delivering confidence

[mudbuddha]

This is a psychology post.. for SSNL.. I've pretty much moved away from the forums but I owe alot of my growth to this forum and i missed my poohbah post so.. maybe this will do.. might be tl;dr.. oh well

So, I just listened to a post cast; great podcasts which was applied to business leaders in a MBA management podcast. "Delivering Confidence: Propelling Winning & Avoiding Losing Streaks" which I'm sure you can find on Google. I'm writing because I've been on a downswing/stagnant lately and I need a refresher and something to wrap my head around. Hopefully this can help you when you are not running so hot.


How to sustain success and avoid perpetual losing?

It is easy for people to feel confident when things are going well. When your cards are hitting and every turn seems to improve your hand, it is easy to feel like you can do anything. This feeling of confidence can often motivate great feats into happening because confidence is simply an expectation of a good outcome.

When someone believes that success is possible, they are willing to make the effort and do the work (playing well, improving your game, managing your bank roll and investments, anything) and work is the real thing that allows for success.

Believing success is possible, gives you inspiration to put effort forth, putting effort forth gives you the energy to work hard, working hard leads to success.

Defeated people get in another type of cycle. They stop trying and perpetuate the losing and failure to improve. People without confidence are defeated and they fail to put the effort and work forth to succeed.

Winning is a whole lot better than losing.
Obviously, but why? Sure you're winning money and dodging bullets and hitting the deck. What else tho? When you are winning, your attitude towards your tasks improves. Success is good and winning produces many better behavior that can help your game.

When people are winning, they are in a much better mood.

Winning comes with momentum. Success allows for more physical energy; this allows for higher concentration which is sooo key in poker. Deliberately playing and making smart decisions on every move requires energy.

This work on many levels:
- You are more willing to learn and improve your game (since your seeing concrete results)
- You are more open to discuss, gather, and learn when your examining your success.
- Defeated players and losers complain about bad beats, bad plays of donkeys and blame everything.

Losers.. slack off and don't want to discuss the leaks/problems in their play and without learning or at least widening their perspective. This cause reinforcement of their losing game and bad play without acknowledging and fixing the problems. Losing causes speed bumps, lost of confidence in game, constant changes of strategy and trying new things which may costs a lot of money (at least in the short run), some times you just completely avoid poker

Self determination is key and deciding that your fate is only in your hands (literally).

Don't let Winning Get To Your Head

Winning can cause people to have a false sense of skill, confidence and often in poker, great arrogance and lack of trying.

Lack of trying is the main cause of why winning streaks end, down swings begin and bad things start snow ballin' your way.

Effort and profit in poker comes not from fancy plays but
- Constant discipline
- Making the fewest mistakes.
- Making the best move at the right time.
- Every move with deliberation and purpose.
- Never tilting.
- playing GOOD SOLID POKER

Your goal when your at a poker table.. ANY poker table.. lower stakes, higher stakes. tournaments, cash is to play your A-Game all the time this is only compounded by failure to acknowledge you can improve and reach your A-Game.

- Often people win money which they were able to win very easily and sometimes very luckily. But by understanding that there is always something out there to be learned means that over confidence can breed failure. People who are winning and running well can often cause people to assume that they will win in the long run (perhaps they do have an edge, but many times this is a very small edge and variance kicks you around)
- Over confidence causes people to overlook details and spewing. Playing too loose pre-flop or too tight post flop or everything in between.

HONESTY IS KEY
- However, it is important to be honest when you make mistakes. There is always opportunity to get better and bad players will blame everyone but themselves for their downswings. Take responsibility for your successes as well as your failures. I was watchin a Card Runners video by Brian Townsend (SBrugby, aba) and he stressed this point greatly.

Secret of Winning is How you Handle Losing.

Resilience allows you to be a profitable player even at your worst times. The ability to continue without tilting or playing badly allows for you to keep working when things look bad and allows you to continue doing what you need to, to win.
You may not be the best player, but remember that you are a good one. Realizing this and continually working hard when things look gloomy and confidence in their game (not over confidence) will build character and give you the attitude that you can always maintain control of any situation. (especially in cases which have less luck factor)

Confidence in your game can convert failures into successes by turning these situations into opportunities to improve as a poker player.

Important:
1) Be accountable: Be responsible for your actions and don't use scape goats. Rather than pointing fingers, look within yourself for room for improvement
2) Think Small AND Big: winners think small as well as big (managing ur chips at the table and managing ur bank roll are both just as important)
3) Face the Facts: Understand that every action you take and every session is your change to contribute to your success so take advantage.
4) Discipline. One Word. So Important.
5) Work hard: There no substitute for hard work with your full concentration. Stop chatting on MSN, get off IRC, stop surfing 2p2. Play your tables and play them well.
6) LEARN. find a friend, discuss game theory, analyze hand histories, sweat a session, make a video.. all these things help.

NL Holdem is a people game and everyone plays it differently, so there always something to learn from people better and worse than you. Forums are okay, but direct chat with someone whether on IRC, skype or vent forces you to think on the spot (like at the table)

<font color="red"> Remember, every hand is an opportunity to improve. </font>


i hope you enjoyed this psychology post..
mudbuddha
link to original post

[freedom18]

goood when in a rut thanks a lot

[GrandMelon]

This is an excellent post, thanks a bunch.

[Al_Money]

i like thhis [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

[FoldEqu1ty]

Good, solid post.

[gimmetheloot]

Dude I really needed to read that. Ive been playing so spewy lately and just tilty etc and im having trouble playing 8 tables now? (dunno why used to be easy?)

[mudbuddha]

bump

[Nielsio]

I haven't read it yet, but if it's buddhist then it's obviously good.

bswa.org

[Echelon]

gold