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We recommend you to read the first part of the article: How to become a professional in poker. Part 1
Successful and effective people make great efforts to develop themselves, their knowledge and skills. Today I will share some tips that I follow myself. They should help you change your attitude towards poker and succeed both in tournaments and in life. If you want to change the world, start with yourself. As in any other intellectual sport, such as chess, the ability to learn plays a key role in achieving success.
1. Everything in your life today is the result of your actions yesterday
If you are not satisfied with the result, then you need to look for gaps in the paradigm of your ideas about life, because your thinking shapes your actions.
A proactive person does not blame others or circumstances for not being successful. He is proactive, objectively evaluates what he can improve and how, and works on this, forming his own personality. A very interesting conversation on this topic is published on our website. It is necessary to fill yourself with new knowledge, to communicate with constantly developing, positively thinking people.
Be decisive and purposeful
Every day you make certain decisions that bring you closer or further away from your life goal. The basis for decision-making should be internal principles and values. In order to be decisive and not lose motivation at a distance, a detailed plan is needed, broken down into small sequential steps leading to clear results. Achieving them will give you self-confidence and inspire you for further development. At the same time, it is necessary to act with full dedication, applying the maximum of your strength to each action. Read more about motivation and goal-setting in this video.
Cultivate the right habits
As they say, “first we form habits, and then habits form us.” The most effective way to replace a bad habit with the right one is to do the opposite of what you used to do action. For example, if you decide to stop procrastinating (that is, postponing things for later), then you need to force yourself to take the right action right now, without postponing. Without perseverance and patience, this process is impossible. It is believed that a new habit is formed during the 21st day, provided that you adhere to it daily and do not allow weaknesses to take over.
The Value of Time
Time is an irreplaceable resource. Do not wait for ideal conditions for the implementation of your ideas and plans, use every opportunity.
From the outside, it may seem that successful people are just lucky. But luck lies in the ability to see a good opportunity and react quickly to it. Daily practice is required to increase the reaction rate. Try to make decisions quickly, even in the simplest cases. Do not be afraid to make mistakes, they are an integral part of the learning process. In the first stages, it is more important to learn to act than to avoid mistakes.
Concentration of attention
The ability to concentrate on the ultimate goal is one of the key skills of a successful person. Do not go on about your weaknesses, do not look for excuses and bring each case to the end. With each unfinished business, your determination, self-confidence, and motivation decline. Concentration needs to be developed daily in the same way as the speed of decision-making, practicing in small things. For example, focus all your attention on the content of the book you are reading or on buying something in the store – do not be distracted, try to concentrate as much as possible on what you are doing.
Decide what money is for you
Many fail to succeed because of the psychological blocks associated with money. If you think that big money is bad, then you close a lot of opportunities for yourself. If you consider rich people to be scoundrels who have unjust wealth, you create a poverty program for yourself. You don't want to become a rich scoundrel like them, do you?! Someone thinks that money can spoil them, but in fact, money only catalyzes in you what you already have and what you should work on.
Money itself is neither good nor evil, it is just a tool that can be used in different ways.
They can open up opportunities for development, travel, and helping other people. In addition to forming a correct, proactive outlook on life, it is imperative to develop the main, most useful skills, the first of which is the skill of self-education.
2. Self-education skill is the main skill of a successful player
As in any other intellectual sport, such as chess, the ability to learn plays a key role in achieving success.
The main components of the skill of effective training:
- Search for information;
- Processing of information;.
- Realize the processed information (implement the skill).
Search for information
In the digital age, there is no shortage of information for training: these are books, streams, all kinds of courses, thematic videos on the elements of the strategy, recordings of live sessions, reviews of tournaments and other sources. Also, poker funds literally flood their players with information, which often leads to its rejection. Such a volume cannot be absorbed by one person in a reasonable time, so it is important to choose the necessary and relevant information, to prioritize training.
Many poker players have poor information skills. Searching for and selecting information is the first step.
Just as in the game strategy there is a quality assessment parameter - ev bb/100, also in viewing information (spending your personal time) you can also enter the process quality parameter. What exactly are you watching? In what sequence do you watch this? Now it is very fashionable to watch poker streams, but the head coach of Poker University explains their inefficiency.
Why it is inefficient to watch poker streams:
- The information is more entertaining than educational.
- It is given separately, without structure and a specific topic.
- Limited time to explain strategic actions to the streamer.
- The streamer limit does not match the viewers' playable limit. The streamer's strategies and reflections are sharpened precisely under its limit and are ineffective for the viewer.
- The streamer is rarely an experienced trainer and does not have high skills as a teacher.
For these reasons, the main educational content of our site is not streams, but reviews of tournaments and articles. As well as consecutive video courses, including free ones for beginners. In poker, the Paretto principle applies. 80% of the success comes from only 20% of the effort. The main part of this effort is working hard on a quality preflop. As well as some basic principles for building post-flop strategies. You can get the current microlimit range from a Poker University manager for free.
Information Processing
This stage is neglected by most poker players: beginners, amateurs, and even professionals. It's not enough to watch a video, read an article, or read a book. Write down everything that seems to be more or less useful to you. Do not rely on memory. By analogy with RAM, the information that the brain receives in the stream is stored only in temporary storage — most of the data is lost. Even a specially trained person will assimilate a maximum of 10-20% of the information by ear. Disassemble, comprehend and organize the records. In the process of work, the records will be filtered — the unnecessary will go away, and the most important will crash into memory. By organizing your records, you organize your knowledge. This is how the human brain works. This is the basis for achieving the level of unconscious competence. It is better to have less content and a more detailed careful study.
Most people neglect this rule, watch a lot, and have little sense. A competent method of working with information is provided by our head coach Exan13, who has empirically come to a simple and very effective way in his long practice. Previously, he told it only to his students, now everyone can use it. The video is called "Methodology of working with information part 1 and part 2" and it is in our free video course "Basics of preflop and postflop games".
Introducing knowledge into the game
In order to implement the acquired knowledge into the strategy, you must register the information received in the form of a technical assignment. The list of these tasks should be strictly structured and repeated regularly, the more often the better.
- Write the essence of the action as briefly as possible, but as specific as possible. Clearly.
- Write down the conditions of action, if necessary
- Write exceptions to this rule if necessary
For example, let's set the task of learning to style blinds wider with CO BU SB. The task (rule) may look something like this:
- >30bb stack Start styling with CO – 8o+ and 5s+ hands, and with BU 7o+ and 2s+ hands.
- SB stealing all 100% hands in all stacks starting from 8bb
The bottom line is that the task is quite specific. Any descriptions of why and why you need to do this action, it is better to leave it in your mind to shorten the file for repetitions. It should be very concise, like a shopping list in a store. All strategy change tasks must be recorded for regular recurrence as a warm-up before each session. The number of repetitions per month is at least 10-15. This is the only way to quickly introduce new knowledge into the game with a high degree of probability.
3. Natural data and psychology
Natural data only matters for short-term success. Those who have a better developed ability to build meaning chains will probably be able to show good results at the start of their career due to intuitive play. But at the the long run, the one who works better on himself will always win. And this applies not only, and not even so much to the game strategy. To achieve high results in poker, you also need to work on your psychology and personal effectiveness. Read more about this in the video course of the coach "Psychology and Professionalism in Poker". Be sure to review and carefully study.
4. The main qualities of character
Below is a list of basic qualities, in addition to those described above, that allow you to increase your chances of success in the craft of a professional poker player.
Sociability. Communication with colleagues and the ability to make acquaintances will help you progress faster, work better on the game and better understand the game of the field, the thoughts of opponents during the hands.
Discipline. The necessary quality for high results in almost any profession. Unfortunately, most people have problems with it. It is extremely necessary, for example, in order to constantly keep a synopsis of faces and tasks for changing the strategy and regularly repeat them, as discussed above. For strict compliance with the rules of loading tournaments, etc.
Responsibility. As you know, those who are able to take responsibility for failure are progressing more. Find the reason in yourself and fix it. This is also important for poker, as it is very easy to blame dispersion, RNG or room for your failures. If the reason for the failure is outside your circle of influence, you stop developing and go into the feeling of a victim. It hurts any cause, and poker is no exception.
Concentration and attention to detail. Use all your attention at the poker tables, develop the ability to notice and use all available information at the table (statistics, stacks, hand histories, sizing, decision-making speed). Do not be distracted by extraneous matters. Write notes on opponents.
Initiative: Feel free to ask questions in training sessions, chats, or conferences. Come up with and test personal ideas and thoughts. Remember, the stupidest question in the world is an unasked one.
Diligence. Learn to get high from poker not only at the poker tables, but also during training. This is the most reliable and direct way to the poker top.
The road to poker is open to everyone who loves to learn, is ready to work on strategy, psychology and personal effectiveness. Do not forget that by developing yourself in poker, you develop yourself in life. Poker is more than just a game!
