah finally someone that understands my predicament. I too in most of my losing sessions beside getting sucked out and stuff like that lose because of poor mental thought process, or sometimes the lack of it, not because I do not know that those thoughts should take place and be part of the decision making factors but it just "slips my mind".

Thanks once again PLAYTOLIVE, I'll check Tendler out, thanks!