Ramblin'
I'm feeling extra motivated at the moment and it gave me a bit of an energy boost so I figured I would blog about it. As mentioned in my last blog I'm taking extra steps to improve my game and my overall understanding of the game. I've learned a bunch over the last year or so but this last downswing affected me a little more than I would of liked. I need to focus on the emotional aspect of the game more now than ever.
You can study the game and players till you're blue in the face, but more often than not, its just not enough. I always prided myself in having good tilt control, knowing when to quit, dealing with losing sessions etc. But over these last few months that seemed to of gone out the window a little bit. I found myself playing when I shouldn't, feeling sorry for myself, whining in my head about running bad, blaming it all on variance... instead of manning up and realizing in the big picture those weren't all the reasons I was losing. Poker is really like no other job when it comes to stuff like this. Yes people have bad days at work, or even months. But most people still get the same pay check every two weeks. When shit goes bad in poker, and you're losing a bunch of money, emotional control has to be the number one priority to keep your sanity.
I was browsing through the 2+2 forums and stumbled across an amazing thread. Basically its a guy who was crushing it online and talks about how he approaches the game and how he feels the emotional aspect far out weighs the skill aspect.
Here's a quick snippet from one of his posts:
"Your mental, emotional state while playing is 80% of the work, and you can work and take specific steps to get better at that. Being in the right emotional state will allow you to open up your eyes to what you and the other players are doing without being stuck in the previous hand you lost, how much you are up, what you´re gonna eat later, etc.Combine that with some basic technical steps that can be taken and you got the other 20% to at least achieve enough to live comfortably off poker. I believe, that with todays games and climate, anybody with even mediocre intelligence and some discipline could at the very least make a comfortable living playing this game."
The thread goes on and on, and I won't lie, at some parts it actually made me feel a little dumb. Like 'shit I should know this'. But its just part of the learning curve I guess. I think I mentioned this before, but this past downswing it the absolute best thing that could of happened to me. Its forcing me to work harder and get better. If this didn't happen I probably would of continued making my xxx amount of dollars a month and been fine with it. But I now realize I'm not happy with that and I've got the potential to really be a great player.
I don't know how long I'm going to play poker for, I really don't. But one thing I do know is that when I look back at my poker days I want to know there was no wasted talent, and I was the best player I could be. And I'll be happy win or lose.
Time for bed.
Jay
P.S - I actually wasn't even going to post this entry. Sometimes I use this blog like a personal journal to just let out what I'm thinking. But whatever, thought I might as well post it anyways even if it does sound like a motivational speech to myself.
Later!
You can study the game and players till you're blue in the face, but more often than not, its just not enough. I always prided myself in having good tilt control, knowing when to quit, dealing with losing sessions etc. But over these last few months that seemed to of gone out the window a little bit. I found myself playing when I shouldn't, feeling sorry for myself, whining in my head about running bad, blaming it all on variance... instead of manning up and realizing in the big picture those weren't all the reasons I was losing. Poker is really like no other job when it comes to stuff like this. Yes people have bad days at work, or even months. But most people still get the same pay check every two weeks. When shit goes bad in poker, and you're losing a bunch of money, emotional control has to be the number one priority to keep your sanity.
I was browsing through the 2+2 forums and stumbled across an amazing thread. Basically its a guy who was crushing it online and talks about how he approaches the game and how he feels the emotional aspect far out weighs the skill aspect.
Here's a quick snippet from one of his posts:
"Your mental, emotional state while playing is 80% of the work, and you can work and take specific steps to get better at that. Being in the right emotional state will allow you to open up your eyes to what you and the other players are doing without being stuck in the previous hand you lost, how much you are up, what you´re gonna eat later, etc.Combine that with some basic technical steps that can be taken and you got the other 20% to at least achieve enough to live comfortably off poker. I believe, that with todays games and climate, anybody with even mediocre intelligence and some discipline could at the very least make a comfortable living playing this game."
The thread goes on and on, and I won't lie, at some parts it actually made me feel a little dumb. Like 'shit I should know this'. But its just part of the learning curve I guess. I think I mentioned this before, but this past downswing it the absolute best thing that could of happened to me. Its forcing me to work harder and get better. If this didn't happen I probably would of continued making my xxx amount of dollars a month and been fine with it. But I now realize I'm not happy with that and I've got the potential to really be a great player.
I don't know how long I'm going to play poker for, I really don't. But one thing I do know is that when I look back at my poker days I want to know there was no wasted talent, and I was the best player I could be. And I'll be happy win or lose.
Time for bed.
Jay
P.S - I actually wasn't even going to post this entry. Sometimes I use this blog like a personal journal to just let out what I'm thinking. But whatever, thought I might as well post it anyways even if it does sound like a motivational speech to myself.
Later!
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