Hi guys, I am having some trouble and feel like asking. My english ins't very good so I will try to be clear and short.

I am a nl50 shooting 100 cash player. Winning 6bb/100 this year.

Almost 2 years playing 7+hs a day. 6/7. With time I become mentaly stronger, a lot. But there is a thing I can't seem to control: Emotions when for days everything goes wrong, horrible variance and spots.

Emotions make me overplay and overcall, I think the feeling is something like i want to recover fast.

Now, I also have studied some mental coach videos, books, etc. I understand clearly everything:

- I know is long term.
- I know variance exists and accept it. Also went trhoug lots of downsings.
- I know I shouln't change my game when losing or winning
- I know I shouln't be result oriented in short term.
- Etc

Now. I realy understand all this. But I am not being able to "internalize" it. Like this knowdelenge stop being "theory" and becomes a part of who I am.

And the question is: the way to get this skill is to force it by being strong and have dissipline for a good period of time and then you "become" that.

If not, how can I do it?.

I think sometimes, part of the trouble is, like coachs say, you need to have a "fixed" life away from poker. Right now I'm on it. It was hard before, there was no time.

The idea was to get to nl25 this year, to be ok with $$$ (I live in a poor country) and then start paying attention to "life" then covid.. so I am starting slowly. I guess that wiil help. Thanks

The key isn't to stop having emotions. You want to recognize when you're having emotions that are counterproducitve to your poker game.

The way to practice this is through mindfulness meditation. I just recently had a pretty long downswing and realized that part of my issue was that I stopped meditating daily right around the time the downswing began.

Being in the moment when you play is huge. If your only focus is, this moment, right now, you can't dwell on things like bad beats because they're in the past.

Thanks, I will. I practiced meditation a lot like 15 years ago and loved it, then life ate my soul lol.

Sometimes emotions make me stupid, I hate that more than downswings. As I said I feel like recovering fast but also, there is a feeling like "I can't believe they will have it every time". This makes me call a lot stupid spots, and they always have it xD

Like, there is FD that completes, they have it. There is a crazy straight with 47, they raise on river, and they have it, etc

75% of my downs this past few months are based on this

This is the sort of stuff I strongly question. To play better, and this is just a fact, it means that you must now play some of your hands differently than you would have before and this new way of playing is superior to the way you played before.

If somehow the meditation stopped you from making bad plays which you would make without the meditation, then this would make sense. But if you knew a play was bad, unless you were now in one of the states that causes players to lose, see the following:

https://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/s...38&postcount=1

how would the meditation help you, except that it might make you feel a little better. That is expert players don't make plays that they know are bad.

My guess is that you've been fooled by the large short-term luck factor that is present in poker. This implies that your knowledge of all things poker, which includes both strategy and variance, needs to improve.

Mason

Best advice for losing in Poker is take a break when you're losing to forget the unfortunate losing, roll yourself deeper to weather the downswings and improve your game by looking at specific spots/hand history. Professional poker is like 40%-25% losing, there is so much losing in Poker that you just have to be a good loser.

Also don't get stuck playing when you are down trying to make it back, a life all about Poker is kind of dull/lifeless/degen, a life with Poker on the side is much more fullfilling and natural.

I would say from my old experience that meditation may help in poker because it helps on "feelings control". You won't know more about poker, but you may be able not to feel anxious or mad, etc. That helps. Probably would help with long term view too.

Sorry, I have made 6 figures in poker, and profitable for 13 straight years.

My guess is that you've been so focused on proving your hypothesis is correct, you're unable to see that it's nonsense. Or is there another reason none of your views are published in a scientific journal?

There are lots of basic thinks that can help reduce stress, such as mindfulness, but if you want to solve this long term you need to better understand the underlying causes.

To do that, you need to go on a journey and figure out what's going on in your world. Maybe it's just poker causing these issues, maybe not. Maybe you are a good player, maybe not. Maybe you are depressed, anxious, unhealthy, have poor social connections, no direction in life or any number of other things. You can either pay someone $300 an hour to try and fix these, or spend a great deal of time figuring it out yourself.

Just don't expect to find the answers in a thread on the internet.

I desagree. I can't imagine how different and ugly my life would have being without internet people that helps from the heart.

Is it really $300 now? It was $200 when I was going and that was robbery.

To be honest, I went to 2 different psychologists, maybe 15-20 sessions each. I felt like I made little to no progress from what I learned there.

However, doing mindfulness (something they never brought up to me) and the ABC charts made huge differences.

From the amount of money a therapist charges, they should be able to provide some kind of guarantee. The ones I saw had experienced professionals overseeing my sessions and still didn’t get me any closer than I was able to get myself. I know that a lot of people do have positive experiences seeing therapists, but you have to be wary when someone has a financial incentive in keeping you coming back.

That's the minimum I would charge. I have the academic credentials, I played poker professionally and made videos for Cardrunners. I could watch someone for 30 mins playing poker and be able to tell if they just didn't play well enough. As Mason says, many people who think they need mental game training just need to play better, and I'm not sure many poker mental coaches understand poker well enough to make that distinction (or even care because $$$$).

what are ABC charts? I looked up on google and just get Awareness, Balance, Compassion. Are there more details in the charts you're referring to? Would love to give it a shot based on your experience.

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy

Hello guys,
i have had this problem in the past and it was worse at that time,i feel it is getting better along with the time now
I was emotionally connected with my BR as well as to the days when i was winning,would go on a compete maniac mode while having downswings,trying to move to higher stakes just to recover my losses for the day.
So the best advise that i got from one of the members here on the forum is,this is not a sprint,it is a marathon,always remember that the money you lost will still be on the tables tomorrow,you only have to survive that day when you are on a downswing.
This quote helped me a lot to stay disciplined and focus on my A game more that being attached to only winning or upswings.

I hope this helps someones too

Hi Sam:

If you haven't read it I think this would also help you:

https://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/s...38&postcount=1

Best wishes,
Mason

Great post! thanks a lot. This reading made me feel understood for the first time about this subject. I'm like a mix of a searcher and apathyc.

Good agro regs and maniacs destroy me when I'm on this state. I'm not only focused on their play style but also in "karma/life/luck". So when they are aggresive and also run good (I run bad) I just can't accept or believe they have it every time and will call them on realy stupid spots because of "injustice/it can't be possible again" feelings.

Tilting + being a callstation is a horrible way to experience poker.

These late days I recovered. I force myself skip feelings and play with a more rational focus. I did it ok, but there is always some hand I can't help to waste. Also I did use this forced rational aproach several times before but can't seem to make it a part of myself. It's like I have some realy bad luck days where I loose, then if it continues more days there is "the day" when I lose control, go realy down like -10/15 BI on that session, then some break even/little winning days and recover.

Anyway I am a lot better at controling this than before.

Thanks again!

That is a valuable insight in of itself. The first psychologist I saw had a grandfather who got taken to the cleaners 100 years ago at underground poker games (which were likely rigged), so her only insight was trying to get me to quit. No amount of me explaining the game to her would work.

I agree most mental coaches likely don't know how to make that distinction. For myself, I'm a voracious reader, so I was able to take the books and exercises given and make them work.

How many sessions do you find it takes before a player is ready to do it on their own?

I've never done any mental game coaching, so I can't answer, but I suspect the correct answer is "it depends". I'm pretty sure if I developed a structured programme I could make a significant difference in 2-3 sessions for most poker players who wanted a mental game tune up. If I couldn't make a difference, I would probably advise the client I wasn't in a position to help them.

If we take sport psychology as an example, some athletes can take just a couple of sessions to resolve an issue, and some will need support throughout their careers. It really depends on the nature of the issue and the competence of the psychologist. This pattern is probably repeated throughout psychology though - two people with identical problems may require very different roads to recovery or self-improvement.

if you understand spanish I can share a realy good video about this subjet from a pro cash player high stakes, game/mindset coach also.

I do not think that there is an easy answer to your question. Every person is unique and needs unique tricks in order to overcome the emotions in a game like this.Try to find with what you are comfortable with. For example, maybe you are comfortable when you have good hands or when you bluff or whatever.Try to find in what stage you are comfortable with yourself(your emotions) and play only these hands and stick to it.

Unfortunately not (at least not to the level where I could get anything out of the video).

Thanks a lot to everyone. Tomorrow is my birthday and I think I will make a trhead on the challenges forum as a diary of my work-life improvements and journey. Also I will start a psychologist next month too.

Poker could be a realy lonely journey and writing my feelings will probably help a lot. I need to improve a lot, I have a lot of weak points on poker and life. I feel like I'm kind of stuck (not realy but if feels kind of) because I was able to win anyway.

Right now I can win and make a confortable life but that is not the end objetive, it was the first one, the end objetive is to climb some more stakes because important life reasons such a starting a good family and probably live in a not horrible country like mine.

Hi tucanroman:

If you don't know, we have a blog forum. That might be a good place to put your thread.

Best wishes,
Mason