I am a trained Psychologist educated to Masters level (MSc) with a firm understanding on the mind and the mental side of poker.

I would like to offer help to people who wish to learn more or understand the mental side of the game at a basic level.

This is for people who need help understanding what their mind is going through when they play, I also will help people build resilience against tilting.

All you need to do is post below with your questions and I will do my best to answer them asap.

Some examples might include:

1.) What is the mental game and why is it important?
2.) What can you tell me that is useful?
3.) Why do I always feel like such a loser?

Post any and all comments or questions below and I will aim to help!

I would love it if you answered the three example questions in your post to start.

Sent from my SCH-I535 using 2+2 Forums

How can I stop thinking (and occasionally typing) ****** when someone does something twattish and wins?

Question 1.) What is the mental game and why is it important?

In poker, there are 2 conflicts that a player must resolve to be a winning player. These are classed as:

* The external behavioural conflict where the hero is against another player.

* The internal conflict between you and yourself.

Poker is often seen as a game of decision making dependent on incomplete information. Of course, what do you use when you make these decisions? Your mind.

However, your mind is not as stable and efficient at playing poker as you'd like it to be. Overtime, it gets affected by faulty logic and the emotional responses. Instead of making purely logical decisions, your mind often relies on its emotional system and memory to make decisions but these are not accurate.

It takes a lot of effort, but the mind needs to be trained to be efficient at poker. It needs to be trained to consistently make the correct decisions despite any past events or emotional states.

Without paying focus to the mental game, you may be too scarred to call an all in bet preflop ("FEAR") even with AA as your starting hand. An opponent will realise this and constantly shove against you. This is a rather simplified but valid example.

The mental game is a vital component ensuring you are in the correct mindset to make correct decisions and not be affected by emotional states (Fear, Motivation...etc). If your mind cannot continue making +EV decisions at the table then you will lose money. This is why it is important!

Question 2.) What can you tell me that is useful?

Briefly... One of the biggest reasons for tilting is losing focus and accumulated emotions.

Focus= Try playing perfect poker for around a maximum of 20-30 minutes, before sitting out for 5 minutes rest.

Accumulated emotions= Also, try and keep a diary for your emotions. Unload all your positive and negative thoughts about hands and sessions you have played onto paper before bed each night. Do this again just before you play in order to ensure your mind is reset ready to focus properly and play properly without previous games affecting it as much.

Question 3.) Why do I always feel like such a loser?

This is person dependent. Some people may have confidence issues, some may have accumulated tilt and others might just have a gambling issue.

Solution= Reset your mind by having a break from poker + Start reviewing your thoughts on the game. Determine if you have an emotional state that makes you feel like you are a loser. Aim to find the faulty logic causing this emotional state and correct it by paying conscious attention to your thinking patterns and replace them with the correct "Self Talk".

Is the problem with them or with you?

The answer is with you and your expectations!

You feel that because you play "correctly" that you should always win against an idiot who just gambles and gets lucky.

Solution= If you don't have the absolute nuts by the River card, then you are NOT guaranteed to win. Instead of assuming that you will win, always EXPECT a chance of losing.

Preflop: Out of AA vs 72o.... 72o will win around 1 in 9 times. (8:1)

No cards are really at that much of an advantage against each other. Expect variance, Expect bad beats, Expect the unexpected and EMBRACE IT.

Without donkeys or fish getting lucky, there would be no money to be made in poker!

nice thread

How important do you think these resting pauses are?
I mean, if somebody plays poker its most of the times for a couple of hours straight, some people are even playing MTT's from when they wake up till they go to bed.

Also, do you think that 'focus' can be trained? (To keep focussed longer without resting)

Okay. The only thing which makes me consciously tilt is when somebody's range isn't as capped as it should be because they've played a hand in a dumb way. This means I make an FTOP mistake, and normally also a mistake against their true range, but not against a standard range in that spot. This only occurs when the line I've took is thin - i.e. vbetting two streets with second pair when an opponent shouldn't ever really have top pair; if I've taken a fat value line and they've taken a dumb one I'm pretty much fine with it. Why is it this way, and how do I solve it?

Focus is required to play at the level of conscious competence. If you go beyond your threshold of focus, you are relying on your "Autopilot" of which is known as unconscious control.

If you find you play well for a small period of time, then make mistakes after 30 minutes or whenever... it is clear you are still learning the game at the level of conscious competence.

One thing which is hugely apparent in psychology is individual differences. Some people may be able to concentrate just 10 minutes, others might be 1 hour. It all depends on you and your individual abilities.

I believe an approximate average time would be around 20-30 minutes of mentally taxing tasks before your autopilot takes over.

As for focus being trained.... DEFINITELY!

The mind is a muscle, it can be trained and improved just like your bicep or abs. Aim to progressively overload it over time giving it rest days to recover (1 rest day per week with NO poker)!

If you struggle, try increasing the time you focus by just 10% extra for each period. Instead of doing a 30 minute session followed by 5 mins rest, try 33 minutes with 5 mins rest.

Aim to do 3 days at the same period length before increasing it by another 10%.

An example is:

Mon= 33min/5rest
Tue=33min/5rest
Wed=33min/5rest
Thurs=Rest
Fri=36min/5rest
Sat=36min/5rest
Sun=36min/5rest
Mon= Rest
Tue= 40min/5rest

...etc

You should find focus will increase. Also, remember the acronym SAID.
The body is SAID to respond with:

Specific Adaptations to Increased Demands

If you wanna get better at focusing whilst playing poker, don't try those silly brain training games! Get better at focusing with poker by playing POKER! There's no other better way to do it!

So you are making a mistake because your opponents are not allowed to play in a way that exploits you? Even if it is unintentional by their part!

There are people who believe 63o always wins, that KK should be folded preflop as you will always see an ace on the flop with it and other illogical stuff.

Solution= Adapt, Improvise, Overcome...

Say to yourself "My opponent isn't meant to play in a way that makes my life easy, I need to pay closer attention to anomalies and adapt accordingly".

Awesome thread, thanks for helping out!

Your Gary Busey .... Right ????

I have no idea who this guy is.

How did you study Psychology and never come across Gary Busey as a case scenario?

Re focus period.

How do tourney players cope/adapt/improve. In an STT, I might have to go 60-90 minutes without a break and all the hard stuff comes at the end.

In fact, I've just taken down an STT after struggling with 3 fish on the bubble and it's left me with headache and eye strain.

I *know* all that stuff. They *are* a ****. How can I make myself stop thinking it though?

For eye strain, follow the 20:20:20 rule.... Every 20 minutes, look at an object at least 20 meters away for 20 seconds. This should help with the strain.

As for focus in a STT, why not try and take a brake for a few minutes strategically. Pay attention to your emotional state, if you have just had a huge suckout or bad beat... Sitout for a few hands and walk around in your back garden/back yard for a bit to get some fresh air and recompose yourself.

Ideally, any time you feel either positive or negative emotions are starting to control your game and you know you are going to tilt soon. Sit out, grab a drink of water, get some fresh air and then return. This could be the case of missing value from 3-5 hands, but if you carried on and shoved with a tilt induced bluff that you lose, it could save you from losing the tournament.

Consider how you think and respond to an event as a habit. It is your job to break the habit and think properly at an unconscious level.

You say you "Know" all this stuff already, I believe you do not. What I believe is you know all this stuff at a conscious level but haven't programmed it at a unconscious level.

Solution= Use conscious effort to reprogram how you think in these situations.

You need to recognise when a fish has just got lucky on you, take a deep breath and say something like:

"Bad beats are the reason fish still play the game, and the reason it is profitable to play. Even fish need food to keep them at the tables. I am putting this behind me, regaining my stability and continuing like nothing has happened".

If you cannot continue unaffected, take a break.

If you do this enough, you should find yourself getting reprogrammed at a deeper level. I recently was heads up against an opponent after shoving all in preflop... he had just 1 out that could beat me and it hit. My AA vs his 77, 1 opponent showed his 79o that he folded. This was of course a sick bad beat, however I remember hearing to myself "That's poker, take a break and let off some steam. Return and carry on. You'll be fine" in my head.

Having the correct self-talk drilled into your head is by far the most effective way to handle the mental game.

I noticed around 3 major mental game issues I have sometimes run through my head right now. I did read up on mental game but I am still struggling with these:

1. I sometimes genuinely feel that I run worse than other people (especially in big pots or when playing deep). I always stop and tell myself "not true" or some sort of logic but it seems to always creep up on me.

How can I ease my mind on the subject or what should I be doing to stop feeling so? (the regular logic inject is hard for me to get through no matter what).

2. I seem to always get tilted when a "reg" gets lucky on me while on the other hand I have no issue when a "fish" stacks me for whatever reason. I feeI this way especially when I play great vs a reg and get them to put there money in bad or make a great read in a thin spot or something but they get lucky and I feel like I'll never get that"spot" back.

I kind of diagnosed it as an ego issue but what other things do you think could cause this? Maybe because its harfer to get money from regs my though is a little justified?

3. I have a close poker friend that seems to do better than me result wise. I can't help but get jealous and sometimes think I should be doing better than my friend. I know its dumb and know its an unhealthy thought to have but I can't deny its there. I feel sick that I can't even be 100% happy for my friend when it comes to poker success.

What can I do to at least turn it from a negative mind drain to neutral?

Just typing out some of tilt issues got me thinking about solutions so thank you for starting the thread. Id be looking forward to your thoughts.

Sometimes it is wise to listen to yourself... are you sure you aren't always feel like you are running worse than others and you get jealous of a more successful friend because you ARE playing worse than others and have big leaks that are affecting your game that you aren't aware of? Hire a coach, have them review your hand history. This covers point 1 and 3.

Point 2, this is due to expectations. When it happens, take a deep breath and say to yourself "I cannot control my opponents, only my own actions. My opponents can play however they want. I just need to make a note of what this player has done and move onto the next hand!".

I guess thats about right, and all ive been able to come up with... I've been breaking even-ish for about 8 months now (up 4k first 4 months at 1/3, down ~3k the last 3 at 2/5 and 1/3). I am kind of in a confidence slump too because of it. Actually a coach is a vey good idea now that I think about it. Thing is I play live so its a little different from online coaching but I guess I'll ask and see how that works.

Thank you for your opinion.

Thanks for this thread. It's a good read so far.


How can I increase concentration?
I often find myself just button clicking at the tables, getting distracted, not trying to read my opponent. Are there any tips on increasing concentration levels? Any foods I should eat more of or avoid?

How can you keep yourself calm and collected after making mistakes?
I often regret the mistakes I make, quite deeply. It causes losses beyond what I initially experienced due to a lack of motivation.

ACE!

Try looking at page one of this thread. I've already spoke about improving your ability to focus. Noone can run a marathon without gradually improving their endurance. This is the same for poker. You cannot expect yourself to be able to stay focused and concentrate for hours at a time instantly. You need to add strategic breaks and rests (Sit out) to allow your mental muscle to recover.

Focus is the same as Conscious concentration; Attention is the same as Unconscious concentration. Eventually, even your ability to pay attention will struggle and fail. This is where tonnes of mistakes occur.

I really do suggest taking a 5 minute break every 20-30 minutes, even if you just grab a drink of water or go and water the plants in the garden... just get away from your screen and do something else that isn't poker related.

If you are playing live, why not go to the toilet or grab a drink from the bar? Even just a few seconds away from the table may help.

You need to understand the learning process a little more, purchase a book from Amazon called "The Mental Game of Poker" and read about the learning process.

Take a deep breath and say to yourself:

"Playing perfect poker is fantasy, not a reality. Even the pros make mistakes at times. All I can do is keep learning the game and learning in areas I make mistakes in."

What are the most common symptoms or signs of tilt that players often don't recognize as tilt?