EagleCarver
Rising Star
Bronze Level
That's a good thought, freerolls don't require your A-game necessarily, as you're going to encounter a lot of low-skilled players.
M
muky2
Enthusiast
Silver Level
I think all the comments here are good and driving at the same thing. I also think there are many other factors that play into whether you should play or not and you will have to figure this out by trial and error to some degree. You are the best judge of what is best for you. I battle with major clinical depression and anxiety and the thought of having to be in a perfect mindset before I play would eliminate most all of the time. I don't know if you are to this point, but you can judge that for yourself. I will say that i think all players have to deal with this to some degree due to the nature of the game. You will have hands when you do everything right and the odds don't work in your favor. you will have people hit their 5% suck outs and it will drive you crazy, thus the term "On Tilt". The upside is that just maybe poker will be something that you can use to teach you how to better manage you anxiety. Play enough and you will get used to having your AA's cracked and your straights beat by flushes on a 20% draw, etc.. After this happens enough you learn that to manage your anxiety with it. Just don't put your self in situations where the outcomes are unmanageable and know when to step away. Play stakes that you can afford to lose without causing you worry after the game is over. Increasing your knowledge about poker theory and math will help with this.
Poker has helped me get my mind active sharpen my acuity and logical capacity in a positive way, help distract me from negative obsessive thinking and gives me mental clarity and confidence over the long run. Good luck and I hope this helps. You will be the best judge of how and when you should play.
Poker has helped me get my mind active sharpen my acuity and logical capacity in a positive way, help distract me from negative obsessive thinking and gives me mental clarity and confidence over the long run. Good luck and I hope this helps. You will be the best judge of how and when you should play.
Rumengh
Legend
Platinum Level
Definitely to play good poker you should not have worried and have cleared misli.Psihikata definitely has a big role in making important resheniya.Profesionalistite play well precisely because their mentality is strong.
Zvezda kz
Legend
Bronze Level
I think that you need to play freely from other thoughts, otherwise nothing good will happen. It is necessary to get rid of extraneous thoughts with the help of yoga or soothing substances in order to disconnect all devices that can distract (telephone, TV, radio, etc.) during the game. For each class, determine your time. Try to organize your life.
finaltable1
Legend
Loyaler
Used to play 12-16 tables at the same time in past, 5-6 days a week, several years. I was on tilt 99% of time, played only premium hands, VPiP = 5-6%, very aggresively. Haven't paid attention to anything, had no thoughts about the players at the tables, had no idea how to control the tilt. Had no idea what is tilt at all. All I knew about poker was coming from the articles and lessons, and it was about the cards, not about the psychology. These articles and lessons have ended with a quiz and after passing the quiz I got free $50 starting bankroll, lifted it to more than 1K during my first month and cashed out my first $800. Bought 2 screens, together with laptop as 3rd screen, and I spent several years being on tilt, but being a winning player, had no single bad month. I believe that I had a really solid image at all of the limits I've played, cause all of the regs played carefully against me, and I was part of the "family". But inside I had a strange sequence of thoughts each day, more and more stress. Life around online poker was also a stress, if not the gym and my brothers bar I think I could lose my girlfriend. It was hard to get rid of the stress and poker related thoughts without giving a discomfort or problems to people around me.
Spent one day fishing, with firends, I've realised that I've spent 3-4 hours just sitting and staring at the lake without movement, listening to the birds and nature, forgot about the fishing rod, was just sitting with no ideas on my mind. It was very relaxing, I went fishing alone next day, it was Monday and spent whole week away from PC and poker and city. After this I decided that I haven't visited any other country for few years and flied to vacation to the beach, when I came back we went shopping and I've stopped nearby the book store cause I've spotted a psychology book at the showcase. Don't remember which one was the first one, but I've bought 25-30 psychology related books since then.
I strongly recommend to read "Games people play" book by Eric Berne to understand better what's going on in the world around you and to understand your position in the world from a much objective point of view than your current. It's hard to get out from your skin and look at yourself with objective view of an alien from another galaxy, but you can do that.
Practiced my new psychology skills during live poker games, yeah it's nice to know what's happening to the human body and what's inside opponents brain when you're observing the symphtoms.
Right now poker is my time killing hobby. I'm playing 90% of my poker sessions during my job, drawing things on one screen and playing couple of tables at the other one, having no stress at all, no ideas, no issues but also no focus on the game. I got couple of free seconds during each minute of my job, and I'm using them to click buttons at poker tables, that's it. Main focus on my goal in something real. Poker isn't something real, you're not creating any useful product during your poker sessions. You're not going to help the humanity, not going to create something. YOu're wasting your time if you're having your focus on poker and you belive that poker will help you in your life. 100 year life is 100years * 365days * 24 hours = 876.000 hours. 30% is sleep time. So your life is a stack of 876.000 chips(hours) and you're paying ante every second. If you think that spending some % of your life for poker is a good idea then I think that you're wrong. If you think that earning money from poker and investing them into something real is a good idea - then most probably you're right, but you have to win first and don't forget to stop and invest winings, or you'll become a poker junkee. Currently online poker for me is something like a pop-corn during a movie in a cinema. I can watch a movie without popcorn, but why not chew something if i'm bit hungry and this pop-corn won't make the movie longer.
So... playing poker for some real thing, is something that will help you to stay focused, cause you have a greater goal than just winning the first place in tourney or all money at the table. Or if you're doing the real thing during poker sessions, the real world will keep your focus, and the bad beats or big wins during poker session won't matter too much. Playing poker for poker, to become better poker player is a terrible decision, something simillar to washing your life all the way down in the toilet seat.. Hey, you've just paid me a chip from your life stack, 876K hours is 100 years - remember? Will you live it up to 100? or more? or less? Who knows? But you've paid me a chip by reading this. But the strange thing is that my stack isn't getting bigger, I've also lost a chip by typing this. Got the idea? That's poker. Time wins everything, Poker company wins 2nd place, addicted regulars win something by the end of the month, rest of the players are 100% losers, and those regulars are also losers. Each one of us has the inner feeling that something is terribly wrong and only winning the pot or the tourney this feeling is reduced by other feelings. But you can only win in one single case - if you're playing online poker at the same time with some well paid actions that you also like as much as wining in poker.
Correct me if I'm wrong.:deal:
I
Izfensina
Enthusiast
Silver Level
Thanks for sharing your thoughts about poker addiction actually after reading your comment I started thinking about quitting the Poker dream as I am missing a lot of things since almost 2 years now I am focused on online poker and play a lot neglecting some of the most important aspects of my real life I will try to distance myself from poker for a while and stop playing like "a poker Junkee"
finaltable1
Legend
Loyaler
Yeah.. the poker dream.
You know, majority of poker fanatics are saying that online poker isn't rigged. Yes it is rigged in every aspect. We can't prove that random generators are rigged and we can't prove that they're not, so we will leave this part of online poker alone. We will also leave alone the fact that all of these poker companies are registered at ofshore islands and the gambling comissions bla-bla... we'll leave it all alone.
But lets focus on something else about online poker.
Poker tournaments and cash games are hosted at computer servers.
Servers consume electricity and traffic.
Let's say for example... that one PC server consumes 1kW / hour of electricity and is able to host 10 tournaments. Each tournament will consume 1Gb traffic. Each tournament lasts 10 hours.
SO let's calculate.
10 MTTs = 10Gb of traffic + 10kW of electricity.
How much does it costs? I mean 10Gb of traffic if you have unlimited connection and 10kW of electric energy if you're not connected to solar panels and other types of self generated green energy. 10kW/hr = 1Euro.
NoW
What is the difference for PC server when it's hosting 10 MTT Freerolls against 10 MTTs with $109 buy-in? In both cases thousands of players are playing each MTT, doesn't mater if it's freeroll or buy-in. There is no difference for PC server what type of MTT it's hosting. In any case 10MTTs during 10 hours will consume 10kW + 10Gb.
What is the difference for the players who play these tournaments? Win 1 dollar investing nothing but your time, or lose 9-10% of your buy-in to pay the rake, doesn't matter if you win or lose, you're losing 10% of your investment at the same moment when you've invested it.
So IF we will play today, and each day during 11 days, then at 11th day all of the money that we've spent today will be casinos money. It absolutely doesn't matter who will win or lose. In general poker society is a losers society, all money deposited and invested into tournaments or cash today, will be casinos money after 10-11 or 20 days.
This industry is selling you a myth of succesfull poker player, showing you hundreds of stars and so called winners. Majority of them are winners for reasons. Some of them are doing the hard job and play like maniacs over 50 hours per week. Others have influence and their followers join poker because their idol did, so the idol for some strange reason is a winner.
Hey, a strange coinsedence happened twice in my life. I've invited 10 friends at one poker room, 6 of them made deposits, I got bonuses and won nice money in one MTT right after my friends started to register. Coinsedence? Luck? It happened twice in 2 different poker rooms. One it was in 2009-10, I've used a link with rakeback to invite my friends. Another time it happened in 2018.
Same story, invited friends to get the bonuses and suddenly i win big in mtt on top of the bonuses.
Hey another funny thing. My brother owned a restaurant, and over 30 players have started playing poker because he did, and he was sending them money through poker client, they paid him cash and he sent them money to their accounts... 30+ players... He isn't a good poker player, He started playing for fun, but when people asked to send them a dollar or five because minimum deposit is $10, and they don't want to deposit $10, plus some of them had other reasons for not making deposits... And you know what? My older brother is a really bad poker player, but he charged 10% for any money transfer and that's how he was making some extra bankroll, extra 5-20$ per day... then BOOM he strikes 1st place, invested 1$ into MTT and wins 11K. BOOM again spends 1$ to win the11$ ticket and wins 1st place again, another 10K...
Coinsedence? LuCK? What was it? He played like a idiet, that's his own words, he was calling all-ins pre-flop with JT and 89, just because it was very late and he wanted to go to sleep and he won like 30-40 pre-flop all-ins in a row to win more than 10K for the first place.
So... Do you have to be smart poker professional to win in online poker? Or maybe you are a video blogger with 300K subscribers and you have no idea how to play poker, but you win 1st place in your 3rd online MTT. Or maybe you've invited 20-30-50 players to join poker room and you're rewarded for that and you win to make a better advertisement for the poker site among your place? Who knows for sure?
I can't say for sure if it's rigged or it's a coinsedence, or it's luck, or skill, or whatever. What makes online poker rigged is that by the end of the day all money are casinos money, all they have to do is to spend part of the money to advertise and attract new morons who will waste their life time and their money at "online poker tables".
What is this term? "Online poker table" ???? Wake up. You're starting at pixels on your monitor... Playing Formula 1 video game doesn't make you a racer, playing Fifa 2019 doesn't make you a football player, playing online shooter doesn't make you a soldier at war.
Each poker player must pay attention to what's real and what's virtual. If you're looking at homeless drunks at the street and thinking "How can they live such life" then imagine that some people think the same when they're looking at so called "online poker pro". What kind of profession is this in reality? What useful product is created by this profession? Rake?
If anyone who was reading this post ever wondered what you can change in your life and how to start doing something useful instead or atleast during poker sessions, you may drop me private message and i'll try to help. I guess that majority of the people don't even realise that they can start some business investing +/- 100$ in couple of real things and having atleast 1 square meter of surface or even 25% of it..
