quick
Legend
Silver Level
I'm always looking to improve my mental game and improve focus on process not results.
One bad habit I fell into...especially once I shifted from losing player to winning player was checking my results or cashier/balance. Not only before/after a session but multiple times during it. It was like a siren song...you had that itch you just had to scratch (self questions like: "am I up or down? did I just lose all my profit from 5 hours of play to one hand!? I wonder how much closer I am to being rolled for the next stake?"). It's interesting that I became more likely to check progress once I started consistently winning bb/100 overall instead of losing.
But I noticed of course that it not only distracted me from focusing on every hand, it also caused me to get frustrated more easily, to think about the +/- of my balance after a session which of course maybe me either over confident that I was crushing or under confident/doubting my game depending on which direction my balance went.
Another common thing is to quit while we're ahead or stay playing too long when stuck...and often it seems like that if we don't really know exactly where we're at "balance/roll" wise during play then we're less likely to fall into these bad habits. Yeah our minds will try to mentally calculate roughly during play, but we're not doing that constantly and seeing down to the penny the changes in the balance.
This week I started looking less, than I tried to not look at all during play, now a week into it I've checked my Bovada balance just twice (my BoL balance is a little harder to avoid but I try to just block it out). I've managed to stop looking at my HM2 results for at least a 3 day stretch.
My goal now is to only seriously look at my balance/check my results in HM2 once a week and only to go over hands to review (as it's hard to review hands because you see your results) and to see if I need to move up/down stakes.
I already feel much less focused on things like when I'll move up, or getting frustrated by seeing my balance go down after going up or after a big losing hand. Instead more focused on the hands being played and before/after sessions not thinking about where I'm at roll wise. This article got me thinking more about it too: https://www.pokerlistings.com/blog/ignoring-results-reducing-tilt-and-the-mental-game
So all that back story aside, how often do you check your balance/cashier and/or look at your PT4 or HM2 stats/progress/graph/EV/etc? During sessions? After sessions? Once a day? Once a week? Once a month? Longer?
And if you do stay disciplined and stay away from checking your balance/results during play or only check it say weekly...what tricks do you use to ensure you aren't staring at it often? And how do you keep this in line with any stop losses or move up/down rules you may have?
I feel like weekly is a good way to balance knowing if move/up down as I believe tilt control/stop losses should be dependent on your state at the table in the moment and not based on your roll balance and also maybe smooths out the ups and downs as I can see thousands of hands a week and not be focused on the hand to hand fluctuations in amounts.
One bad habit I fell into...especially once I shifted from losing player to winning player was checking my results or cashier/balance. Not only before/after a session but multiple times during it. It was like a siren song...you had that itch you just had to scratch (self questions like: "am I up or down? did I just lose all my profit from 5 hours of play to one hand!? I wonder how much closer I am to being rolled for the next stake?"). It's interesting that I became more likely to check progress once I started consistently winning bb/100 overall instead of losing.
But I noticed of course that it not only distracted me from focusing on every hand, it also caused me to get frustrated more easily, to think about the +/- of my balance after a session which of course maybe me either over confident that I was crushing or under confident/doubting my game depending on which direction my balance went.
Another common thing is to quit while we're ahead or stay playing too long when stuck...and often it seems like that if we don't really know exactly where we're at "balance/roll" wise during play then we're less likely to fall into these bad habits. Yeah our minds will try to mentally calculate roughly during play, but we're not doing that constantly and seeing down to the penny the changes in the balance.
This week I started looking less, than I tried to not look at all during play, now a week into it I've checked my Bovada balance just twice (my BoL balance is a little harder to avoid but I try to just block it out). I've managed to stop looking at my HM2 results for at least a 3 day stretch.
My goal now is to only seriously look at my balance/check my results in HM2 once a week and only to go over hands to review (as it's hard to review hands because you see your results) and to see if I need to move up/down stakes.
I already feel much less focused on things like when I'll move up, or getting frustrated by seeing my balance go down after going up or after a big losing hand. Instead more focused on the hands being played and before/after sessions not thinking about where I'm at roll wise. This article got me thinking more about it too: https://www.pokerlistings.com/blog/ignoring-results-reducing-tilt-and-the-mental-game
So all that back story aside, how often do you check your balance/cashier and/or look at your PT4 or HM2 stats/progress/graph/EV/etc? During sessions? After sessions? Once a day? Once a week? Once a month? Longer?
And if you do stay disciplined and stay away from checking your balance/results during play or only check it say weekly...what tricks do you use to ensure you aren't staring at it often? And how do you keep this in line with any stop losses or move up/down rules you may have?
I feel like weekly is a good way to balance knowing if move/up down as I believe tilt control/stop losses should be dependent on your state at the table in the moment and not based on your roll balance and also maybe smooths out the ups and downs as I can see thousands of hands a week and not be focused on the hand to hand fluctuations in amounts.
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