Previous part of Mental Game of Poker: Failures and desires
5.3.5 Willingness to control variation
Although it may seem illogical, the desire to control variation is something that most players want deep in their hearts. This often manifests itself in a variety of ways, such as asking for the right card to come up, avoiding looking at the flopassuming it will result in a better card, or rising from your seat when faced with a coin flip situation. All of this has no effect on the card that comes up, although most players would like to believe otherwise. Sometimes the desire to control the variation becomes very apparent and manifests itself in the form of humiliating an opponent who has folded to you, and sometimes even praying, as Jerry Yang did in the WSOP Main Event (successfully, by the way).
The very desire to control the variation means that you are actually letting control out of your hands. Let's assume that you really did less well than expected and that it lasted much longer than the mathematical laws say is normal. In that case, it is perfectly normal to feel crushed, but the key question is, are you allowing anger and frustration to influence your game? Very often, players with a hidden desire to control variation end up losing control of their game. Since you cannot control the variation, but you can control your reaction to it, the main goal is to improve yourself psychologically in order to make those reactions more effective. Of course this is not easy. Variation is the main reason why poker is so difficult. Eliminate the desire to control variation and instead concentrate on controlling your game.
LOGIC IS INSERTED: VARIATION CANNOT BE CONTROLLED, BUT IT IS POSSIBLE TO UNDERSTAND IT BETTER.
IT IS IMPOSSIBLE TO CONTROL THE CARDS YOU ARE DEALT, BUT IT IS POSSIBLE TO CONTROL YOUR GAME.
5.3.6 Excuses for not wanting to study
It's easy to find players who avoid improving their game because they think they are losing because of bad variation. When it seems that "there's no point in trying because I'm going to lose anyway", then it is understandable why there is no desire to spend time learning. If you think that the only reason you lose is because of bad variation, then it is illogical to improve your game.
To be honest, it's much easier to complain about a bad variation than to try to improve. If you try to improve but lose anyway, it's beating yourself up either way. Both pills are bitter and can make you feel that you have lost your mind and wasted your time. Blaming failure allows you to escape these feelings.
The biggest risk of complaining about bad luck is that very important details of the game are overlooked, especially when you are outplayed by your opponent. By complaining, you are, as it were, disconnecting the reality of the game from yourself. The longer this state of mind continues, the more your real advantage diminishes... leading to more variation... which means more failure... which leads to more complaining and less work on improvement. This vicious circle will continue until you accept the reality of the game and take action to improve the quality of the game.
There may be other psychological problems that you are trying to protect yourself from, such as fear of failure, loss of confidence or mistakes Bridge. If this is the case, then tackle each of these problems directly.
LOGIC IS INSERTED: STOP WHINING. THERE IS ALWAYS SOMETHING YOU CAN LEARN.
CUSTOMER HISTORY
Barry Carter
Medium Buy-in SNG and Cash NLHE Poker
Poker journalist
Before I met Jared, I had been a poker journalist for five years. Like most poker players who have been playing poker longer, my first few years were successful. But in 2009, I faced a brutal downswingswhich has ruined my game. I had heard of Jared and seen a few of his videos, but I thought he was likely to be the one talking about 'imagine yourself not getting it'. bad beats" the manure I used to associate with poker psychology. But despite that, I was really desperate, so I wanted to try Jared before I bought some "help yourself" type book.
I have outlined my three main concerns. First, I felt cursed. I really thought I was worse off than the rest of the world and I was ready to prove it to anyone who would listen. Secondly, I developed a terrible case of risk aversion. And finally, I was really struggling to make efforts to improve my game. I considered myself lazy at this point. At that point Jared said to me: "you do realise this is a bunch of shit?"
I was shocked. Wasn't he supposed to make me feel like Phil Ivey and tell me I could achieve anything? Can a psychological coach talk like that? Shouldn't we have started chanting Buddhist hymns or doing some of that garbage?
Jared asked if I can see a clear link between all three problems? In a way, I could see a link between thinking I was cursed and risk aversion. But I didn't understand at all how my laziness was related to the rest of the problems.
"What is the point of learning if you are cursed?" - Jared asked. "There's no such thing as laziness, you're just not motivated to work on your game. You've decided that you have an excuse not to learn because you're cursed, so you don't."
Suddenly, everything became very simple. How could I not see this before? From Jared's first observation of the pile of shit, I knew it was serious business. I always thought I knew myself well, so the fact that Jared was so quick to understand why I wasn't trying to improve hooked me on a psychological game.
It took a long time before I fully understood my reluctance to learn. And in the months that followed, my case helped me to understand how most psychological problems are interconnected. Thinking I was under a spell hindered my learning, but risk aversion also contributed to it. During one session, I mentioned to Jared that for me the image of success in poker is a tournament winner posing for the cameras, holding his winning cards in his hand and a mountain of chips in front of him.
"Maybe I should stop playing SNG and cash poker and start playing tournaments", I joked.
Never joke during a session with Jared Tendler. He won't miss it. He started asking me why I hardly play any tournaments when my poker success is winning a tournament. He made me realise that this time the risk-aversion was holding me back, because I was associating success with something I wasn't even trying to achieve, so I had a good excuse when I didn't achieve it.
This eventually led to fundamental things that I didn't bother to learn and improve on. I didn't want to put myself in a position where I had to make excuses for my failures. As a poker journalist, I have to cover different success stories every day, and I have a lot of friends among poker professionals. I was actually afraid of being humiliated in front of them, so I took the less risky route, which meant not being perfect, blaming my success and not giving myself the opportunity to be ridiculed.
Finding out about these fears gave me a starting point. I knew that the worst thing that could happen if I started to learn was ridicule. I also realised that I was not as good a player as I thought I was. And that's good, because there is room for improvement. Thanks to solid concepts like worm and SMM, I now know that there is always room for improvement. I also know how to see small incremental improvements, even when there is a very large period of failure.
EN 
LT 
DE 
FR 
SV 
ES 
IT 
FI 
LV 
SK 
SL 
TR 