Newschool
Enthusiast
Silver Level
Hello Everyone,
I just recently found Cardschat and I'm excited to start posting here. I am however not new to poker at all, in fact I have been grinding professionally for years, and I coach as well. Neways, I created this post the other night while I could not sleep. It will help almost anyone who plays poker. These are some things I've learned over my career. I hope you find them useful!
Some thoughts I have had recently about shot taking/moving up in limits/Improving at poker I wanted to share. To start, my personal mission for this summer was to grind a micro stakes roll and move up limits every few weeks so long as I continued to win. I wanted to see what it was like to be starting all over again, like any one of you might be doing right now. I wanted to grind up from the bottom and get the full experience of actually building a roll through the micros.
So as of now I am up maybe 600 from playing 20nl and 50nl over 30kish hands so far (I posted a graph I think in the community video series thread). I was closer to a 1k when I hit a rough patch a few days ago after moving up to 50nl, and I gotta say I was a little disappointed. It’s not like the money bothered me. I honestly could give a **** about $400. It was more about that feeling of failure, and my impatience to get to the next level. This is what I am sure many of you go through.
When I first grinded up from the micros, it was a very fast process (2008ish). I started at 5nl, and I was playing and beating 400nl within 12 months having 20k months as a 20 year old kid. It was very rewarding. Looking back, I can see that A: I had a lot of time on my hands to grind and focus, B: I didn’t put pressure on myself because at the time, I had no idea where any of this was going. C: the games were easier then, and really micro stakes didn’t play much diff than 400nl. Now there is a huge jump in skill level every stake you rise to, unfortunately.
Often people ask me how many buy ins they should have to play a limit, or how to manage their bankroll. The easy answer is honestly for everyone its different. What I can say for myself is that I need confidence, and a relaxed mindset to play any limit, that matters more than how much money I have.
My friend Morgan for instance, is a verrrrrry good player, I have talked poker with him a lot and I learn something from him almost any time we discuss hands. Morgan is very difficult to stress out, or let disappointment shake his confidence. He can (and has) played 5knlHU on a 100k bankroll and rode out downswings to the point that his account could be down to 10 or 20k, but he just sticks with his guy and grinds it back up. He sees a profitable spot, and he maximizes his expectation, AHHH if only life were that simple. Morgan as a matter of fact was born with a gift not many of us have.
Many of us (I included) don’t have this ability. We have expectations, we have want’s and desires and we are impatient to get them or achieve them, life is short! The problem is with poker, that all of these things are essentially buttons waiting to be pushed that will make us feel stress, and when we feel stress, we are not playing good poker. So where am I going with all of this?
Well I wanted to share with you some notions I hold and activities I implement in my life to keep my sanity, control myself, and use what I have going for me to my greatest benefit. This is not an exhaustive list by any means. Neways Here goes..
Stress. Stress is probably the number one road block for most of you. It kills people, takes years off their life. It also kills bankrolls, wishes, and dreams. A little bit of stress in every day life can be a good motivator to get things done, however in poker that isn’t necessarily true. In poker stress causes your brain to shut down and prevents you from using your cognitive abilities.
Have you ever been so pissed off that you couldn’t think of anything reasonable, you just wanted to punch somebody? That is stress doing its job and what a wonderful job it’s doing for you as you try to piece together a bunch of random bits of detailed information. So first thing about playing poker, improving, moving up in stakes, ALL of it, is minimizing your stress. Let me give you some examples off the top of my head of stuff I have done, or currently do to beat stress, our greatest enemy.
Moving up in stakes: When I’m moving up in stakes, I try my best not look at it that way. I don’t let moving up in stakes become an event; I look at it as a process. If you look at it as an event this causes stress for several reasons. A: a clear change has happened, things were one way before but now they are different because you are a big boy you’ve “moved up”. Change is stressful! B: When we “move up” we feel like we just got a promotion, that our responsibilities have been increased and in return we hope to earn more money.
Well **** that! Who wants to get a promotion when they know that they risk being demoted on any given day, also this promotion does come with more responsibilities yay! Better players to deal with and less fish. The worst part about this new promotion is that you are NOT guaranteed to make anything more than you did before, ANYTHING COULD HAPPEN.
Instead: try to look at shot taking as an ongoing process. Like when you have a job and your Boss starts giving you a few extra tasks to do just to get your feet wet. It’s the same way here. Play 4 sessions at your normal limit, for every 1 session of the higher limit to start with. See how that goes and if you feel good after a few days, switch it to half and half. If you feel a little weird one day, go back to just playing lower again, and start the process over. Make this as least stressful as possible.
2. Be engaged in your sessions, and when you find your mind wondering, looking for something else to do, go do something else or try one of these tactics I’m about to mention. Being bored is another thing that can aggravate you. Personally I have this problem a lot, where I am just so used to playing poker I get bored. I know what I’m gonna do in almost any situation before it happens. I might be playing a few hands in a row vs some nitty regs, and I'm just like omfg if I have to fold one more river I’m gonna ****ing lose it.
Some tricks I use to help engage myself are rewards like….. candy! SweetTarts are my thing, but you can use whatever candy you like. I try to give myself non harmful treats for sitting in the chair grinding, so candy is good. If I catch a bad beat or I make another disciplined fold that tilts me, I reward myself with a piece of candy. My brain associates that positive reinforcement to my good decision, and it also keeps me engaged.
I also have a massage chair I got from sharper image and I reward myself with back massages =) TV is not a good reward because it distracts you. I would consider it a harmful treat. You want to use treats that won’t affect your ability to play. In the end the simple idea is be engaged, and be happy while you are playing.
3. Let’s say I’m playing my normal 100nl+ to crank out my living like I have for years. I like to have A LOT of buy ins in my cashier. At least 60 or more for whatever limit I’m playing. It makes me feel comfortable, and helps remind me that I won all of that money playing poker, so it’s that much easier not to freak out if a little down swing hits me. Once again, some were born with the wonderful gift not to give a ****, but I don’t have that, so I make do with what I have.
4. Consider your job as a poker player an ongoing iterative process of self improvement, a process that is on going with no end in sight. Acknowledge that you will never completely eliminate mistakes, but that you fully intend to continually to learn from them and get better at what you do and who you are every step of the way. With this attitude, one can accomplish almost anything.
5. This is the most important thing, and I’ve said it to my students for years. REDEFINE YOUR GOALS! Make smart goals that are process oriented, not results oriented! If you make a goal to put in more volume, what usually happens? A lot of times you’ll try to play too many tables right? And then you play like ****. Sure you make a little extra in RB, but you lose even more at the tables from losing focus, and fighting the stress and unhappiness of managing the extra table load.
If you set a goal to make 5k in a month, sure that is nice, making 5k would be great. But what if you don’t run very well? Most winning players I know have losing or break even months about 4 month of every year (there are of course some exceptions). Reaching that goal is out of your control, you can’t control whether you’ll have a good month or not.
The question becomes: So what kind of goals should you have then? Answer: Process oriented goals!
Those are goals that break down something in your poker game that you focus in on, study and repair/improve. EVERY session I play, I will have some type of goal/s, a process that I want to go through to help me become a better player. Some example of goals might be to pay attention to EVERYONES fold to 3 bet stat and to make sure I don’t miss a single good spot to 3b bluff. Or another goal might be to only play 4 tables and find a bet sizing tell on one of the regs I play vs. Another goal might be to talk over a hand with another coach and try to find one thing they have to say that I didn’t ever thing of (hopefully more than that!)
These process oriented goals are goals that make me better, these are goals that I CAN accomplish no matter what, so I don’t ever have to worry about failure. Best part about these goals is that they are sure things. They are guaranteed to make me better and they never hurt me. What a beautiful concept.
For every one of my goals I also will make a journal that includes my thoughts and what I felt I learned through that process. Ill save it and date it and read it over again a week later. This helps me retain and digest my experiences.
If you are already doing some of this stuff, Im sure you are happy with the results. For everyone else: give this stuff a try! I believe it will make a huge impact in your life like it has mine =)
That’s all for now, thanks for reading.
Cliffs: Stress Sucks, Moving Up Is A Process, Maximize Happyness, Redefine Goals.
Jeremy
I just recently found Cardschat and I'm excited to start posting here. I am however not new to poker at all, in fact I have been grinding professionally for years, and I coach as well. Neways, I created this post the other night while I could not sleep. It will help almost anyone who plays poker. These are some things I've learned over my career. I hope you find them useful!
Some thoughts I have had recently about shot taking/moving up in limits/Improving at poker I wanted to share. To start, my personal mission for this summer was to grind a micro stakes roll and move up limits every few weeks so long as I continued to win. I wanted to see what it was like to be starting all over again, like any one of you might be doing right now. I wanted to grind up from the bottom and get the full experience of actually building a roll through the micros.
So as of now I am up maybe 600 from playing 20nl and 50nl over 30kish hands so far (I posted a graph I think in the community video series thread). I was closer to a 1k when I hit a rough patch a few days ago after moving up to 50nl, and I gotta say I was a little disappointed. It’s not like the money bothered me. I honestly could give a **** about $400. It was more about that feeling of failure, and my impatience to get to the next level. This is what I am sure many of you go through.
When I first grinded up from the micros, it was a very fast process (2008ish). I started at 5nl, and I was playing and beating 400nl within 12 months having 20k months as a 20 year old kid. It was very rewarding. Looking back, I can see that A: I had a lot of time on my hands to grind and focus, B: I didn’t put pressure on myself because at the time, I had no idea where any of this was going. C: the games were easier then, and really micro stakes didn’t play much diff than 400nl. Now there is a huge jump in skill level every stake you rise to, unfortunately.
Often people ask me how many buy ins they should have to play a limit, or how to manage their bankroll. The easy answer is honestly for everyone its different. What I can say for myself is that I need confidence, and a relaxed mindset to play any limit, that matters more than how much money I have.
My friend Morgan for instance, is a verrrrrry good player, I have talked poker with him a lot and I learn something from him almost any time we discuss hands. Morgan is very difficult to stress out, or let disappointment shake his confidence. He can (and has) played 5knlHU on a 100k bankroll and rode out downswings to the point that his account could be down to 10 or 20k, but he just sticks with his guy and grinds it back up. He sees a profitable spot, and he maximizes his expectation, AHHH if only life were that simple. Morgan as a matter of fact was born with a gift not many of us have.
Many of us (I included) don’t have this ability. We have expectations, we have want’s and desires and we are impatient to get them or achieve them, life is short! The problem is with poker, that all of these things are essentially buttons waiting to be pushed that will make us feel stress, and when we feel stress, we are not playing good poker. So where am I going with all of this?
Well I wanted to share with you some notions I hold and activities I implement in my life to keep my sanity, control myself, and use what I have going for me to my greatest benefit. This is not an exhaustive list by any means. Neways Here goes..
Stress. Stress is probably the number one road block for most of you. It kills people, takes years off their life. It also kills bankrolls, wishes, and dreams. A little bit of stress in every day life can be a good motivator to get things done, however in poker that isn’t necessarily true. In poker stress causes your brain to shut down and prevents you from using your cognitive abilities.
Have you ever been so pissed off that you couldn’t think of anything reasonable, you just wanted to punch somebody? That is stress doing its job and what a wonderful job it’s doing for you as you try to piece together a bunch of random bits of detailed information. So first thing about playing poker, improving, moving up in stakes, ALL of it, is minimizing your stress. Let me give you some examples off the top of my head of stuff I have done, or currently do to beat stress, our greatest enemy.
Moving up in stakes: When I’m moving up in stakes, I try my best not look at it that way. I don’t let moving up in stakes become an event; I look at it as a process. If you look at it as an event this causes stress for several reasons. A: a clear change has happened, things were one way before but now they are different because you are a big boy you’ve “moved up”. Change is stressful! B: When we “move up” we feel like we just got a promotion, that our responsibilities have been increased and in return we hope to earn more money.
Well **** that! Who wants to get a promotion when they know that they risk being demoted on any given day, also this promotion does come with more responsibilities yay! Better players to deal with and less fish. The worst part about this new promotion is that you are NOT guaranteed to make anything more than you did before, ANYTHING COULD HAPPEN.
Instead: try to look at shot taking as an ongoing process. Like when you have a job and your Boss starts giving you a few extra tasks to do just to get your feet wet. It’s the same way here. Play 4 sessions at your normal limit, for every 1 session of the higher limit to start with. See how that goes and if you feel good after a few days, switch it to half and half. If you feel a little weird one day, go back to just playing lower again, and start the process over. Make this as least stressful as possible.
2. Be engaged in your sessions, and when you find your mind wondering, looking for something else to do, go do something else or try one of these tactics I’m about to mention. Being bored is another thing that can aggravate you. Personally I have this problem a lot, where I am just so used to playing poker I get bored. I know what I’m gonna do in almost any situation before it happens. I might be playing a few hands in a row vs some nitty regs, and I'm just like omfg if I have to fold one more river I’m gonna ****ing lose it.
Some tricks I use to help engage myself are rewards like….. candy! SweetTarts are my thing, but you can use whatever candy you like. I try to give myself non harmful treats for sitting in the chair grinding, so candy is good. If I catch a bad beat or I make another disciplined fold that tilts me, I reward myself with a piece of candy. My brain associates that positive reinforcement to my good decision, and it also keeps me engaged.
I also have a massage chair I got from sharper image and I reward myself with back massages =) TV is not a good reward because it distracts you. I would consider it a harmful treat. You want to use treats that won’t affect your ability to play. In the end the simple idea is be engaged, and be happy while you are playing.
3. Let’s say I’m playing my normal 100nl+ to crank out my living like I have for years. I like to have A LOT of buy ins in my cashier. At least 60 or more for whatever limit I’m playing. It makes me feel comfortable, and helps remind me that I won all of that money playing poker, so it’s that much easier not to freak out if a little down swing hits me. Once again, some were born with the wonderful gift not to give a ****, but I don’t have that, so I make do with what I have.
4. Consider your job as a poker player an ongoing iterative process of self improvement, a process that is on going with no end in sight. Acknowledge that you will never completely eliminate mistakes, but that you fully intend to continually to learn from them and get better at what you do and who you are every step of the way. With this attitude, one can accomplish almost anything.
5. This is the most important thing, and I’ve said it to my students for years. REDEFINE YOUR GOALS! Make smart goals that are process oriented, not results oriented! If you make a goal to put in more volume, what usually happens? A lot of times you’ll try to play too many tables right? And then you play like ****. Sure you make a little extra in RB, but you lose even more at the tables from losing focus, and fighting the stress and unhappiness of managing the extra table load.
If you set a goal to make 5k in a month, sure that is nice, making 5k would be great. But what if you don’t run very well? Most winning players I know have losing or break even months about 4 month of every year (there are of course some exceptions). Reaching that goal is out of your control, you can’t control whether you’ll have a good month or not.
The question becomes: So what kind of goals should you have then? Answer: Process oriented goals!
Those are goals that break down something in your poker game that you focus in on, study and repair/improve. EVERY session I play, I will have some type of goal/s, a process that I want to go through to help me become a better player. Some example of goals might be to pay attention to EVERYONES fold to 3 bet stat and to make sure I don’t miss a single good spot to 3b bluff. Or another goal might be to only play 4 tables and find a bet sizing tell on one of the regs I play vs. Another goal might be to talk over a hand with another coach and try to find one thing they have to say that I didn’t ever thing of (hopefully more than that!)
These process oriented goals are goals that make me better, these are goals that I CAN accomplish no matter what, so I don’t ever have to worry about failure. Best part about these goals is that they are sure things. They are guaranteed to make me better and they never hurt me. What a beautiful concept.
For every one of my goals I also will make a journal that includes my thoughts and what I felt I learned through that process. Ill save it and date it and read it over again a week later. This helps me retain and digest my experiences.
If you are already doing some of this stuff, Im sure you are happy with the results. For everyone else: give this stuff a try! I believe it will make a huge impact in your life like it has mine =)
That’s all for now, thanks for reading.
Cliffs: Stress Sucks, Moving Up Is A Process, Maximize Happyness, Redefine Goals.
Jeremy
