Winning the Mental Game
It’s obvious when you’ve won something in poker, your chips, bracelet, title, money, account balance is starting you right in face, but it’s not that way with the mental game. The mental game challenges you to define winning on your own, and especially for goals that take a long time achieve, sometimes you’ll win and not even realize it.
I was talking with a client yesterday about this. He’s among my oldest poker clients, over two years, and he was talking about increasing the hours he plays from 25 to 30 as though he was pissed at himself for not being able to play 30. He’s a full time player, so there’s no excuse in his mind. Except when you put 25 hours in the context of where he’s been, 25 is a solid accomplishment and he didn’t even realize it. Basically he’s wanted the same thing in cycles for over two years. When he was only playing 8-13hrs, he wanted 20, when he got to 20 he wanted 25, and each time along the way forgetting the progress that had been made before.
The point is, that when you fail to recognize the accomplishments you’ve made in the mental game, not only do you not get to enjoy it, you also fail to validate the means or the process that got you where you are now. Leaving you instead feeling unfulfilled, and with less energy to go after what you want NOW, and less certain about how to get there.
I don’t often talk about my own mental game, it’s not purposeful, I just never have too much I think, as poker players you’d be interested in. Unintentionally, I think that’s lead to some of you thinking that I don’t struggle myself. It’s because I do that I understand so much and am motivated to learn more.
I have a live interview coming up on a morning radio talk show that broadcasts through Michigan at 8am (Listen here - about 6 min long mostly about golf) and last night I was feeling a nervous about it. Back in my golf days nerves in big tournaments was what I struggled with most. I’ve put a ton of work in over that time and along with knowing that my unconscious competence is really solid, a lot of my nerves are gone, but some of course remains. There’s two side of it for me, the excitement nerves and the nervous nerves. In doing some writing last night I realized my nervous nerves were a fear of looking stupid. I’ve definitely looked stupid before so this isn’t a completely irrational fear, just one that doesn’t account for how strong my core knowledge is.
The speed at which I was able to move through and past my nerves is one thing of note; the other is something I don’t really know what it means. In the past my nervousness was always centered in my stomach and last night it was in my chest. Given the first point, I knew I’d accomplished something being able to compare it to the speed I could resolve issues in the past, and the second point added further proof since it must mean something, I just don’t know what.
So in a way, I see the interview a tangible reward for my work and helped me to measure my mental game progress.
So this got me thinking that I need to create the mental version of Hold’em Manager. There’s so much value to being able to track progress in the mental game, and since our minds and emotions need to be trained to see that progress and not lose perspective, some kind of software would be great for it. What do you think?
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August 13th, 2010 - 05:14
Jared,
I really like the idea for PEM (Poker Emotional Manager) and would like to hear more about it. I just made that name up but feel free to use it.
You know from working with me that I get really frustrated because I don’t progress fast enough for my own liking. I want to go from just learned concept to skill I own instantly. When that doesn’t happen I get frustrated and depressed that I can’t do it. I was just reviewing my play yesterday and compared it to my play 6 months ago and it is amazing how far I have come in a lot of areas. However I still feel upset that I don’t control my emotions as well as I believe I should be able to. Looking back and seeing the slow progress makes me feel much better.
So how do you quantify emotional improvement? What things can we measure with emotions? It is hard but I think there are some answers. Number of blowups in a session. Number of hands effected by emotion rather than logic. Hand goal set versus hands you were able to accomplish. I’m sure there are other ways to look at this stuff too but basically we have to be able to measure it in order to see the progress.
Anyway I for one am very excited to purchase PEM. Let me know if there is any way I can help with the project and good luck!
Regards,
Jeff Campbell
August 13th, 2010 - 05:14
It’s a really good idea. I’m not sure if it would have all that broad of an appeal because most poker players probably don’t take the game seriously enough to think in terms of micro-improvements to emotional control. But some, myself included, would definitely use it. I could see myself enjoying being a part of the development.
I suppose the first thing to do is lay down a list of measurable parameters that relate to the mental game. Like Jeff said, there’s hand goals and blowups… I’ll just jot down a quick list:
1- Goal number of hands
2- Timing of your bets
3- Relationship of stats and results ( i.e. does your VPIP increase when you are stuck, or do you raise too many hands right after taking a bad beat, etc…)
4- Some stats relating to how many tables you play could be relevant.
There could also be fields where you rate your feelings. Things like ‘happiness with my performance this session’ on a scale of 1/10, or ‘steam control this session’. You could then track your progress based on your own opinions.
August 13th, 2010 - 05:14
PEM is a good idea, but I think it’s too limiting. There’s a lot more to the mental game of poker than emotional control. I like MGM, but for some reason it seems a little too simple. But then again ‘poker tracker’ and ‘holdem manager’ are big now and their names are real simple.
Something with the words ‘organization’ and ‘psychology’ in it maybe?
Psych-Org, The Brain Game, The Balance Machine.
PokerBrain
Take control of the mental side of your poker game…? I’ll be thinking about it