Playing better when I don't care...

[OtZman]

Almost every time I decide to play more seriously, play better or put in more time I end up playing worse. There are so many times I've been playing perhaps a couple of hours a day, winning steadily, and then think "omg I gotta play AT LEAST eight hours every day, z0mg I want more $$$". I've noticed that I tend to focus my entire life around one single thing, and when that thing becomes poker I start feeling like every suckout or loosing session is the end of my world.

Lately I've realized that I will most likely be able to earn more money by educating myself and trying to get a good career. So now I'm much more concerned with that, and I only play poker for short periods occasionally. And I've noticed that loosing sessions don't bother me nearly as much, and I feel like I play much better, because I don't let any negative thoughts or anger block the knowledge I have.

I'd guess others must be experiencing the same thing. This must make it even harder to be a pro.

I've also noticed this in other parts of my life. Minor, irrelevant things can make me all stressed out, and ruin an otherwise perfect day, just like the short term results in poker are irrelevant but can end up ruining ones play. I guess this is something I gotta learn to cope with, otherwise I'll end up wasting resources worrying/being stressed out instead of actually doing something to achieve my goals. Realizing you have a problem is the first step to solving it, right?

Aaaanyway, that's enough for me this early in the AM. Just felt like typing that out. Others must have the same or similar feelings.

[kaah]

[censored], so im not alone.

[Sounded Simple]

Sounds like tilt setting in.
I found that planning a session helps, if its a big session break it up with a 5-10 min break every so often.

If you even think you feel tilt then do something else - hit the gym etc. (I find the gym helps a lot)



Off topic but Kaah - what is that avatar from? I see lots of posters with it.

[oddsock]

I get these feelings occasionally. The fact is if you are playing well, making good plays/moves, consider yourself better than your opponents and are losing, very few people are not going to feel annoyed/irritated/tilty/etc - why wouldnt you - you've invested all that effort to no avail. If you play like an clown doesnt matter whether you win or lose because your not making any effort, the bad luck doesnt phase you because you are expecting it - and the good luck doesnt matter because you don't care anyway.

Bad sessions will happen and the more you play the more they will happen therefore to play a lot you need to have a mental stability to deal with it.

I play STTs, loads and loads of them, I used to fall into the problem that if I did badly initially in the day I would be infuriated and ruin my day and have to battle with all the tilting and anger if I could be bothered to continue . If I did well I would stop earlier than I should and thus create a fake "winning streak". Thats not the way to play if you want to make money and you really have to learn to ride out all streaks - good or bad.

[SellingtheDrama]

You can't care about making money to play good poker. Playing good is all about decision making.

Sometimes you will play absolutely fantastic and still lose. Maybe you didn't get a statistically normal amount of premium hands and got unlucky when you did get them (AA once in 1k hands and lost to KK as a crude example). It is VERY hard to put together a winning session those days.

And sometimes you'll be the guy with KK cracking everyone's AA [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]