TOP: poker is one big game

[Pokey]

On page six of Theory of Poker, Sklansky says:
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Just as it is important not to think in terms of individual pots – not to chase money you have contributed to an individual pot – so it is important to realize you are not playing in individual games. Each individual game is part of one big poker game….Thus, whether you are winning or losing on a given night is not in itself important, and above all it must not affect your play. It’s easy to get steamed, or disgruntled or discouraged, when you’re losing. However, you must be disciplined enough to play every hand correctly, regardless of whether you are winning or losing.

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More terrific advice to avoid tilt and emotional turbulence. I myself am quite guilty of this wrong-headedness. I set a goal for myself of winning $15 per day every day this year. Now, I generally think of this as an overarching goal – “by the end of the year, I’d like to have enough money so that it sums to at least $15 per day over the year” – but in reality, I get depressed if I don’t make my $15 FOR THE DAY. These daily targets are stupid, I realize, and counterproductive. Do other people have targets like this? I assume nobody else is dumb enough to set a DAILY target, but maybe a weekly or monthly one? And if so, do you find yourself playing differently when variance keeps you from your target, or pushes you over your target early? Because I certainly do, and I’m not proud of it. Any thoughts on this subject would be appreciated.

[scrapperdog]

Pokey about your goals. You are not gonna be the same player 3 months from now, let alone a year from now. I would recomend quarterly goals, with an full evaluation every quarter.

[gabbahh]

My only goal is to continiously improve. Whenever I stop improving, I will stop playing poker. Given my current level, this will take years and years.

[Mercman572]

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Do other people have targets like this? I assume nobody else is dumb enough to set a DAILY target, but maybe a weekly or monthly one? And if so, do you find yourself playing differently when variance keeps you from your target, or pushes you over your target early? Because I certainly do, and I’m not proud of it. Any thoughts on this subject would be appreciated.

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My goal is only to sustain 5ptbb. That being said, I'd be a liar if I said I don't get upset on a 3-4 buying downswing.

Through much experience, I've learned NOT to make strick goals even monthly. [censored] happens and all you're doing is setting yourself up for dissapointment if variance comes against you (and sometimes playing in bad games or conditions to try and meet said goal).

[thedustbustr]

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More terrific advice to avoid tilt and emotional turbulence. I myself am quite guilty of this wrong-headedness.

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I have a great technique for managing tilt.

I run a bi-weekly home game. The buy-in there is about a twentieth of my buyin at regular stakes. I play like a complete [censored] maniac.

It feels SOOOO good to bet people out of pots without looking at your cards. Even better when they KNOW you didn't look at your cards and they still fold. My friends are stupid [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

(I usually end up buying back in two or three times, but suprisingly I tend to break even all told. After getting stacked with 6 high, people tend to give you no credit when you flop your nightly set)

[Vammakala]

Don't set goals, you'll strain your brain and end up making bad plays if you have a goal for the day. The only goal you should have is to play as good as possible in every given situation, consider every angle of the hand, consider every opponent in the hand, observe, acknowledge, improve and the results will come by themselves. Setting a goal and constantly keeping track of it's progress will eventually (when the ds hits) lead you into massive tilt and you don't want that. I still do that occasionally and I can tell you, it ain't pretty.

And yea I used to have these targets, I don't anymore. It's very hard NOT to look at the session but TOP very well makes the point how it should be viewed. A bit OFFT, but here's a post by Gigabet on the subject
http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/showfl...amp;o=&vc=1

[matrix]

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Originally posted here by Gigabet
The problem comes to life when a person starts their downswing, which we classify as "losing," they begin to suspect that they may "fail" and rather than become susceptible to the shame that comes with "failure" they decide to quit. They stop because they fear things that aren't even real

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This is so true.

Personally I no longer care about much. A little over a year ago I crashed my car driving home round twisty country lanes at ~90mph trying to get home to go to a NYE party.

I rolled my car 7 times - ending up upside down in a ditch. Had car come to rest on the floor the roof would have stoved in and I would have got more than a bit of a headache. I walked away with a little more than a scratch down one arm and consider myself very lucky.

Of course I have probably overcompensated but I don't have any hangsups now about rejection or possibly being dissappointed in the future. I go for everything.

A lot of people fear failure and the shame that goes with it. Once you realise that for the most part what other people think about you is irrelevant and you should not base decisions based on what other people might think at some point in the future you have a lot more fun.

Ahmer Vahedi - "in order to live. First you must be willing to die."

I say in order to truly live you must first have almost died. Only when you have nearly lost everything - and you really understand how very fragile life is and how you need to squeeze the very most that you can out of every day that you have, then you start to really live.

Poker is no different I think. Only when you truly do not care one iota about the chips you have on the table and can happily push them into the middle when you are sure you have an edge. Only then can you really play.

If you are thinking about this session and your results this week so far then you care too much about what is on the table. Poker is one big game and the only result that matters is the one on the bottom line when the day comes that you finally call it quits.

I read somewhere that you should play as tho it means nothing to you, despite the fact that obviously it means everything.

Am I on the right track here - or way off base?

[Cowboy21]

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I set a goal for myself of winning $15 per day every day this year.

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Psycologically, I think you're phrasing this wrong in your head. Instead of saying $15 a day, why not say, "I'd like to increase my BR by ~ $5500 this year." Same money? Of course. Different? Yes, very. Allow me to elaborate. You will not win every day. Talk about stating the obvious, right? Now, let's say that you sit down today, and you win $20. Thats $5 more than you were hoping to win that day. Think about this, you've just met your goal for the day, but you won't meet that goal every day. Somedays you'll go far above $15, other days you may lose $30. But, mentally, you may quit when you get a little above $15-$20 when the game really doesn't warrant it. In the long run, the $15/day thing can put a mental block up, make you think "I'm up $5 above my goal for the day, so I'll quit before some fish stacks me with garbage and lays a beat on me." So you quit with $20 on days when you may have won $65-$75. See the difference?

JJ

[scrapperdog]

Nice post cowboy. This is the exact problem I ran into.

In short I had a loose goal of making XXX amount a week playing poker. I guess it worked ok. Then the 1K Challenge in 7 Days thread hit. I made 988$ that week from poker, which was by far the most I have ever made in a week playing poker. At that point I realized my goals were way off base. My old goals were holding me back money wise, as I would hit a mark then go do someting else. That is why I recomend IF you have a goal to take a look at the situation every 3 months. After the 1K challenge my goal became more agressive. Something had changed between the time I set my old goal and the 1K challenge, and I did not even realize it until the challenge brought it out of me, mostly because I was not examining it on a semi-regular basis. You might decide not to change a thing, that is fine. But dont sell yourself short like I did by not taking a close look at it.

Overall I do think goals are ok. The 1K challenge was a goal and it opened up some doors for me. BTW I would like to thank the person that posted the challenge, whoever he was.

[Cowboy21]

Thank you. It should be noted that one important skill that alot of people never seem to learn is when its time to leave. They use artificial "markers" as to when to leave, i.e: "I've been at the table for xx hours" "I've lost/won xx amount of money" when you really should be thinking through the decision to stay or go such as "I feel tired, I'm probably playing at about 75% of my best game, but even at 75% I'm still profitting, but the guy in seat 4 appears to be gunning for me for some reason, but he's a donk, so I don't know how much of a threat he'll be. Annie Duke just sat down in seat 6 (ok, extreme example) and she appears to be gunning for me too, since I have tripled my max buy in. Perhaps I should leave." This is much more effective than "I'm over my goal for today, and I've been playing longer than the preset limit I have for myself today, so I need to go"

A little off the subject, but still, table selection and knowing when to stay and when to leave is an important part of the "winning formula".

JJ