The psychology of poker. The tilt of bad cards

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Previous part of Mental Game of Poker: Bridge = anger + bad game (2)

5.2.

Insulation The practice of dealing poor hands for extended periods of time is so common in poker that players consider it part of the game. Prolonged periods of bad luck are one of the most unpleasant things in poker, but there are a number of ways to help identify the psychological and technical flaws in your game.

Bad cards Bridge there are bad divisions lasting days, weeks, months or even years, and the accumulation during those periods of Bridge Consequence. It's like a vicious circle that gains momentum when variation causes bridge, which leads to playing badly, which leads to even more Bridgeyou take it all to the next day, which means you'll be back sooner next time you will insulate. Next time tiltinate more, leading to higher amounts of losses, which leads to faster session termination. Then tiltinate because you had to stop playing, it starts to weigh you down and makes it hard to fall asleep. You wake up tired and you feel the urge to lie down, but then you wake up again... you play badly... again tiltinate... you make more mistakes... more you are... you play a long session to relax... you sink deeper into poker hell... you think you'll be fine once you win, but you can't do it... tiltinate even more... can't stop playing... tiltinate because you can't stop the bridge... you think it's never been worse... you want to quit poker... but all you need is to win again.

A familiar feeling?

Your Bridge the process is likely to be slightly different, because we are all unique in our own way. But when I looked deeper, I was surprised to see how many similarities there are between bridging poker players when they are hit by extended periods of bad cards. It is very important to be aware that when such a period occurs, it can quickly lead to other Bridge forms. If bad beats caused by your bridge, then during periods of bad cards you tiltinsite even more, because during such periods bad beats happens much more often. When you are lucky and lose with aces, it doesn't bother you as much because it doesn't happen often, and winning is a good counterbalance to anger.

Bad variation does not cause your Bridge. It only reveals the deep-seated reasons why you are bridging. If you're not sure what else Bridge kind of reveals a bad variation, it's your own thoughts that can help you get a grip. For example:

  • "It's not fair, I never win flipo!" = Injustice Bridge
  • "How can you lose like this again!" = Not wanting to lose Bridge
  • "I knew it! How the hell can I play so badly?" = Errors Bridge
  • "I'm too good to let that happen to me. How can I lose to such an asshole?" = To be merited Bridge
  • "Now I am 3-betinsiu this idiot. Who the hell does he think he is?! Damn it, I'm pushing everything." = Revenge Bridge
  • "If I have to, I'll play for a week to win." = Despair Bridge

After you have identified, with the help of bad variation, all the things that affect you Bridge forms, please read the relevant section to help you solve the problem. Once you have corrected the deep-seated Bridge the reason you will stop bridging, regardless of how much bad beats experience. A long period of setbacks is likely to be annoying anyway, but you'll manage to stay calm and keep playing well.

If you can't distinguish between the more influential Bridge forms, or bad variation seems to be the main problem, then a broader approach can be taken. Variation is a complex concept and it is difficult for players to fully grasp it. While many players have a general understanding of it, that knowledge disappears when faced with strong emotions. In reality, knowledge of variation is a skill just like any other and therefore obeys the same laws. Only that which has been trained to unconscious competence can be used in times of emotional tension, everything else is not yet mastered and requires a lot of work and effort. In spite of what you already know about variation, you still need to know more. Perhaps for this reason, players who come from mathematics or financial backgrounds often flounder in poker. They have a foundation of knowledge about variation.

Although you can't control variation, you can gain more control over your game if you have more knowledge about variation. Try to delve more into the subtleties of variation to understand more than just the obvious coolers, suck-outs and bad beats. Ideally, such skills should be continuously developed. Having such a skill allows you to immediately know if you are in a bad hand, if you are playing badly, or if others are ahead of you. All this leads to a much more stable emotional state. More on this in the section "variation recognition skill".

CUSTOMER HISTORY

Matt "mbolt1" Bolt

$3/$6 to $50/$100 NLHE

At the beginning of my career I progressed very quickly because you were available at and trained by Dusty Schmidt. These opportunities allowed me to go up in limits very quickly, so within a few months a bad day when I was losing a few hundred dollars turned into a day when I was losing 5000$. I did really well as the limits went up, so every time I moved up to higher limits I smashed them. Until I settled in the medium/high limits I had no bad variation experience.

Then I had to endure days of defeats, which are hard to even comprehend when playing at 16 tables simultaneously in a $2/$4 limit. Money was never a big thing, but I never liked the very fact of losing. I always thought it was much worse to lose 5000$ per week in the $3/$6 limits than to lose 80000$ per day in the $50/$100 limit.

Jared made me think about the right things and gave me a better understanding of why my brain behaved the way it did. When you play a lot of hands, you naturally develop a tolerance for bad variation, but discussions with Jared accelerated that process.

Failures are incredibly annoying. There were times in 2010 when I didn't even think I was playing poker, it was more like a game called "You're a Loser". Back then it seemed like I was just coming to the tables to lose. In my opinion, the only thing that separates a good player from an average player is the way they can handle periods of bad luck. One of Jared's sayings stuck with me: 'Michael Jordan didn't earn a dime in the weight room'. I like to think of Michael Jordan sweating in the weight room without making any money. That's what failure is like for me - hard work, trying to lose as little as possible.

But it is not easy. In the psychological sense of poker, everything that is important for a successful poker player is usually completely at odds with human nature. Nobody wants to quit the game while they are losing. Everybody wants to make up for lost money. But when they are successful, everybody wants to finish the game faster. A good player always wants to stay at the table when he is successful. All the conditions are right and he usually plays his best game (A+) at such times. When things are going badly, a good player wants to finish, while inexperienced players do the opposite. In my experience, what you instinctively think is right is wrong in poker psychology.

As far as homework is concerned, I was always bad at it, so for a long time my work was limited to classes with Jared, but nothing more. Talking to him used to help a lot, but after a while, when we weren't talking, all that information started to fade away because it didn't fully settle in my head. Eventually, after each session, I started to write everything down: my assessment of the game, my psychological state, and also what role the variation played. This helped a lot in dealing with downswings. Naturally, all players only remember the moments when they were unlucky, but forget the ones when they were lucky.

I used to think "wow, I'm the most unsuccessful person on earth, that's so unfair, I deserve to win more". I used to think that it's no big deal to lose for a few days, as long as the following days are successful and I get better. I realise that this is irrational, but at that moment I felt a very strong sense of injustice and frustration that I was not getting my fair share of success. The variation still nags at me, but now I don't focus so much on how unlucky I am. What is the purpose of this? I try to ignore the results and concentrate on playing each hand as well as possible. Recently I had 90 buys downswings, but I know I played well all that time because I was always watching myself closely.

LOGIC IS INSERTED: YOU CAN'T CONTROL THE CARDS YOU RECEIVE, SO WHY FOCUS ON THAT?

YOU CAN'T PREDICT WHEN SUCCESS WILL TURN UPSIDE DOWN. ALL YOU CAN DO IS KEEP PLAYING WELL.

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