Quote:
Originally Posted by Win2014WSOP
Congrats on your past accomplishments and good luck with this year's goals.
I'm looking to earn some extra $$ as part of a debt snowball plan. Generally, what are your pre-game and post-game rituals?
Example: 1) Watch HI hand replayer of last session, 2) watch training videos before playing, and 3) read poker literature before playing. Have a 4:1 ratio of playing to training/study?
Thanks.
Debt snowball -- sounds like you've been listening to Dave Ramsey. Good stuff. Poker can definitely help you with that as long as you don't cash out too much of your roll that leaves you vulnerable in a downswing. I had to explain and re-explain that to my wife numerous times over the course of the last couple years as we paid off debt. It's very tempting to see say... 7k in your poker account and want to pay off your 7k debt. But cashing out nearly almost all your bankroll or definitely all of it will just cut off that revenue stream. So I always only cashout an amount that will keep me at 20 BI's for 1/2 which is 4k. If I had cashed out my 4k bankroll back in January then I wouldn't have had a roll to make $15k over the next 3 months like I did (and still have that 4k roll on top of it). That's the way I explained it to my wife.
My pregame ritual is to review any hands that I wrote down from the previous session, assuming it has been 24 hours since I played them and the holecards are posted. I don't do much beyond that as far as prepping. If i'm in a downswing then I might be inclined to watch some training videos instead of playing that night to ensure my focus is right and to give myself a break.
During the session, I write down every big hand that doesn't go to showdown, whether I win the pot or not, and try to analyze the hand (i.e. talk about my thought process of why I played the hand the way I did, any reads/history of the player, the range of what I thought the player had, etc.).
After the session, I might post in here what my results were but mainly I try to get my mind on something else as quickly as possible to give myself rest. This is especially critical after a down session otherwise I punish myself mentally. Then I wait until the next day or sometimes two to go back and review my big hands again with a fresh mind (devoid of any emotion that might cloud my judgment) so I can be objective about how I played a hand and make any necessary adjustments going forward.
Hope that helps.