I need a book that will help me control my emotions.

[amulet]

inside the poker mind is a terrific poker book. and it has entire sections that deal with your emotions and poker. i highly recommend it.

[RussianBear]

I haven't found a book that helps with this. If you do, let me know. Nobody tilts worse than me. Well, I should say, more than I used to. I've had to replace several mice due to throwing them as well as two office chairs (they were thrown and kicked as well). Just play the damn game. Play it well. After a while you just start taking the beats in stride. At least that's how it went for me. I just realized that it's a long-term game and over the long-term I'm a winner. The buy-in I just lost to a suck-out is only a fraction of my BR and I'm a better player than that person and I will get it back, maybe not today, but eventually. After you've been sucked out on enough, you just accept it as part of the game and learn that without idiots that play like that you wouldn't be profitting. I still get a bit emotional when I make a mistake, when I misplay my hand. In those cases it's best to take a breather. Maybe go outside and have a smoke, if you're online click the sit out button and sit out a bit.

[pfkaok]

[ QUOTE ]
I still get a bit emotional when I make a mistake, when I misplay my hand.

[/ QUOTE ]

IMO, this is a bad habit, that many, many players still need to overcome. This one has been a lot harder for me to overcome than the getting pissed for bad beats, but I think i'm pretty much over it now.

If you're enjoying yourself while you play, and are playing as best, why would you get pissed at yourself? Barry G's book helped me with this. I realize that he's one of the best players in the world, and way, way better than me. However, he's nowhere near perfect, and admits that he makes mistakes all the time. How could I possibly expect myself to play perfectly?

Once I fully accepted that i'm going to make many mistakes everytime I sit down, I go much easier on myself. And I feel like I can be more objective, and learn more from my mistakes.

[RussianBear]

I should clarify that. I don't get emotional when I misplay a hand, i.e. could've extracted more money from opponent, etc. It just bothers me for a little bit. Not enough to tilt me, I just don't get it out of my mind and move on right away sometimes.

[pfkaok]

Learn to enjoy playing. I mean really learn that. You need to learn to love and enjoy everything about the game if you want to play a lot and always play your best. Once you enjoy everything about the game, you realize that bad beats are an integral part of the game, and you won't mind them at all.

[msirani]

Zen and the art of Poker

[Mason Malmuth]

Hi Colombo:

I believe the best way to learn to control your emotions is to get as good an understanding about the game of poker and gambling in general that you can. So to this end I would recommend my own Gambling Theory and Other Topics and the appropriate poker book(s) for the game that you are interested in (and this includes The Theory of Poker.)

Best wishes,
Mason

[donger]

Try this book on mindfulness meditation.

Also, watching the stoxtrader videos helped me. Seeing a really good player calmly react to ridiculously played hands and beats reminded me how counterproductive it is to get angry.