Previous part of Mental Game of Poker: Final solution to the problem, 5-step protocol

Additional strategies

Monitoring improvement

For the psychological game, nothing like the Holdem Manager via Poker Tracker. To know the progress of your psychological game, you have to find a way to do it without trying to fix everything in your head.

Observing psychological play is important because the development itself is often very subtle. Failure to notice it can lead you to believe that you are not improving, which will have a negative impact on your motivation and willingness to learn. Knowing that you are improving gives you the confidence you need to keep going.

Here are some ways you can recognise that your psychological game is improving:

• Playing makes you more aware of the problems of your psychological play.
• You can recognise the signs of these problems before you reach an emotional tipping point (it doesn't mean you can control your emotions, but it does mean you are aware of what is happening).
• You are better able to control your emotions during the game.
• You make fewer technical poker mistakes.
• By dealing with the problem better, you are able to extend your poker playing time.
• You're more likely to stop playing (for the right reasons).
• You are able to regain your lost attitude more quickly (mindset).
• Reduces the urge to curse your opponents.
• Fewer negative thoughts in your head.
• After a bad session, you start to feel normal again soon.
• Your worst has gotten better than it was before.
• You recognise new "layers" of the problem or completely new problems.
• You feel an increased desire to improve your game after the session.

Writing

Writing can be a very effective tool when trying to improve any aspect of the psychological game. This does not mean that you need to become a writer, it is just a tool to help you:

• Improve recognition
• Accelerate learning
• Flesh out the things on your mind
• Create recordings that you can use later to make comparisons
• Freeing your memory
• Organise information
• Capturing information that will be useful for future problem solving
• Maintain organised play

When players start writing, the biggest difficulty is not knowing what to write. Each chapter in this book gives suggestions on what to write, but if you would like to get started right away, please answer the questions in Appendix 2.

Accumulated emotions

As emotions build up over long periods of time, their intensity can become so intense that they immediately overwhelm your mind and your ability to control yourself.

When you feel nervous playing in a big pot, you feel the anxiety of the day, plus the lingering anxiety you have felt in many big pots in the past. Emotions build up, and as a result, after one bad beat If you play only 5 hands in a session, you completely lose your composure. Then you ask yourself "Why the hell does this always happen to me?". Because you're angry about bad beatthat has just happened, and those that keep happening. All the emotions accumulate in your memory and together they overwhelm your thoughts and mind.

Analysing pent-up emotions requires more work away from the poker table, as embedding logic does not help when you are overwhelmed by emotions. A good way to deal with emotions is to deal with persistent problems. The less trapped emotions you have inside, the easier it is to maintain self-control. The following steps will help you to deal with your pent-up emotions.

1. Understand that pent-up emotions are a big risk every time you sit down to play, so take them seriously. Don't expect those emotions to disappear quickly. Rather, try to steadily reduce the intensity of the emotion you are feeling while increasing your ability to control it. This process is not the same as flicking an electrical switch. Some days it will be easier than others because your ability to control your emotions has a qualitative range.
2. Apply the 5-step protocol to each problem. Study the information written down as you would study any other poker concept.
3. Try to identify as best you can the signs of impending problems. And as you play, practise recognising them faster and faster.
4. Use an alarm clock.
5. Rewrite the past. Don't take this literally, because it's impossible. For every old memory of a problem, apply the 5-step protocol.
6. Write down everything you learn from these old memories. Even a bad experience is good because it teaches you what not to do. Using everything you have learnt in the past for today's development contributes to the resolution of old emotions.
7. If you are critical of past mistakes or failures, then read the section entitled "Mistakes Bridge"
8. Remove any hope that it shouldn't be happening or should have been sorted out earlier. If that were true, you would not be in your current situation. Many players are facing the same problems, so don't dwell on them and do what is necessary to solve them.
9. Pay attention to the subtle details of the problem. Use the 5-step protocol to help you identify and resolve unknown details of problems.
10. Although the problems may be different, consider using at least one of the steps outlined in the section "Despair Bridge".

The build-up of emotions is the hardest problem to solve in a psychological game, so it will be a challenge to do it yourself. If the instructions here are too complicated or do not help you, then consider seeking help from a psychologist. If emotional problems are becoming particularly difficult to deal with, you should consider whether there are any external problems (unrelated to poker) that are hindering your progress.

Conclusions

With the right strategy, the psychological problems of the game become an opportunity to improve as a player. Trying to block emotional problems in today's game will not get you far. If you have high aspirations in poker, if you are trying to establish yourself as a winning player, or if you are a regular player who just wants to stay ahead of the game, addressing psychological problems is the way to stop hurting yourself and start hurting others.

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