Ask Mental Game Coach Jared Tendler

[buckster436]

There are a lot of things players do to get ready for a tourney. The one thing that I'd suggest you can simply add is just to have a few keys to what you want to focus on for it. Basically what are the areas of your game either poker or mental that are key to you playing your best. Maintain high focus throughout, make good reads and adjustments, think through all hands, etc.

GL Buck!

Thank You for the advice,, ,,,,,,,buck

 

[Mortis]

Just getting out of the situation is the easy answer. There's always the possibility for shitty situations to happen in life and my theory is better to learn how to deal with them than not. If you can keep a pretty decent mindset and play good poker in your current situation, not only will it help you now obviously, but it's a skill you can take with you the rest of your life.

Basically what you want to is create a routine before and after your sessions so your escape can be are real one and not have life infecting it. You are in essence trying to create a bubble just around poker. Here's a few ideas how:

Before
1) If possible start this 30-45min before. If not practically possible to go that long - do as much as you can.
2) Spend a few minutes writing out notes about what's pissing you off or getting you upset, etc with the life stuff. Whether bullet points or paragraphs is up to you. The idea is that you're getting the problems that are weighing on your mind that day out of your head, putting them down on paper, and putting them aside for now.
3) Make a really clear decision that this is your time for poker. It's yours, period. So enjoy.
4) With the time you have left, begin to start focusing towards poker and make it fun. Throw some music on, chat with some poker friends, come to cards chats, etc.
5) You also can review some hands, set some goals for the session, or review the areas of your game your working on.
6) If at any time, any negative thoughts about the life situation come up that you can't shake - write it down with the other stuff, and refocus.

After
1) When your done, even if poker when poorly, look for something positive to take from it. Not positive for the sake of positive, something that's real.
2) Then if you want to pick your life problems back up, poker is done, so you can.


I'll be interested to know how this goes! Best to you man.

Thank you very much! I'm in the process of trying to get out of here.. but in the mean time, I will be taking your advice and writing stuff down, and just try to enjoy my poker time.

 

[bullishwwd]

Hi everyone!

I’m not sure how many of you know me, or are familiar with mental game coaching/poker psychology, so in talking with your faithful leader Debi (Dakota-xx), we decided the best way to introduce me to all of you is to briefly describe what I do, how it can help you, and then open up this thread to any questions you have.

As a coach to over 125 poker players from 19 countries, my work is solely focused on the mental game. Although I’m a fish in most of the games that all of you play, I understand poker players and the challenges all of you face well enough to know how to help you play better. That means not only eliminating or reducing issues like, tilt, anxiety, motivation, focus, decision making, and confidence, but also helping you increase the number of tables/hours you play, learn poker more efficiently, and consistently play in the Zone.

The key difference between what I do, and other psychological approaches you may be familiar with, is that my program draws from a wide variety of sources to create a logical and practical approach to the mental game that is exactly the same as how you’d approach learning poker. The reality is that everything in the mental game can be rational and orderly; though that’s rarely how it feels.

Drawing from my own experience as a former pro golfer, my master’s degree in psychology, 4 years of work in traditional counseling, 3 years working as a mental game coach to golfers, tennis, and football players, and now with poker players for the past 3 years, I’ve created a program not only unique to poker, but within all of sport psychology. It’s based on science, novel use of old theory, new theories I’ve created, a ton of direct experience and practical solutions.

If you’d like to know more about me, my work, read client testimonials, or to be among the first to be notified when my pokers psychology book is available, visit my website: jaredtendlerpoker.com.

I recently posted a guest blog on PartyPoker titled, “6 Reasons Why Poker Psychology Matters in Poker,” that gives an overview of some of the major areas of the mental game and my take on them.

I’m happy to be here, and I look forward to answering your mental game questions in this thread.

Jared

Jared, interesting and I agree...I will be checking in to see how I might improve my thinking as well, Wally

 

[bullishwwd]

Jared, interesting and I agree...I will be checking in to see how I might improve my thinking as well, Wally

Nice article on Party Poker...good stuff mate, Wally

 

[Stu_Ungar]

Stu, do you need to play more than 6? Can you do 8, session after session, without a problem? Is getting up to 12, 16, a target of yours?

I ask because getting past 10-12 has never been a goal of mine, but even getting up to 10-12 required a lot of sessions of 6, then of 8. Like a music student learning scales, repetition at one speed, then faster next week, then faster next week.

TBH I dont really know why I think I should play more tables. My goal isnt to play rediculous numbers of tables its just to play better poker, but do I best achieve this by playing more hands per hour or spending longer on individual decisions? You can make arguments for either. You can say that spending longer on each decision is the key, you can also say that playing more hands leads to more experience which in turn leads to better decisions anyway.


6 fits nicely onto one 24" monitor, so I quickly got up to 6.
Then I got another monitor which I use for lobbies, poker software etc and started playing the odd table on there. Its a smaller monitor and fits 4 tables so I ended up playing 10 tables.

 

[forsakenone]

Jared, thank you for being here. I have a question for you. here is what i do, lately i have been playing 20-24 tables 6 handed. after about 1 hour and half in the game i start to lose focus and i am not satisfied with my game after this period. i would like to be able to keep my focus but i just seem to lose it and sometimes, i lose in 5 minutes what took me 1 hour to win, happens almost every day.

any help is welcomed.

 

[Mortis]

Thank you very much! I'm in the process of trying to get out of here.. but in the mean time, I will be taking your advice and writing stuff down, and just try to enjoy my poker time.

Kind of a follow up.. I'm moving back to my hometown in Kansas City in less than 2 weeks and getting out of this situation.. I can't wait to get back home, and focus on myself.. something I haven't done in a very long time.

 

[Jared Tendler]

Do you know of or have had any dealing with someone with bipolar that plays poker and how do they handle things?

I have been trying to learn about the game and learn where I am going wrong as much as possible.

Things go fine for a while and build my bank role until I have a mania period which I seem to do everything wrong, probably firstly is play when I am manic.

I get a bad beat , get raged, go tilted and do everything wrong when manic, when I am not manic I can cope with all the bad beats and not go tilted.

Maybe I have answered the Question myself, Maybe I should just find a way of not playing when I am In a funny mood.

Before I was working with in performance, I had several clients with Bipolar. As far as I know I haven't worked with any poker players, but I understand it quite well.

I agree it does sound like you answered your question. From what you've said prevention is the best medicine. One thing I'd recommend doing is writing out a clear description of the early signs of mania and then study it. One I think it'll be good in general, but specifically for poker it'll make you better at recognizing the early signs so you can keep yourself from playing before your emotions get rolling too hot. It isn't enough to just know that you have to not play at this time, you need to catch it early, because once the mania kicks in, it's harder and harder to prevent yourself from playing - because in that mindset you can do no wrong - so convincing yourself that playing poker will likely be pretty tough.

 

[Jared Tendler]

Welcome and many thanks for joining us. I hope to keep checking this post and tightening up what I think is a major hole in my game(and many of ours)-going on tilt.


Mods- I assume you have removed the daily post limit? Thought so.

Thanks! I had no idea there even was a limit - out of curiosity what is the limit?

 

[workinonit]

Do you think one can ever become completely 'tiltless'?

 

[Jared Tendler]

Great to have you here, Jared.

Here's my question: I think the length of my poker sessions is somewhat results oriented. I can play long sessions when I start by getting stuck, and play a pretty long time until I get unstuck. On the other hand, when I start my session by running good, I tend to quit relatively early, which is obviously a leak as I'm probably playing against a softer competition. What can I do to overcome this tendency of mine?

Thanks, it's great being here.

There are a number of ways I can answer this question for you, so I'd like to first know more about your goals in poker, how long this has been a problem, and what happens when you try to quit when your down or play longer when your up. Also, do you think subconsciously you believe it's possible to win every session?

 

[Jared Tendler]

Hi Jared, welcome to CC.
My question is; i get bored easily about every subject including poker for example lets say i play 100$ sngs for a month and i beat them and as soon as i convince myself that i can beat it, i start to lack dicipline and concantration. I either have to move up stakes quickly or change the type of game i play otherwise i tend to try fancy things and spew because of that i cant set any long term goals. How do i overcome that?

Thanks Skid!

Key phase in what you said was, "convince myself." Is it true that you can beat the game or are you just BSing yourself? I mean 1 month is hardly enough to prove that you're beating the game. But because you believe it to be true you basically shut your mind of to learning anything new. I mean at that point it would be completely illogical to learn more when you think you've mastered it. Why would you waste your time and energy on learning? You wouldn't and you don't and you basically become bored because there's nothing to learn - in part because you don't believe there's any more for you to. Which logically of course you know isn't true.

When you are learning a game do you read and learn a ton about it? Just totally jump in and consume as much as you can? If so, my guess is that you are probably playing well, but then as the month wears on you may burn yourself out too.

Combine both and and the fancy plays are your way of keeping yourself interested.

Learning is a process and there is a difference between 'learning' and 'learned.' Something not many people or players realize. When you have learned something it means that it's been trained to the deepest memory system called procedural memory - which is basically your instinct and represents all the decisions you make automatically without thinking. Everything you have to think about means that you are learning that material.

For a non poker example, think back to when you first learned how to drive. You had to think about just about everything and eventually all that became automatic. That's the difference between learning and learned. The cool thing about having something learned (instinct), is that because you no longer have to think about it, you can now use your thought process for something new - which allows you to go deeper into the game. 1 month is definitely not enough time you learn to that level, and instead you likely have TON of info in the process of being learned, which means you have to think about a lot - and if you aren't really focused it's likely you'll make a lot of mistakes. Or if you took a week off and came back, you'd forget about a lot of what you were doing. The big stuff would be there but the little stuff wouldn't.

So basically all this was trying to convince you that you convincing yourself there's nothing to learn is a pile of crap. There's a ton to learn, even if it's the same stuff over and over so you master it and can then dive even deeper into the game.

Some of this can be complex, did I explain it well enough? If so, does it help?

 

[Jared Tendler]

hello jared, thank you for allowing us this opportunity to learn and improve.

I have two main questions and I'll just plunge into them

1. this is short but I think extremely important: what is the optimal way to get into a session? to get into the zen or the mode or the zone? What sort of mental or physical preparation would you suggest?

2. an important stat in poker is VPIP, now I have built on that a different stat that I think is far more imporant. We'll name it VMODH lol, it stands for Voluntarily Make Optimal Decisions in Hand. I find that there's a certain cap to the amount of optimal decisions I can make in any given game. When I play 8 tables that means I actively lower my VPIP and EP as well as MP play. I am aware of this more than I think others are however I still have not figured out a proper way to control and increase the amount of decisions I make without slipping into sub-optimal -ev thought process. What do you think of this? how would you suggest I improve this?

Hi! Your welcome, let me know if my advice here helps.

1) If I had the short simple answer to this I'd be a billionaire. The bottom line answer - whatever works for you. The thing about the zone is that you want to have your focus 100% on playing quality poker, and in general, not just in your warm-up you want to be removing everything that takes you out of that - tilt, distractions, anxiety, etc...

Generally as far as a warm-up goes, the key concepts that need to be there: Set goals; review some hands or corrections to your game; focus your mind - deep breathing or mediation or visualization; then get after it.

I will briefly plug my book here because I'm going to have an entire section devoted to the zone, efficient learning and improving your A game - which will give much more depth to this answer than I possibly could in a forum post.


2) In the previous post I talked about procedural memory. The problem you have is that there is too much information in your brain that you have to think about. So if you aren't really focused, you don't have enough energy to access all the 'in the learning process' - not automatic skill. The easiest way to correct this is to focus every session on making sure that your most obvious or greatest weaknesses are corrected.

By definition these mistakes are what is currently automatic (instinct) - in other words these are mistakes that you are good at. Even though you consciously know what the correction is, that means the correction is something you have to think about. You want the correction to be automatic. Once it is automatic, then your mind is freed up to focus on other stuff.

Just remember too that you and every player on the planet has a range in your game - between your worst and your best poker. This range is real, and will always be there. Right because once your worst improves, it means your best can get better. Once your best gets better it means that your worst has relatively gotten worse.

 

[Debi]

Thanks! I had no idea there even was a limit - out of curiosity what is the limit?

7 posts. (that is just for new members to prevent spamming but I assumed you wouldn't be doing that lol)

 

[Jared Tendler]

Thank You for the advice,, ,,,,,,,buck

Your welcome!

 

[Jared Tendler]

Thank you very much! I'm in the process of trying to get out of here.. but in the mean time, I will be taking your advice and writing stuff down, and just try to enjoy my poker time.

Yw, I wish you well with all of it. It can be tough dealing with all the BS, but like all tough situations if you can learn something from it, you'll be stronger having been through it.

 

[Jared Tendler]

Nice article on Party Poker...good stuff mate, Wally

Thanks Wally - great to hear you enjoyed it.

 

[Jared Tendler]

TBH I dont really know why I think I should play more tables. My goal isnt to play rediculous numbers of tables its just to play better poker, but do I best achieve this by playing more hands per hour or spending longer on individual decisions? You can make arguments for either. You can say that spending longer on each decision is the key, you can also say that playing more hands leads to more experience which in turn leads to better decisions anyway.


6 fits nicely onto one 24" monitor, so I quickly got up to 6.
Then I got another monitor which I use for lobbies, poker software etc and started playing the odd table on there. Its a smaller monitor and fits 4 tables so I ended up playing 10 tables.

Along with your earlier post, if you want to increase hours and/or tables, think about increasing your volume or capacity in the same way that you would increase how much weight you could bench press or how far/fast you could run. The mind works the same way - and you can think of your neurons as the brains muscles.

It may not seem like much but increasing from 6 to 8 tables is actually a 33% increase in capacity that you need to build in order for your play to be the same. Comparitively that would be like going from maxing out a bench press of 200lbs and going to 266lbs. If the most you could do was 200, you would never sit back and toss 266lbs on the rack. But in poker it just seems like the extra 2 tables shouldn't be much, but it's really a lot.

So if you do want to increase the number of tables build your way up. Play 7 for parts of your session - maybe 1/3 of the time, then work up to 1/2, and then the entire time. Or play a shorter session of 7 for the full time. There are lots of ways to do it, just think of it as a mental workout.

 

[BelgoSuisse]

There are a number of ways I can answer this question for you, so I'd like to first know more about your goals in poker, how long this has been a problem, and what happens when you try to quit when your down or play longer when your up. Also, do you think subconsciously you believe it's possible to win every session?

I'm a semi regular at 100nl, which means I play about 50 hours/month on average, but it's still mostly a hobby as I do have a very nice and fullfilling job that I certainly don't intend to quit for poker.

I've been playing for 3 years now and I think I've always had the problem of playing longer sessions when i'm down and shorter ones when I'm up. When I'm up, I think I want to score a win and I'm afraid I won't if I keep playing. When I'm down, sometimes I'll realize I'm really playing terrible and just leave, but sometimes I realize I got really unlucky and only played a couple of hands badly and then I'll focus a lot more and try to play my best to get unstuck.

I realize I can't win every session, but obviously I think I should. I love the mental challenge of playing poker but I kind of hate anything related to gambling and I'd much rather have the randomness of results taken away in order to score a constant profit.

 

[Skidmark]

Thanks Skid!

Key phase in what you said was, "convince myself." Is it true that you can beat the game or are you just BSing yourself? I mean 1 month is hardly enough to prove that you're beating the game. But because you believe it to be true you basically shut your mind of to learning anything new. I mean at that point it would be completely illogical to learn more when you think you've mastered it. Why would you waste your time and energy on learning? You wouldn't and you don't and you basically become bored because there's nothing to learn - in part because you don't believe there's any more for you to. Which logically of course you know isn't true.

When you are learning a game do you read and learn a ton about it? Just totally jump in and consume as much as you can? If so, my guess is that you are probably playing well, but then as the month wears on you may burn yourself out too.

Combine both and and the fancy plays are your way of keeping yourself interested.

Learning is a process and there is a difference between 'learning' and 'learned.' Something not many people or players realize. When you have learned something it means that it's been trained to the deepest memory system called procedural memory - which is basically your instinct and represents all the decisions you make automatically without thinking. Everything you have to think about means that you are learning that material.

For a non poker example, think back to when you first learned how to drive. You had to think about just about everything and eventually all that became automatic. That's the difference between learning and learned. The cool thing about having something learned (instinct), is that because you no longer have to think about it, you can now use your thought process for something new - which allows you to go deeper into the game. 1 month is definitely not enough time you learn to that level, and instead you likely have TON of info in the process of being learned, which means you have to think about a lot - and if you aren't really focused it's likely you'll make a lot of mistakes. Or if you took a week off and came back, you'd forget about a lot of what you were doing. The big stuff would be there but the little stuff wouldn't.

So basically all this was trying to convince you that you convincing yourself there's nothing to learn is a pile of crap. There's a ton to learn, even if it's the same stuff over and over so you master it and can then dive even deeper into the game.

Some of this can be complex, did I explain it well enough? If so, does it help?

Thanks Jared, very nice insight i havent thought about it that way (learning, learned).

I am actually very interested in learning new things, theories and try them right away when i understand the logic behind and see if it works in practice. Though most of the stuff especially about poker feels like things i can figure out myself but just verbalized, theorized better.

I have been playing poker for almost 15 years now and probably i am one of the first people that deposited online to play poker but then i was just a teenager with a lot of gamble in me and didnt take it seriously and never played full time. 1 month example is just one of several periods that i decide myself; ok let take this seriously this time but never get past this period for the reasons i stated.

Now back to what you said about learning and learned that got me interested is when it gets automatic, i stop thinking because i believe i am good enough, lose concantration or play too many tables; i lose. But whenever i concantrate and think in every situation i feel like i can beat anyone.

I am one of those people that think i can figure out anything with my logic. That may be the reason that i dont learn as you said but just understand the logic, thought process and put it aside thinking its enough.

I would love to hear if you have anything to add. Thanks again. You are a great value to CC.

 

[Jared Tendler]

Jared, thank you for being here. I have a question for you. here is what i do, lately i have been playing 20-24 tables 6 handed. after about 1 hour and half in the game i start to lose focus and i am not satisfied with my game after this period. i would like to be able to keep my focus but i just seem to lose it and sometimes, i lose in 5 minutes what took me 1 hour to win, happens almost every day.

any help is welcomed.

I have my suspicion of what the deal is here, but a couple questions for you first.

You say you've started 20-24 tabling lately, how many were you playing before? How long were you able to stay focused at that number?

 

[Jared Tendler]

Kind of a follow up.. I'm moving back to my hometown in Kansas City in less than 2 weeks and getting out of this situation.. I can't wait to get back home, and focus on myself.. something I haven't done in a very long time.

That's great! Extrication almost complete...there's no one more important in your life than you, a little maintenance is always a good thing.

 

[Jared Tendler]

Do you think one can ever become completely 'tiltless'?

Free of tilt enough that you can play solid poker while that the triggers that typically would through you over the edge...yes. To be completely free of lower levels of frustration, I think it depends on the person. I have worked with a few players who have been able to, but I think they are the exception not the rule. For many players, getting to the point where there is absolutely no emotional charge - no anger or frustration - takes many years and a lot of work.

In my mind the real key is first making sure you can reduce tilt or anger enough were it doesn't affect your play. That can definitely happen and I see it all the time.

 

[Jared Tendler]

7 posts. (that is just for new members to prevent spamming but I assumed you wouldn't be doing that lol)

I'm just psychologically lulling you into trusting me before the spamming begins

 

[Grinder101]

Hi Jared and thanks for making this thread.

I've been a poker player for a while now and I feel I have a pretty solid HU game, although still lacking. The more I play the more I feel I'm improving, but I still get overexcited every time I hit a winning streak and I kind of 'burn out' after a medium sized session.

Though my game is improving I still haven't brought myself to be the supercalm poker player I'd like to be. Any thoughts about this?

Thanks,
Grndr101