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In this article, I want to write a list of psychological faces identified by me when working with students - faces that prevent players from overcoming the barrier of a certain limit or overcoming the downswing wave. I diagnosed some of them to one degree or another at home and worked on them, so I felt how the result improves if I devote time to it.
1. Playing poker for fun
This is the leak face of many novice players who liked poker as a form of entertainment and enjoyment. With this face, the player is less focused on optimizing the workflow, which is very important for modern poker and includes such things as choosing tournaments, setting up the room and auxiliary software, etc. Also, people with a similar face are less inclined to poker education, they are more interested in the sensations at the table and the desire for easy money. In the process of studying the game, they choose not information-rich materials, but more entertainment streams where you can laugh and have fun, without stress for the mind and the need for high concentration. For professional poker, this is a hindrance, the desire to develop and optimize the work process should prevail over the desire to have fun - although it should also remain, since some measure of pleasure must be obtained from work.
Poker is work, not entertainment.
Read about how to become a professional in special articles on the website: How to become a professional in poker. Part 1, How to Become a Poker Pro. Part 2 – Required Qualities and Skills.
2. Excessive expectations from tournaments
Many players believe that poker is able to bring a lot and quickly even at microlimits. This is due to the fact that players read articles about large drifts, and believe that you can win a lot in kilopoles, prize money for the top 3 excite the imagination. All experienced players understand what the long run in poker is, what downswings and upswings are and how long they can be. They know how to calculate an approximate $/hour knowing their ISA, the average monthly distance and the expected %ROI within certain limits. Real expectations are the key to psychological stability. The player is less prone to tilt and bad mood if he understands the essence of poker and his real mathematical expectations. Steady psychological state gives more fast growth and smoother descent during downswing periods.
3. Non-serious attitude to the lower part of the played tournament limits
A common leak among regular players. If a player opens tournaments from $2 to $22, he is inclined to believe that he easily hits the lower limit, and therefore does not pay enough attention to the hands at these tables, tends to easily give away the stack and open new lower Abi tournaments. This attitude is unprofessional, the player swings his A-game and sets his intellect to work at low speeds, instead of honing it and making really strong decisions even at low Abi, which will strengthen his self-esteem and self-confidence, motivate and develop thinking.
At the same time, the player will increase his profit, since his skill at the lower limits of the game has more advantages over the field than in more expensive tournaments - this gives more chances for success. The correct attitude to playing at low limits can reduce variance, especially during downswing periods, since drifts in the lower game limits can at least smooth out losses at high ones. Reduced losses in themselves improve motivation and psychological state in the next sessions, which will allow you to show a better result and cope with downswing faster. Also a common phenomenon is "the last cheap tournament is left, you can slowly pour it and go to bed, still the prize money is relatively small". It is unacceptable!
Players who treat a cheap tournament in the load as professionally and attentively as the most expensive one - strongly beat everyone else.
4. Ambition pressure when lowering the bankroll
Under the pressure of ambition, I mean unwillingness to go through the difficult burden of growth by limits again at the moment when it is necessary. Every poker player has serious downswing periods, this is something that everyone has to face, whether we like it or not. During these periods, the bankroll can sink heavily or dry out altogether. Some players are adequate to this, and calmly rise again from the bottom or look for backing. For many, this becomes a more serious test. If a player is used to playing tournaments for $55 and even for $109, seeing large prize money, fighting for them, and after a while forced to decline to lower limits, he may experience a decline in motivation and a drop in the quality of the game.
This psychological problem is not easily solved, but it must be solved. Many serious players were completely flooded due to the fact that they did not realize in time the need to reduce their ambitions and calmly go down to lower limits. Everyone who has such a problem needs to realize that once you go up to the 10th floor, you can do it again - this is exactly what you need to do. Even if you were lowered to the 1st floor - you need to pull yourself together and go through all the stairs again, carefully and responsibly.
Instead, many choose to wait for the elevator and stand on the ground floor - angry that there is no elevator.
The strength is to go through the path already traveled over and over again, to do it responsibly. To climb to the 11th floor, you often need to go down from 10 to 5 and back several times, and only then you will have the opportunity to climb higher. In our profession, we need to learn to accept unpleasant circumstances, and at each moment of time play as if the current limit is the maximum of what we had. Beat him again as if once. Thus, a disciplined model of behavior is developed, coupled with experience and a stable psychological state, allowing you to pass the first floors faster and faster, without even having time to notice them. This is the key to success!
5. Too fast growth by limits
Ambitions can manifest themselves in a different way - the player after a long upswing believes in himself too much, has excessive confidence. He believes that he is already ready to play the limit higher and higher. Very often it ends with a painful fall. The coach of high roller limits - Poniakov told me that at very high stakes one of the ways to earn is to beat the reg players who have recently risen to these limits, who consider their game better than it is. Don't become a fish for high-limit sharks! Climb slowly, carefully going through each floor of poker growth! If necessary, go down below and walk the path again!
There is a lot of wisdom in our people and they convey it with proverbs:
- "Quieter you go - you will continue"
- "You can't easily pull the fish out of the pond"
6. The early stage of tournaments is also important
A lot of my students show such weak actions at an early stage that the hair stands on end. At the same time, the middle and late ones are played carefully - after all, money is already at stake! This should be corrected. The early stage is the roots of the tree, although all the juices are in the crown, it is the strength of the trunk and the quality of the roots that will determine how lush the tree will be.
In deep stacks, you need to play carefully and secretly - do not get involved in marginal situations, and do not give large stacks on top pairs for sets and doppers!
Learn to make good passes not only in the prize zone for fear of flying out, but also at an early stage - be strong disciplined personalities! This will definitely give points to your success rate! Bluffcatting is covered in detail in this article. A more detailed analysis of common psychological faces can be found in my free course on psychology and personal effectiveness in poker.
