Cure for tilt - Part 2 (Mental Preparation)

Brokerstar

I think there are lots of factors that go into tilting and it's hard to have a magic pill that just makes it all go away but I do believe there are steps we can take to help us get back to our mental A game.

I've already talked about being over rolled so now I want to talk about what I like to watch before playing seriously or after I have taken a break due to run bad and am coming back to sit down and grind some more.

This is obviously going to be different for everyone but one thing that I have taken away from my time as a competitive athlete is getting in the zone. For me it's a mix of music and inspirational pep talks but do find what genuinely works for you.

I'd like to share one of the few speeches that I think helps get me in a a good mood because I think it's funny at the start but also focused as it ends on a high.

Try watching this a couple of times with head phones on before you play next and think about how you're letting the team down when you know you're making a retarded play.

Who am I ????

Motivational Video

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darrenk1q · Newbie Joined: 20 Mar 2011 Posts: 20

I can't look at the video because I'm in work, but I will tomorrow.

My favorite insipirational speech is with Al Pachino from 'Any Given Sunday.'

It's on youtube if anyone wants a look. (Can't post links yet)

hjbear · Posted: Thu Jun 23, 2011 8:42 am Post subject:

i think the rocky speech is great
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hjbear · Posted: Thu Jun 23, 2011 8:44 am Post subject:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uASVzkrEKgs&feature=related
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hjbear · Posted: Thu Jun 23, 2011 8:50 am Post subject:

lol this one is great
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d6wRkzCW5qI
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darrenk1q · Newbie Joined: 20 Mar 2011 Posts: 20

buzzlightyear · Posted: Tue Jun 28, 2011 11:01 am Post subject:

great speeches
i personally like the any given sunday one fight for that inch gentlemen Smile

as a side note do any of you warm up at 1 dollar games before playing as well as using these?

z1s6arn · Reader of Souls Joined: 04 Nov 2010 Posts: 649

http://i.imgur.com/3JOJo.jpg

z1s6arn · Reader of Souls Joined: 04 Nov 2010 Posts: 649

This might be a bit long. But it was a post I read on 2+2 that was pretty inspirational.

"THE I haven't written a blog on here in quite a while. Over the past year, I've been going through one of the worst downswings of my poker career, and truthfully its just not as fun to blog when you don't have pleasant things to write about. Its been a combination of many things that contributed to my downswing: I lost a ton of money in backing, I took some shots at higher stakes($25/50, $50/100) games that weren't successful, I displayed poor bankroll management in sports betting(betting up to $5000 per game when I clearly shouldn't be), and quite frankly I've run like complete **** this entire past year.

But I'm not writing this blog to complain, and I'm sure as hell not writing it to gather sympathy. Rather, I want to share with everyone how I deal with running badly because I think it may be my biggest strength as a poker player, and its something I routinely see people do horribly wrong. In addition writing this out will only serve as more motivation for me as I try to right the ship.

I've played professionally for six years now, and over that time I've had quite a few close poker friends. And at one time or another, each of them has run worse than they ever thought imaginable and come to me for advice. I always try to give my best advice, but I feel as if it constantly rings hollow when someone who is not running poorly tries to counsel someone who is. The person who is running poorly begins to buy into the absurd notion that the one giving the advice has never experienced such a downswing and, therefore, probably can't truly relate. Therefore, I'd like to take this opportunity to demonstrate that to be false. I am indeed going through one of those times right now, yet I'm going to practice what I preach.

Let me start off with a quick confession: If you've ever come to me whining or complaining about running bad, I probably tried to cheer you up or make you feel better. However, what I was really thinking the entire time you complained to me was how big of a ****ing idiot you are. I probably knew you were in a bad mood and wouldn't take kindly to hearing my true thoughts, so I kept them to myself. But now that I'm the one going through it, I really don't care about holding back. Variance is the lifeblood of poker. Its what keeps the fish coming back. Its what enables us to do what we do for a living. To curse variance the second it turns against you is shortsighted and ignorant. To allow it to affect your game or your work ethic is just beyond stupid. If you're running badly right now, you probably don't want to hear this; You'd probably rather continue to buy into the myth that you're simply unluckier than everyone else because that provides a bit of temporary satisfaction to the masses of idiots who misunderstand the fundamental concepts of variance in poker. However, I think that if you honestly read and consider what I have to say then you'll admit I speak the truth.

I just got back from a vacation home to Maryland to see family and then to New York for a wedding. Plane tickets, rental car, a new suit for the wedding, wedding gifts, hotel stay, nights out with friends, and a bunch of other stuff ended up costing me over $4000. And when I got back and examined my finances, I realized that I was now getting dangerously close to no longer being able to live the lifestyle I've grown accustomed to(some lower stakes players may find it silly that I "need" to spend as much as I do, but imo if you're willing to work for it then you deserve to enjoy the benefits). So I started back grinding by 18-tabling plo8/nlo8 and trying to put in close a minimum of 5000 hands per day. The results sucked. I ran worse and worse despite my increased efforts. And now I find myself right on the brink of having to either make money immediately or cut back on some of my spending habits. I'm choosing to do the former. I'm confident that I can make that choice because I've done it before- My first blogs on this site detailed how I turned $3000 into $80,000 in just over 4 months, and I did it without ever playing over my bankroll(the lone exception being the very beginning when I played live $1/2 NL with only $3000. However, live $1/2 is so ridiculously soft and I played such a safe style that even with only 15 buy-ins I still felt completely comfortable). The method is actually ridiculous simple, but sticking to it seems to be difficult for most. Here it is:

1. Find a poker game that you can beat consistently(this is obviously the tough part, and this blog is aimed mainly at those who have already accomplished this)

2. Make sure you're bankrolled properly for the game

3. Shut up about running badly because honestly nobody cares. Man the **** up, and just get over it. If you're following step #2 then no downswing should ever truly matter.

4. Work your ass off

5. Profit

Thats it! Thats really all there is to it. I will note that many people seem to let negative variance affect their play, and if this is the case then you have to take a step back and double-check that you're still doing step #1. Otherwise, theres nothing else standing between you and your desired financial goals.

The truth of the matter is that people seem to want to find a way to avoid step #4. They see the stories about tournament winners and wonder why that can't be them. Or they focus on the superstars of the poker world who seem to be able to make ridiculous sums of money just by playing a few hands of ultra high stakes games, and they bemoan the fact that they weren't lucky enough to have been born with such natural ability. Or they do anything else to avoid the simple fact that if you are willing to work hard enough for it, then you will be successful enough to laugh if the face of variance. Yes, it is true that, just like in every other field, certain poker players seem to be very successful without putting in a ton of work. But those people make up less than 1% of the player pool. They're no different than the people born into money, the great athletes who seemed to have won the genetic lottery, or the worker who networked his way into a job he never deserved. And focusing on them is just a waste of our time. Not only that, but it causes us to lose sight of all of the blessings we do have as pro poker players. I can decide today that I "feel" like having a lot of money again, and if I put in the proper work then a few months down the road I'll have that money. 99.99% of the general population simply cannot do that. They work predetermined hours for a predetermined salary, and they don't have the option to simply work harder and make more money. Thats not something we should take for granted.

I own all of the DVDs of the TV show Entourage, and over the past few weeks my roommates and I have been watching it the entire way through. My favorite character on the show is by far Ari Gold. At first, it was simply his humor that drew me to him. However, I've also begun to greatly respect the way he goes about his job. He encounters negative variance that is not his fault all the time(for those who haven't watched the show, Ari is an agent and his main client often completely ignores his advice which has caused tremendous problems, as Ari is almost always correct). Yet each and every time, Ari finds himself in a tough spot due to something entirely not his fault he responds by simply working harder. No complaining, no excuses. Just a determination to be the very best. And as a result, hes the absolute best agent in Hollywood. Call me silly for getting inspiration from a fictional character, but I think its a pretty good example.

People are full of excuses for why they can't work hard. Some people will claim that money isn't the only thing so they don't see the reason to work so hard if it doesn't make them happy. Fair enough, I really can't argue with that. However, if thats your excuse, then don't let me ever hear you complain about variance again. If you want to enjoy your easy little life and not work that hard, then you forfeit your right to blame variance for any of your financial shortcomings. Stop blaming variance and realize that the reason you aren't as successful as you wish is due to your own personal decisions. Other people will point out that I'm single and don't know what its like to have to take care of a family while also playing poker for a living. Thats true, as I don't know what its like. However, I do know that you can communicate your financial goals with your family and that it doesn't take a ton of time to let them know that you care and love them each day. I mean, are you really trying to tell me that you just absolutely have to spend all the time you watching TV with your family? Is that really the quality bonding time that you just can't give up? I think that the truth is that people use that as yet another crutch to fall back on in order to explain their poor work ethic. Or yet another excuse I'll hear is that people can't play too many hands before falling off of their "A" game. To me, thats basically like saying "I'm not very mentally tough, and I'm just going to make excuses instead of working to improve on that." There are people in this world who would kill to have a job as easy as playing online poker. Or I've also seen people say that because they are in the middle of a downswing they need to take some time off. Yeah, I'm sure that not working is the solution to your problems.What you really need to do is toughen up and continue to put in the hours.

So there you have it. I'm going to work my ass off these next few months. I'm going to sacrifice doing many of the things I'd enjoy doing in favor of playing more and more poker. And I'm most definitely not going to complain about variance. When I get to where I financially want to be, maybe I'll take things easy again or maybe I'll create new and bigger goals to strive for. I'm not really sure yet. But I do know that I'm not happy where I'm at right now, and instead of making excuses I'm going to man up and work my way into a better position. Next time you find yourself in a downswing, realize that you need to make a decision: Do you want to make excuses and get sympathy from everyone or do you want to do what it takes to be as successful as you want? The choice really is yours, and you need to realize that doing the former is detrimental towards the latter"

I felt like he was talking to me.

Adapt

z1s6arn · Reader of Souls Joined: 04 Nov 2010 Posts: 649

Success literature going back hundreds of years espouses the benefits of hard work. But why is it that some people seem to feel that “hard work” is a dirty word nowadays?

I define “hard work” as work that is challenging. Both hard work and “working hard” (i.e. putting in the time required to get the job done) are required for success.

A problem occurs when people think of challenging work as painful or uncomfortable. Does challenging work necessarily have to be painful? No, of course not. In fact, a major key to success is to learn to enjoy challenging work AND to enjoy working hard at it.

Why challenging work? Because challenging work, when intelligently chosen, pays off. It’s the work that people of lesser character will avoid. And if you infer that I’m saying people who avoid challenging work have a character flaw, you’re right… and a serious one at that. If you avoid challenging work, you avoid doing what it takes to succeed. To keep your muscles strong or your mind sharp, you need to challenge them. To do only what’s easy will lead to physical and mental flabbiness and very mediocre results, followed by a great deal of time and effort spent justifying why such flabbiness is OK, instead of stepping up and taking on some real challenges.

Tackling challenges builds character, just as lifting weights builds muscle. To avoid challenge is to abandon one’s character development.

Now it’s natural that we’ll tend to avoid what’s painful, so if we see challenge as purely painful, we’ll surely avoid it. But in so doing, we’re avoiding some very important character development, which by its very nature is often tremendously challenging. So we must learn to fall in love with challenge instead of fearing it, just as a bodybuilder can learn to love the pain of doing “one more rep” that tears down muscle fibers, allowing them to grow stronger. If you avoid the pain, you miss out on the growth. This is true both for building muscles and for building character.

While a common philosophy says to go with the flow, the downside to this belief system is that you must yield control of your life to that flow. And that’s fine if you don’t mind living passively and letting life happen to you. If you feel you’re here to ride your life instead of drive it, then you’ll have to accept where the flow takes you and learn to like it. But sometimes the flow doesn’t go in a healthy direction. You can go with the flow and end up in a pretty screwed up situation if you don’t assume more direct control when needed.

On the other hand, there’s the alternative way of looking at life with you as the driving force behind it. You create and control the flow yourself. This is a more challenging way to live but also a much more rewarding one. You aren’t limited to those experiences that can only be gotten passively or painlessly — now you can have much more of what you want by being willing to accept and take on bigger challenges.

If I only went with the perceived easy flow of my life, I’d never have learned to read, write, or type; those were all challenges where I felt I was going against the flow of what was easy and natural. I wouldn’t have gotten any college degrees. I wouldn’t have started my own business. I certainly wouldn’t have developed any software. No way I would have run a marathon — one doesn’t exactly flow into such a thing. And I most certainly wouldn’t be doing any public speaking. This web site wouldn’t exist either; it was definitely an entity created more by drive than by flow.

I do believe there is an underlying flow to life at times, but I see myself as a co-creator in that flow. I can ride the flow when it’s headed where I want to go, or I can get off and blaze my own trail when necessary.

When you step up and learn to see yourself as the driver of your life instead of the passive victim of it, then it becomes a lot easier to take on big challenges and to endure the hardships they sometimes require. You learn to associate more pleasure to the character development you gain than the minor discomforts you experience. You become accustomed to spending more time outside your comfort zone. Hard work is something you look forward to because you know that it will lead to tremendous growth. And you eventually develop the maturity and responsibility to understand that certain goals will never just flow into your life; they’ll only happen if you act as the driving force to bring them to fruition.

When faced with the prospect of saying to yourself, “If I always avoid hard work, I’ll never in my life get to experience X, Y, or Z,” it’s a little easier to embrace the benefits of hard work. What will you miss out on? You’ll probably never run a marathon, marry the mate of your dreams, become a multi-millionaire, make a real difference in the world, etc. You’ll have to settle for only what going with the flow can provide, which is mediocrity. You’ll basically just take up space and die without really having mattered. The world will be pretty much the same had you never existed (chaos theory notwithstanding).

If you want to achieve some really big and interesting goals, you have to learn to fall in love with hard work. Hard work makes the difference. It’s what separates the children from the mature adults. You can keep living as a child and desperately hoping that life will always be easy, but then you’ll be stuck in a child-like world, working on other people’s goals instead of your own, waiting for opportunities to come to you instead of creating your own, and doing work that in the grand scheme of this world just isn’t important.

When you learn to embrace hard work instead of running from it, you gain the ability to execute on your big goals, no matter what it takes to achieve them. You blast through obstacles that stop others who have less resolve. But what is it that gets you to this point? What gets you to embrace hard work?

Purpose.

When you live for a strong purpose, then hard work isn’t an option. It’s a necessity. If your life has no real purpose, then you can avoid hard work, and it won’t matter because you’ve decided that your life itself doesn’t matter anyway. So who cares if you work hard or take the easy road? But if you’ve chosen a significant purpose for your life, it’s going to require hard work to get there — any meaningful purpose will require hard work. You have to admit to yourself then that the only way this purpose is going to be fulfilled is if you embrace hard work. And this is what takes you beyond fear and ego, beyond the sniveling little child who thinks that hard work is something to run away from. When you become driven by a purpose greater than yourself, you embrace hard work out of necessity. That child gets replaced by a mature adult who assumes responsibility for getting the job done, knowing that without total commitment and lots of hard work, it’s never going to happen.

Desire melts adversity.

Show me a person who avoids hard work, and I’ll show you someone who hasn’t found their purpose yet. Because anyone who knows their purpose will embrace hard work. They’ll pay the price willingly.

If you don’t know your purpose yet, then in the world of mature human beings, you don’t yet matter. You’re just a piece of flotsam on the flow created by those who do live on purpose. And deep down you already know this, don’t you? If you want to make a difference in the world, then hard work is the price. There are no shortcuts.

Purpose and hard work are buddies. Purpose is the why. Hard work is the how. Purpose is what turns labor into labor of love. It transmutes the pain of hard work into the higher level pleasure of dedication, commitment, resolve, and passion. It turns pain into strength, eventually to the point where you don’t notice the pain as much as you enjoy the strength.

Once again it all comes down to purpose. Create a purpose for your life, and live it each day. And many of the other success habits like hard work and working hard will fall into place automatically. Figure out the why. Why are you here? Why does your life matter? That is the ultimate test of your free will.

Steve Pavlina

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