Day 1: FAIL

Well, in one sense of the word at least.

Been having some trouble with my PC the last few days, and unfortunately it had to all blow up today in my face all at once. Telescope stopped working, my scripts were all buggy, my hard drives are getting all weird on me...and all this on my day where I was planning on putting all of Jared's tilt-control and organizational stuff together. Needless to say, it tested me.

I ended up just playing a session without my table selecting helper, Telescope, and ran sick good anyways. I did however fail with my warm-up and warm-down. Didn't do either. *slaps wrist* Do it tomorrow.

I did at least write up a process for both though. Again, Jared has his whole course over at Stox, and he explains everything better than me obviously, so I'll just give you the outline of what I've got written down, not so much all the reasoning for it. I have both of these saved on my usually spotless desktop as pdf files, and my plan is to open them before and after each and every poker session.

PRE-SESSION WARM-UP

Make sure you're prepared

-Go to the washroom

-Eat a snack/meal

-Get a glass of water

-Clean off your desk

-Turn off your phone

Write down your goals

-# of hands

-Strategic plays

-Recognizing triggers of tilt

-Assessing mental state

Warm up your poker brain

-Read HHs

-Watch a stox video

-Look at overall graph

Deep breathing

-Diaphragmatic breathing for >30 secs

-Clear your mind

-Get focused

Visualize

-Visualize your A game

-Compare that with your C game

-Refer to Ideal Game card

and...

POST SESSION WRAP-UP

Exctract learning

-Evaluate what you've learned

-Things about opponents

-Things about yourself

-Random other things

Evaluate goals/progress

-Did you meet your goals?

-Note small improvements

-If you made mistakes, note what you did wrong so you can do it correctly next time

Review your play

-Review hands

-Mistakes

-Hands you played well

Drop the poker

-Breathing exercizes

-Answer Jared's questions from the Warm-Down video

-Do something else!

I used to try a dumbed down version of this and just thought it too much to do every day or even every session. But now I'm thoroughly convinced it's worth it. Try it out yourself for a week or more and see how it works out.

I also wrote down some of those cards for use when I'm actually playing. I'll no doubt be editing them or rewriting them completely as time goes on - the way they're written now isn't guaranteed to work. The basic purpose for them is to have them written when I'm in a completely objective mindset and can see things clearly, and so that when I'm in a subjective mindset during a session, I have these perspective cards to refer to when I start tilting, or when I go off track in any other way.

The first one's for when I'm tilting. It simply reminds me about the long run, and to make sure I quit a table if I'm past my tilt threshold, or if I'm sitting with people who are either better than me or close enough that they're not worth my time. It just keeps me in check so I don't go apeshit and makes sure I'm sitting at profitable tables, basically.

The other isn't too organized; it's a reminder of how I play when I'm on my A-game. Stuff like "constantly checking stats", "constantly adjusting", "aware of my opponents' mental states", "constantly assessing the table conditions", "usually playing less than 6 tables", etc etc.

My other big problem isn't in-game, but rather getting myself in-game. I often have trouble getting the motivation to play, especially when my family's running all over the place and shit is constantly popping up for me to do.

I haven't solved that yet, but one big thing to do is discuss with my Mom and others about my job, explain that I need a certain amount of time each month/week/day to play, and that I can't be disturbed. I also need to free up time when I can get other stuff done, like taking care of my Oma and chores. I think what I'll do is bunch up both of those in the same day, then the rest of the week I'll have free to play and study.

I've also dropped some good coin on a nice set of noise-cancelling bluetooth headphones. A little over 200 CAD IIRC with everything included. They look pretty sick to me though:


This way, I can work while others are running around without having to yell "WILL YOU PLEASE SHUT THE FUCK UP FOR A BIT" (which actually came up during my session with Jared! lol).

So, tomorrow will be more play, more refining of all this mental game stuff, and hopefully more profit. I'm still running like 50BB/100 this month which is just ridiculous.