[stigmata]

A useful way of conceptualising mistakes (in life and poker) is to categorise them into two broad categories:

A) Sloppy errors.
In poker, these are chiefly due to loss of concentration and tiredness. The solutions are fairly obvious and have been discussed elsewhere - e.g. play when alert, exercise regularly, eat healthily, play lots of short session, don't have distractions like TV or IM when playing, take time over every decision and have a dialogue with yourself about hands, quite when tilting & running bad, etc. The importance of these thing really struck me recently when I was thinking about the mental tiredness I feel after playing a full session of poker. The only thing I can liken it too is the feeling I had after sitting a difficult 3 hour important final exam. Playing poker at a high-level is mentally gruelling - would you sit an important exam when hungover? Or with the TV on?


B) Learning opportunities.
This is when you realise retrospectively that there was some piece of information available at the time that could have led to a better decision. These are by far the most interesting types of mistakes, and are a massively important learning tool throughout life in general. It's actually a positive thing if this is happening, because it means you are still growing as a player.


Essentially, you shouldn't really regret mistakes as long as you can turn them into some sort of positive learning experience. Even a mistake that appears to be a type A error can be, on further reflection, a learning opportunities. Go through a mental checklist with each mistake:

1) What was the mistake?
2) Why did I make it?
3) What can I do in the future to avoid it?

In short - mistakes can be positive experiences, embrace them!


*****

As for the actual question, I make a crap-ton of mistakes, of both types, and probably don't learn nearly as much from them as I should! I do try and reflect on them on a daily basis though. I normally divide them into:

1) Big e.g. 1/4 of a pot size or bigger, such as a bad call down with AA against an obvious set.
2) Medium e.g. a missed thin value bet etc.
3) Small e.g. a loose preflop call OOP

I have been learning NL for the last 6 months, and it's only recently where I have started logging the odd session where I don't consciously make any big mistakes. Through the last 6 months I honestly think I may have averaged 1 or 2 big mistakes per 1000 hands -- a huge sum of money.