do you know this as well? you have the feeling that you played rather well today, another day of BE with quite some bad luck, sngluck shows all-in under EV etc. and you are convinced, ****ty unlucky day.

then you review your play and find several spots where you did not play optimal, in some spots even bad.

how do you eleminate these things? just review and review and try to hammer it into your brain over and over again and with more reviews and more experience one can eleminate one by one, more and more?, to come nearer to play the a-game almost at all times?

or what do you do to remember those spots and not do it wrongly again?
does this go away with more experience? or is this a constant battle even for good regs playing big volumes and having more experience than i do?

Elements of Poker has to be the best dollar for dollar investment in always playing your A game you can make

Read the thread by Jared Tendler in coaching forum. You have to attack mental game (ie B and C-game leaks) just like you attack A-game (theory) leaks. Unfortunately there is no holdem manager for mental game leaks. you have to document them, collect the data (ie your thought process, patterns, stuf leading up the mistakes). And find patterns in this data.

and after you find the patterns what is the way to fix them?

i have a very very strong feeling 90% of my known bad plays come from playing too fast/being in a mood where i randomly click btns and don't think about ranges hard enough, but taking time for every decision is impossible (ie preflop opens, flop checks, ...) and once i start to play fast in some spots i seem to automaticly go and play fast in others/important ones too

seems like the gurus/psychology experts who preach about B-game/tilt stuff and write articles/books on it are not the ones who are multitabling hours and hours each day. i can't take them as seriously as they would want me to.

i wish someone who actually plays lots of online poker - like nanonoko or whoever - would write something.

that said though, the stuff from the gurus has helped a little. though i think just playing a ****load and getting better at poker has helped me more.

i just found out that i thought i read this book already when people discussed over it in here. however i did not! i was reading "The Poker Mindset", and tbh i did not really take a lot with me out of it.

if elements of poker is similar i guess it will not really help me a lot.

does anybody know if elements of.... is really worth it compared to the poker mind set book?

too late - i bought the elements....

The poker mindset is the best asset to psychologically poker ive ever read. Its also very easy to adapt to what he writes about.

you can't eliminate your b game. you're not a machine, you're human.
your goal should be to improve your b game.

reading it 2nd time already atm. Last time i read it like 2 years ago, so thought it would be good idea to read it to get some confidence. Would be nice to hear more thought about this angelo`s book compared to The Poker Mindset

I read them both in 2007. Dont remember that much, but

Poker Mindset is more systematic and cold, Angelo is more like a friend who talks to you and acts like he should be your ideal. Its a lot of moral in it. Poker Mindset is covering a lot of things around being professional but Angelos book has some non-relevant chapters like live poker etc.

Both is good, but I think they miss some cognitive/behavioral perspectives on the subject.

Actively working on preventing tilt/B-game by imagining eventual likely and known dangerous mindsets, and mentally preparing in different spots BEFORE every session is something I think is very important. Everybody need to develop their own routine because we react to stress in different ways.

If you (theoretically) can choose to play your A-game, why trying to strengthen the B-game? I would much rather work on avoiding my B-game because if I sometimes get close to done with that process, the work on my B-game is worthless. Playing when on B-game will increase variance, thus risk of tilt and then the risk of not playing your A-game next time.

I think important concepts to be aware of is:
-What do you get inspired of in poker?
-How do you feel and think when you know when you are on your B-game?
-How do you act and think before you start getting close to B- or C-game?
-How will you reason when you know you need to quit but you cant? How can you effectively dodge that reasoning?

Im sure thoughts that make you feel poker is too hard or too easy is one of the deepest causes of not playing B-game. I've been studying psychology and I've studied myselves for years and it took me a while to understand that there is thought processes and feelings that lie deep inside that is forgotten when I look back and try to understand what happened in a session where I tilted.

I think the problem with litterature about tilt and mindset is that they just scratch the surface of the psychological mechanisms of the average player instead of telling you something that is perfectly suited for you. Its much better to use time on writing a diary than reading those books imo. Or even better; talk to a friend regulary (that doesnt act like he knows you better than yourselves - because if so, he's like the other books).

Even though, I think humans have an extreme need to feel they have control of everything. There will be no harmony in your soul before everything is either black or white and when you are tired, stressed etc you will start the process of making your game too tight or too loose (or merged/polarized etc) in a lot of spots because you lack the neccessary mental energy to threat every spot in poker as they were unique. And even you feel you already do this, you might not be doing it enough because you feel its too much to handle.

I think its interesting to try to help people with their mindset because I think I learn more about myselves when doing it. (PM me)

I feel like taking your time before each decision makes your games harder, imo, esp. vs fish. You want to capitalize on a fish's impulsiveness, and if you are timing between hands, you are also giving the fish time to reconsider his initial impulse to jam 3rd pair in this spot. Whenever I try to slow down like this I find the fish play better, whether or not its because they feel like they "have to win, because I've invested 10 minutes now into this game," or whatever. Be interested if anyone agrees with this, and has noticed it also.

I bought this like 6 months ago..I need to stop being an idiot and read it.

Depends on aggressiveness. We dont want a passive fish to jam 3rd pair, because that will mess up his clean tight range. If he is aggressive, then that might be a better idea.

I dont have any experience on this subject other than that I think they call more in general when we use time because that gives him time to find excuses for making calls.

Excellent post.

This is really interesting thought. If you play faster, fish will play faster etc. I've had fish tell me to "speed up". Some have even quit me because they felt like I wasn't playing fast enough. That being said, I think taking the time to think through every decision and not rush hands outweighs these concerns.

I think what Acqua said about approaching each session with the correct mind state (prepare yourself for adversity, approach it as a challenge to remain in control of emotions) is especially important. I find that I play my best when I'm not playing just to play and am completely mentally prepared before I start my session

hey super post! especially the part above.

i usually play only tired after a hard working day and then some hours with family, kids etc. this probably makes me vunarable to play only my b-game a lot. and as u say, it might result often into simplified black and white thinkings. on the other hand i often have the feeling that i make my a-game.

i know usually when i play my c-game, but how can i feel, see, that i play only my b-game? probably i can do that only in:
- seeing leaks during play
- seeing leaks after play when i go through some hands

i see quite often similar spots, after games, going through my hands, where i played not optimal, even bad sometimes. i just have the feeling that there is something making me the same mistakes over and over again. after review probably not, but as soon as i do not many reviews of HHs it will creep in again. my question just is - how can i really eleminate these things? what can i do to not doing the same mistakes again? just over and over review my game?

yeah this is true. fish get better sometimes when u slow down the game. it is always a trade of, playing better yourself with well thought decisions and fish playing then better, or with me seeing more hands, when i play faster, which can also give me an edge versus some players.

Im happy that you liked my post

Do you have example of this? Do you "know" its wrong before you do it? If so how sure were you? Do you get stressed in those spots which makes it hard to think?

I've had something like that a few times but I think it was something that was wrong with my A-game rather than me tilting, because I didnt handle them well before I understood the relevant concepts.

If I am tired or hungry or something i usually start to play a lot faster, and making realy bad calls on the river. It's like I know I am beat, but I just don't care. Then after I make the call I get realy angry at myself for making the call, and I tilt even more.

i am now almost through elements of poker - and i must saw i am very disappointed - really almost nothing that i can take with me as learning.

how could this book ever have such a great rating on amazon?
only fish reading it?

Thats one important thing to be be aware of before playing. If you know its a long time you have slept/eaten, you should make a timelimit for the session.

my 2cents on acting faster to induce worst play:

be carefull cause u may be the one making the bad moves, even against fish

Yeah, all my biggest downswings have come on Sunday when I'm tired, hungover, and hungry. I just don't play at that time now.