Read through and subscribing! Thanks again for the leak busting session coach! GL! Doing a good job working through those mental aspects and keeping self aware. I'm really interested in motivation techniques and general self help stuff. There are interesting videos on youtube by Tony Robbins that I find really inspring. Visualization, positive thinking techniques etc. The concepts are so simple it seems silly but its the fact that they are so simple that so many people neglect them and maybe take them for granted imo.

Yes I got the Intercept. Maybe I will exchange them for the wi five, as they are not much more. I see the wi fi have a nose bridge piece, and the two complaints I have about the Intercept is that they are a bit tight on my nose bridge and also squish my temples just a bit. Thanks for the tip.

Glad you found it helpful!

A few thoughts:

- This was my graph last year:

I can see that I was accustomed to smooth sailing for most of the year, and started to only see some swinginess when I was moving up and playing some 5/10 the last third of the year. As I try to play more volume this year, that means a little less cherrypicking of my spots. Also, at higher limits my expected winrate is a bit lower which increases expected standard deviation. Also, pots at 5/10 are just kind of big and I haven't won or lost several thousand in a day enough times yet to have it feel totally like nothing. All stuff to be self aware of as I grow my mental game.

- I made the CHOICE for this lifestyle and career. It's not always going to be smooth sailing, and the tough days will be tough. That's OK, that's just part of the job, and I need to really EMBRACE the bad with the good.

- Choking vs Panicking.
skraper linked me to this video:

http://bigthink.com/videos/talent-ma..****olm-gladwell

The choking vs panicking stuff made a lot of sense to me. Choking is failing, but with preparation, such as a basketball player who has practiced a free throw thousands of times getting into a bad headspace and failing to execute under the bright lights. Panicking is failing with a lack of preparation, when you have no idea what you are supposed to even be doing, such as a new young driver hitting an ice patch and skidding out of control for the first time in their life - they have no experience and no preparation and don't know what to do to correct the skid and they panic.

Choking we see all the time, and it is normal and fine and part of the growth process. A young pro gets into contention at the Masters for the first time and falls off down the stretch. It's not that he hasn't practiced his putting, it's that there is no real way to recreate these extreme conditions in a practice setting. Next time he's in contention he draws off his experience and does better.

I think that when I fail at the poker tables it's a similar concept. I don't have a wealth of experience dealing with multiple 5k+ downswings in a month. It's OK and expected that I falter along the way, as long as its not from a lack of preparation. This is real world experience that I can't recreate in a classroom. Improving how I deal with losing increasingly large sums is a valuable skill, and these "adverse conditions" I run into are such hugely valuable growth opportunities for me. I need to embrace the tough times and leverage the situations as opportunities for practice, growth, inchworming, etc.

Played a short session tonight. I only had two hours to play, and towards the end of session I started forcing the action in some spots because I was too mentally fixated on my short term results. I'm not going to be able to play at all tomorrow, so I subconsciously (and consciously I suppose) wanted to book a win. I think I turned a session that should have been a $100-200 loser into a $400 loser instead. That's not the end of the world, but it's something I've had issues with in the past. I have shown some growth there, but sort of took for granted today. There are some mental skills I have trained to the point of Conscious Competence, but they are definitely not yet in my Unconscious Competence and that's why it's important for me to keep striving to be aware of these issues and improve. Collecting my thoughts about it here is part of that process. The next time I have a similar deadline session, I will try to remember to actively remind myself to use that session as an opportunity to practice and develop that skill.

96/1000 hours
9.6% complete

I managed to do something similair last Saturday. I started my session at around 3pm and within the hour I was around +500, I knew I had to leave at around 8:00 and going through my thought process was leave now and enjoy the rest of the day. I proceed to lose 2 big cooler hands involving me essentially having them drawing dead pre or on the flop.

AJ vs A2 on a AA6 board turns a 2.
AK vs AQ get him for a cap pre flop comes AQ2.

Anyways I find myself stuck ~100 now and instead of taking the hit I compound the mistakes and I'm down $500 at around 7:30. I managed to get back to $1000 at 10pm kept playing instead of leaving. My degeneracy gets the better of me (I knew 2 fish had called in and should be arriving any minute to the game so I stayed)

Dip down to $700 by 11pm. Win a few small pots to get me back to $1100 played till the session and left at 3am with a profit of $47.

Haha that's obviously not an ideal grinding process

I think it's important to note that when you got up 500 and just wanted to book the win, that is also unhealthy in the same way that chasing a loss is unhealthy. Either way, we are focused on obtaining a short term result as opposed to just playing a solid session of cards. If we want to play for 3 hours, we should be playing our best for 3 hours then quit, regardless of whether or not we happen to win/lose that flip or whatever.

Why do I *want* to book that final win? So I can "feel like a winner" for the next day or two, or feel like I "left on a good note"? Those feelings of satisfaction are short lived and hollow, whereas the feeling of pride that comes from doing your best remains long after the sting or buzz of short term results wears off.

Really well said.

Good call on the Wi-Five. I ended up ordering those, and they arrived yesterday. They are MUCH more comfortable to me than the Intercept.

http://www.amazon.com/INT-00101-Inte.../dp/B00CAUTK0E

http://www.amazon.com/Gunnar-Optiks-.../dp/B001DUQU9G

They are an extra $15 but it's very much worth it.

Amazon is great with returns, btw. Just clicked a button saying I didn't want the intercept anymore, and I have a printing label to ship them back free of charge and get a refund.

Thanks.

Yesterday was a good day of practice for me. With the deadline of end of month looming, I knew I'd be prone to various forms of tilt. Early in the grind, I won an early pot and started having feelings of just wanting to book the win or drop down in stakes. I couldn't totally shake it and after a while had to take a short break. I was able to get into a good headspace after the break, and came back to play some really zoned in top notch poker. I also experienced some nasty downturns later in the day, and this got me on some traditional loser's tilt. Again, I knew I'd be very prone to overreacting to both positive and negative variance, so again I was able to regroup and come back and play well. I ended up pushing session a bit too long at the end, and again realized it and quit appropriately. The entire day was basically a battle of getting off my game and regathering and getting back on track.

I'm not frustrated that I was battling mental issues, because I knew going into session they'd be more heightened by the end of the month, so I'm instead satisfied with how I approached things and feel like I practiced getting a little bit better at my mental game. You can't get this kind of real world practice in a classroom. I can learn about strategies and techniques away from the tables, but in order to really grow I have to inherently facing tough conditions to get the chance to practice how I handle it.

More of the same coming today for me. It will be another good opportunity to stick to a structured session and practice staying on my game, even though I know I will be more prone to mental issues on the final day of the month. I could just "book the month", but I want to be able to play my best regardless of my results. I'm sure I'll get off track, but hopefully I will do a good job of regrouping and getting back in the zone and thus continuing to work at and improve the issues at hand.

Another topic I wanted to write briefly about was the wasted brain cycles that come with winner's and loser's tilt for me.

When winner's tilt starts to creep in, I'm wasting brain cycles at the tables kind of daydreaming about "it would be cool to post about this awesome upswing" or "what if I have some kind of personal record day", or similarly when loser's tilt starts to creep in I'm thinking about how disappointing it would be to see my recent profits evaporate, etc. I'm literally imagining various details of the aftermath of either situation.

This destroys my decision making process. I am often able to to make the correct decisions at the tables when in this state, because the decisions have been trained to Unconscious Competence. But the areas of my game that I am working on, and technical areas I am prone to slip, these are the things that require my full decision making process and brain power to consistently get right.

When 25% of my brain cycles are thinking "maybe I should just book this win right now and be happy for it", and then I get in a big pot and another 25% are thinking "geez if I make this call and lose there go all my profits", I'm just not going to be able to make my best decisions under those circumstances. The same idea applies to loser's tilt, just with slightly different thoughts.

When I do get off my mental game, and happen to continue to make solid decisions at the table, I think it's mostly because I was lucky to have a run of spots that are trained to Unconscious Competence. I need to be aware that when these thoughts creep in I need to address them immediately, and take a break if I can't quell them by breathing and injecting. Often times I am able to do that, but when I can't I need to take it seriously and realize that when I'm off my mental game yet still making good decisions, it's likely that I actually just haven't run into that "tough spot" yet that I tend to get wrong when off my mental game. As long as I'm sitting there wasting brain cycles, that poor decision making process is a time bomb waiting to explode if the right cards get dealt out. Sometimes I will think at the end of session "oh I was feeling a bit tilty but I still played well". There are cases where I did a great job of refocusing quickly and when a tough decision came up I was able to quiet my brain and think clearly and make a good decision. However, there are cases where I think the same "I still played well" but I didn't really do anything well, I was ready to make a mistake and I just didn't happen to get dealt the spot that would have inevitably tripped me up.

Nice, and great price. I bought mine local (in part because I wanted to try them on first and I like keeping my cash local when I can to support small businesses) on a bit of an impulse and paid $100 OTD.

I find myself very often rating my mental game higher when I win the session than when I lose. I think this is mostly because winning sessions tend to have fewer mental game obstacles but that doesn't mean I played better in them. I'm working on trying to be objective in the ratings but its not easy.

sup ben

hope all is well with yourself

where abouts in the usa u play?

I like em even more now that I feel like I got a deal!

+1

Hey dude glad to hear from you. Things are good. I'm playing on some of the usual USA sites, but I don't post my screen name details etc.

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/28...-14-a-1238038/

106/1000 hours
10.6% complete

Good job staying positive and confident man. Feels good to look back at those downswings and see them for what they are. I've found in a roundabout way they actually help with my confidence

Up and down the last few days. Tuesday I didn't play my best. I made a series of marginal misplays, and ended up getting frustrated and couldn't quite get in the zone throughout the day, yet managed to book a small winner. Yesterday I booked a medium loser, but feel like I did a good job of staying focused and present and in the zone through the negative variance. I'm glad I can be honest with myself about these assessments, and not act like I played fine just because I happened to win. Sometimes I say to myself "well it wasn't THAT bad", but the truth is I don't really do the epic spewfest thing much anymore, and when I'm not playing my best the symptoms are much more minor. That's good that I've inchwormed my C game along, but the reality is it is still costing me money every time I'm not playing my best. It's good to feel proud that my C game has improved, but it's not good to try to use that as some excuse to make it seem OK if I don't do my best.

The grind has been going fairly well lately. I've been feeling motivated, and putting in consistently good effort. I've been reading some more personal growth stuff lately, and feeling pretty good about the overall direction my life is moving. The more I believe in what I'm doing and where I'm going, the more fired up I feel to put in good EFFORT on a daily basis.

Thanks, I agree. I am starting to see the value of this more and more. One thing I was reading phrased it along the lines of, in order to strengthen a muscle you need something to push back against. Often times adversity gives us the best opportunity to strengthen ourselves and grow. I'm still a human and not immune to frustration, but buying into this mindset helps me get back on track much more effectively, and helps me start learning from my mistakes instead of repeating them and beating myself up over them.

One thing I did poorly recently is that I was hesitant to do a planned self HH review the other day. I felt like I was grinding well, and I think subconsciously I didn't want to risk shattering that illusion if I were to find some leaks. I found I was being too passive preflop lately on one of my sites, and I almost didn't really want to believe it and kind of said to myself I'm probably fine and just running cold. Sure enough, in a session shortly after that I ended up flatting AK pre to a 3b in a spot where it was a clear 4b and it ended up costing me by letting him bink a cooler spot. I had to stop and remind myself that IT'S OKAY that I've been leaking in this way and it doesn't mean that my grind has been crap lately - on the whole I've still been doing well. But by trying to pretend the issue doesn't exist, I was pandering to my ego and the notion that "I have it all figured out my grind is on point". I was able to think on the issue a bit and get myself back into the proper mindset of being fired up to grow and improve, and after I accepted the leak and made it a learning focus to adjust, I felt proud of stepping over that minor hurdle and continuing to grow in an honest and self aware way. However, I need to also be very mindful of the fact that I have lived more 33 years of my life in a Fixed Mindset, and less than 1 year of my life in a Growth Mindset. It is a skill and method that is not totally ingrained into my subconscious, and it requires continued attention and mindfulness. Even though I can clearly see how the underlying though processes that permeate a fixed mindset are such garbage, I can also see that it's something I am prone towards if I don't actively put in the MENTAL EFFORT to stay self aware and on top of it.

One last thought - I put in a couple sessions that were longer than planned recently. In one of them, I was overly aware that I was down on the session and kind of wanted to see that cashier go positive. On the whole, I am doing much better lately at being intentionally unaware of the cashier balance and my short term results, but that particular session I was a bit fixated on it. My tables were very juicy and I was in a good mental state, and I wanted to use the session as an opportunity for growth - both in my grinding stamina and as for practice getting back into a good mental state. I ended up playing pretty well and happened to run well at the end of session, but I need to be mindful that there is a fine line between actually using that time as a growth opportunity, and then using that notion as an excuse to chase a loss - and it boils down simply to the underlying goals of whether or not I want to "WIN", or I want to "DO MY BEST AND IMPROVE".

133/1000 hours
13.3% complete

Started session a bit off track yesterday. Not bad, but I didn't feel like I was doing my best at navigating a series of marginal spots. Then I encountered a hand where a lack of preflop aggression cost me a big pot, and I started to tilt because I was upset with myself. I took a break and realized the emotional response was a good opportunity to further ingrain this learning focus into my brain, and that I need to step up and accept my mistake and learn from it instead of pouting over it. I played well after that, and felt like I was getting after it with aggression instead of being overly weak tight or nut peddling. I have to keep in mind that it's a fine line between being in a precise with aggression and being reckless and not go overboard, but still keep after it.

Another thing I've thinking about lately is physiology. A lot of people have seen the TED talk regarding posture and body language, and how it can have dramatic impacts on chemical levels in the body in short time periods. I'm trying to be aware of that type of thing more during my grind. Also, when I get an emotional response to a spot, that can often be very beneficial if I am in the right mental state, as that emotional charge helps ready my body and brain to meet the challenges that face me. I often do a bit of quick focused breathing as part of my warmup and periodic focus checks, but I haven't been diligent about that lately and need be more mindful about that.

Nice work!!! I need to check out that TED talk. I am constantly slouching at work and playing poker.

http://www.ted.com/talks/amy_cuddy_y...re?language=en

For those who haven't seen it.

Thanks!

Johnny on the spot

Just ordered this, finally my laptop won't chug for 15 seconds when I change Skype convos!

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applicati...?EdpNo=9190884

Should be here next week some time.

For comparison, the laptop I use now for my grinding I purchased from the Full Tilt Store using FTPs back in late 2009. It's a Sony VAIO and it has served me very well but it's time to be put out to pasture.