Psychological tips please
Basically, I have been blessed and cursed in my poker career. Thanks to booking a (for me) huge win, I was able (and, i thought, ready) to quit my job and have a crack at being an online pro. Unfortunately I have been struggling and I know the problem has more to do with mentality and consistency than with ability. Here's the story:
I started playing seriously about 15 months ago. I bought all the best books, studied hard, played hard, and got good pretty rapidly. 8 months ago I was lucky enough to win the Fort Knox jackpot on the iPoker network. This is (or rather was then, they have changed it a bit) a $100k prize for winning six 6-handed s'n'gs consecutively. Although i was certainly lucky, I should put this in perspective for those who consider this to be a 'donk n go' lottery. A very good player might win 1 in of 3 of these. The probablity of winning 6 in a row would then be 3 to the power 6, which is 729 sets of 6 . i.e. a v. good player would have to play 4374 tourneys in order to expect a jackpot. I actually won 5 in a row the week before and had been doing very nicely in the 8 months prior to that, so I am confident when I say at that point I really was playing well and right 'in the zone'.
Since then (having taken a few months off to enjoy myself) things have been tough. I play mostly 10/20 or 15/30 limit and 2/4 or 3/6 NL. My tracker stats look fine, I have no problem identifying weak players and I continue to think about my game and study books. But I seem to keep screwing up and undoing weeks of good work. My number one problem is this: after that big score, grinding out $20/40/60 per hour just doesn't mean very much. Here are some more specific things which hopefully some people will relate to:
- feeling results orientated about
a) the hand (the bluff didn't work so I made a mistake trying it, etc.)
b) the session (sitting down feeling 'in a rush' to make money)
c) the week/month (sim. to above, 'I have to quickly make back that money that I'm down')
- getting frustrated by bad players (not the bad beats, it's more - )
a) being unable to read them
b) them not 'respecting' what I am 'obviously' telling them with my bets
c) licking my lips and wanting their money 'NOW, it's MINE, you're BAD, I'm GOOD'
- getting distracted when not involved in a hand
- fighting too hard for shorthanded pots
most specifically, in NL, calling too often on the river and firing the third bullet too often on the river
- bluffing the unbluffable
- going with skimpy reads when fairly new to a table
I'm not looking for lifestyle advice. I know that the things like exercise and meditation that I have been trying to introduce but haven't yet become routine will help a lot in keeping my concentration and emotional balance on track. But I could sure do with any anecdotes you guys could share on how you conquered your own demons on the road to (more) success.
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