Help me with my project here

Ok,

So, for my dev psych class I am writing a research paper on how other events and stimuli in your life have an effect on your level of play. I noticed sometime I just *feel* like I am in my zone, and my play shows it, and other times when my mind is on different things and I look like the brewers pitching meltdown this year.

If anyone could give me some examples of this happening to them, relevant outside facts, and opinions you would rock my socks and there might be some ice cream in it for you later on.

Cheers

Yes, I do find my mood affects my poker playing at times.

I'd like to say that if you go in with a positive attitude great things will happen. I have heard similar things in the past and have found this to not be the case. *However, with a positive attitude I might still get some pretty bad beats, go completely card dead, etc; but I will play better, be more observant, etc; I might not make any profits, but I will usually minimize the losses.

Good Mood - I find that I get a little sassy when I'm in a good mood. Sometimes I will take a few more chances and my play will be a little looser than it should be. I also find that I will allow myself distractions that I shouldn't, especially when I'm playing live.

Bad Mood / Tilt - this is the worse time for me to play (and most other people I imagine). I've learned the hard way to not play this way, my br greatly suffers.

In the zone - live play we have an expression for players that are in the zone and making good reads, good lay downs, etc; We always say "so and so has their "readers" on tonight". One night in particular I was very much in the zone, was at the $1/$2 NL cash table and had turned $100 into $1200. Several players stopped playing hands with me, calling my raises and such, they kept saying things like "I just can't bluff you tonight you have your readers on" and the like. And it's true, when I'm in the zone, and have my "readers" on, I play very well. It doesn't happen as often as I would like it to, but I find it happens more and more often. I don't always make good money, but I usually make really good calls and really good laydowns and few mistakes. That's when poker is at it's best for me.

Distractions - I have a lot of them at home when I play online. I'm learning to minimize the distractions, change the times when I play, etc; I learned a valuable lesson, a costly one, the hard way, about distractions.

*Here is a story of how I lost over $1000: I remember one day after I had just won $1300 in the Sunday Million on PS I was playing at a $200 NL cash game, (At the time it didn't occur to me that this was bad brm.) my kids had some friends staying the night and they were all in the basement family room supposedly sleeping.

About 2 hours had gone by since I put them to bed and the one friend got scared down in the basment. My 8 year old son came upstairs to tell me that his friend was downstairs crying and scared. I put my laptop on the coffee table and didn't think to click on the "sitting out" button. I had been doing quite well, I had turned my $200 into $450. There was a player on major tilt and he was moving all in quite often without anything at all trying to steal pots so I didn't want to leave the room until that player stopped reloading.

So, distracted, I quickly went downstairs only to find that my 10 year old had thrown on a Goosebumbs Movie and that was why the friend was freaked out. I turned off the show, turned the radio on and turned on a lamp for light. The kids felt better and I came back upstairs to a horror of my own. My 8 year old decided to do me a "favor" and play my hands for me!!!! He knows how to use a computer, he knows I play poker but as far as I knew then he didn't have any knowledge of the game. Anyways, I come upstairs and yep you guessed it, I had no money left!!! I was so livid I don't remember being that upset about anything in a long time. I didn't yell at my son, I was pissed at myself for making such a stupid mistake. He had never done anything like that before, so I wasn't expecting it and it wasnt' his fault, it was mine. I was like "what are you doing with this extremely horrific expression on my face !?!?!" when I came upstairs and saw him sitting on the floor using my computer. He said he wanted to do me a favor and help. OMG!!!!! (He also said it was fun! OMG!!!!)

I told him to never touch my computer without first asking and never ever ever ever try to play poker!!!! (That's when I also found out my mother in law had been teaching my kids how to play poker when they stayed the night at her house - grrrrrr - another story but I put a stop to that shit right away). I sent him downstairs and looked over my hand history. I don't remember the exact hands but he lost all my money in only a couple hands. The tilting donk had pushed all in preflop and my son had clicked on the call button, the donk had a medium ppr and I had garbage, something really bad like 83 os or something. The next hand the donk pushes all in again and my son clicks on the call button with a very low pair, it was like 33 or 44. The donk had some crap like a suited K5 or something. I just kept saying "OMG, OMG, OMG" over and over and my son said something from the top of the staircase like "but mom you had two matching cards and Tabba (my mother in law's nickname) said that's a pair". All I said was, yes, that is a pair and maybe when you get older I will teach you what it all really means but for now we'll just stick to playing Uno & Connect Four.

So I was frantic to win my money back (totally tilted at my own stupidity) and ended up losing $1000 total (this includes the $250 I was up at the $200 NL & I had made $200 at the $100 NL cash table as well earlier that day). So I ended up losing $450 profits from that day and gave away another $550. Needless to say, being stressed out, with distractions and going on tilt is the absolutely the wrong time to play poker! LOL!

Well, I think of this a lot. Sometimes it is hard to tell how I am going to do but I only have to play one or two small SNG's to know where I am at.

If I am stressed and have had a hard week... My play suffers. Sleep is also a big factor. I would even go as far as to say that my diet may even affect it.

So, in short, if I am rested, calm and nourished, I am unstoppable. Those rarely all come together, though.

Is that specific enough?

I agree that emotion has a lot to do with it, thats where the dress to impress comes into play. Because if you look good then you feel good and then you play good sometimes and or more than not. I think as a successful player you would try just about anything that works, so dont knock it until you try it.

I am getting a lot of people mentioning diet and one person at the local casino went in depth on how he preps himself by eating only greens and drinking only milk hours before a big tourney, he claimed this was the secret to winning.

Another interesting response was someone who said she meditated before playing as a way to clear her mind and focus more during play. I will admit, this one interests me and I think im going to try it before the CC freeroll tomorrow

Ok, after thinking of all the negative things in my life that effect my level of play, I came up with a position one.

I like listening to specific music prior to the game or on breaks, if I am overly stressed I will listen to Tibetan Chanting, dragging- I'll listen to some hip hop to get me going.