The Mental Game of Poker

When I started out playing HUSNG's I decided to get some coaching from a fellow player, who is somewhat an inspiration to me for the way he conducts himself in a very professional manner. I decided the best way to go about it was send him some hand histories to look at and his initial feedback was "This is all constructive criticism. You have a ton of leaks and almost no structure/method to your play. Your play is so random and unstructured that it is almost impossible for me to give you legitimate hh reviews." which was an entirely valid point. I had no idea what I was doing, with my raises, ranges or anything. I was given some great advice on how to combat these leaks & it took a ton of work to improve to where I am now.

I've come a long way since then, but in many ways, those leaks still exist. Not so much in my poker playing but in the way I prepare for playing poker. Until recently, my typical schedule was to sit down first thing in the morning & play for as long as I could which was typically around 2 hours until the kids got up. I'd get up bleary eyed, with a strong coffee in hand & sit at the first table I saw. In addition to this I'd also have opportunities to play for extended periods of time like during bank holidays where I just played as long as I was able to, which was usually until I was asked to help out around the house or the kids got too noisy. The below graph is typical of one of these days, it happened time & time again & I couldn't figure out why.

That was until I started reading a book, recommended to me by the very same coach who improved my game, written by Jared Tendler & Barry Carter entitled 'The Mental Game of Poker'. While reading the opening chapters, it made me realise the leaks I was told I had years ago were still present in my mental game. My poker sessions lacked any structure.

Waking up early in the morning & grabbing a coffee before sitting down at any table that was free had to be the worst preparation for playing my best, especially as half the time I was still blurry eyed. Since then, I've been educated into a pre-session warm-up in which I have a set structure before I even look at the lobby. The session is bookended with a warm-down looking at how I preformed in the session (which helps with tilt tremendously).

I've also come to realise that the mega-sessions I put in every now & then were always destined to fail & seems so obvious when I consider the fact I'm playing 460% more games in a single sitting than I'm used to without any prior training to improve length of time spent at the tables or number of games played in a single sitting.

I'm only a third of the way through the book, but already I've had a significant improvement to my overall game & mindset, just by implementing a few simple changes. I'd go as far as saying it has paid for itself already. I'd definitely recommend this book to anyone that plays poker, even at a casual level.

Get your copy here: http://mentalgameofpoker.com/