Apathy or unquenched desire?

[Highn]

Somehow this has turned into an abomination of a rant, mega tl dr warning, also this is all old news so don't waste ten minutes of your life trying to read this, unless when really, really bored.

I think to become really great you need to be a passionate and driven person. However, one of the skills you need to develop is to some extent apathy. The apathy could also be translated as an understanding of variance. I like to think that I'm very passionate about improving myself and trying to play every hand perfectly. But certainly I also aim to cope with losing, which is probably one of the most important abilities to have when pursuing to play poker for a living. Considering most of us are perfectionists, competitive, and ambitious this is possibly the most difficult things to teach oneself.

How do I do this?

First of all I try to understand that playing MTT's means you will lose all the time and occasionally win. I mean, most of us understand this rationally but when egos are involved we tend to become emotional and forget.

Secondly my goal is to play a lot of tournaments a day. I remember from a Well post by a well respected STT'er (can't remember the name, sorry) that he told the forum he didn't get fazed by bad beats anymore, basically because he has seen them happen so ridiculously often. So besides reducing variance, playing a lot also helps you to numb the pain of getting sucked out on.

Thirdly, because I recognize that even with the above mentioned precautions you will occasionally have your dreams crushed because losing when being a massive favorite when deep in a MTT is way more frustrating then losing in a STT. You need take a moment to allow yourself to accept the sick beat; ignoring that you're feeling kind of tilted is the worst.

In essence I guess what I'm trying to say is;

Variance in tourneys is HUGE, in (live) tourneys you will never play enough to be able to ignore variance. Accepting this and being passionate about playing well and trying to maintain some form of apathy about the result seems to be the easy answer.

[gobboboy]

I think Leo's responses here have been the best poker writing I have ever read in my life.

After Australia I was stricken with apathy and now that I've lost a ton of money since then I've been stricken with being ridiculously over-attentive with each and every result. I can't handle playing cash games and every tournament I enter I am incredibly worried about.

I've always been an emotional person but I never really realized how much it sets me back. Today that changes.

Amazing posts, Leo.

[JayPez]

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Amazing posts, Leo.

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[Clayton]

now that i have a working keyboard and internet, just wanted to say sry for my first response. i had completely misread leos first post and made a dumb reply but couldnt edit it in time because my iphone was really slow.

however it got out another good reply [img]/images/graemlins/laugh.gif[/img]

JP OSU, ya man i will be out for the entire series rooming with Aaron Been so we will definitely meet up at some point.

Highn, you make some gr8 points aswell.

I guess while thinking this over on the drive back home, I guess the best way to put it is that the optimal emotioanl approach to poker in general is something that is incredibly apathetic, however incredibly motivated and driven to make money.

someone like MrSmokey1 or Patrik Antonius seem to be great examples. Not once have I ever seen them flustered in real life or on TV, or online. They seem like robots, and yet they continually crush.

At this point in my life I'm apathetic to the point that I consider tournaments a harsh joke, and this after I had my ridiculous FTOPS score. It just doesnt seem right that people 10x dedicated and talented as myself wont be making as much as me this year because my selective luckbox ran good for one week.

However, that luckbox allowed me to be financially safe and work up a cash game bankroll on my own, for which I am definitely happy about. But now looking back, and looking forward to 5diamond, I'm playing on stakemoney for the series and part of me feels like this is a vacation. It will be my first tournamernt series for being someone over 21+, and I'm not gonna sweat the small stuff if I get screwed over late in a tournament.

To what extent that seeps into my motivastion to study all my hands and see what I've done wrong, I'm not sure. I will certainly try and do something like bring a voice recorder (a la Gus Hansen in Aussie Millions) to keep track of all my important hands so I can go over them later. For now that seems like a good idea.

[Exitonly]

yo clayton, i coudlnt tell, did you get an iphone yet?

[Clayton]

i'm a huge grammar nit to the point of excusing myself for having used the iphone

and yeah, the iphone is great!

- no, i am not the DeebSpellCheck gimmick [img]/images/graemlins/frown.gif[/img] I think it might belong to Nath though...

[Bakes]

I'm in the nonapathetic camp. Any time i win a pot theres a chuss, if its a big pot its a jeaa and if its really big on the FT bubble its JAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA.

I got nothin but life ahead and if i can't get excited about the thing i love the most, both in good and bad moments, I wouldn't do it. Yeah it sucks sometimes but I've weathered 3 40k downswings this year so now I feel like I can do anything.

[nath]

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- no, i am not the DeebSpellCheck gimmick [img]/images/graemlins/frown.gif[/img] I think it might belong to Nath though...

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it's not me

Leo is right of course and right now he and I are talking about what he mentions in his first post (and what I feel is a major, major impediment in the development of some players on this forum)-- namely that some people would rather be known as a good and unlucky player, and are afraid to get their money in bad and look stupid. Meanwhile they sit back and criticize people they think of as clowns without even stopping to think that maybe they're doing something that, if not technically IMMEDIATELY +EV PERFECT POKER ZOMG, DOES in fact help them win TOURNAMENTS.

But people aren't really interested in hearing this. I've told a few of you this already and you've blown me off. So I'm going to go join the lucky clown camp.

[Jurollo]

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yo clayton, i coudlnt tell, did you get an iphone yet?

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yea i'm not sure either.