Excerpt from The Mental Game of Poker 2 by Jared Tendler and Barry Carter
We have another free sample of a classic poker title, this one concentrates on how to become an extreme grinder.
Extreme Grinding
This section is devoted to helping you achieve some of the more extreme grinding goals, such as SuperNova Elite (SNE), a rake race, or prop bet. In general, players are overconfident about their ability to be successful because they can’t envision anything going wrong. Inspired by visions of victory, they dive in head first and only peak their heads back out when trouble strikes. Not everyone who does this fails. But, for those who have failed and want a different outcome, here are some additional things to think about:
• Planning: Review your goals and spend some time thinking about your starting point, reasons for attempting your goal, and any potential obstacles. Make sure to plan periods of rest. Too often, players think about the average number of hands they need to play over an artificially low measure. For example, when going for SNE, players are often planning to make around 2,800 VPP’s per day for the entire year. This is ridiculous. Attempting to play every day—even if just for a short amount of time—is a recipe for failure. Instead, if you plan to take a more reasonable 80 days off throughout the year, the average VPP’s needed per playing day changes to around 3,500.
• Minimizing distractions: As you read about in the focus chapter, distractions can drain your energy. Make sure the people in your life understand what you’re undertaking so you can be as free as possible from potential distractions. You can then be more proactive about planning to spend time with them when you know you’ll be resting. That way, your rest time will be more productive and you won’t have to rely on making plans when you’re exhausted.
| More Poker Books |
 We have some classic titles on our poker books page from many of our coaches. A great gift idea for a poker player just in time for the festive season.
Treat Your Poker Like a Business by leatherass9 is already a modern classic and you can pick it up for £4.99. We also suggest both Heads-Up No Limit Hold'em and Sit 'n' Go Strategyby collinmoshman if your like Sit & Go tournaments for as little as £6.61. Each title is available in softcover and Kindle formats. |
• Setting short-term goals: After the initial inspiration wears off, the challenge of playing a ton of poker may eventually feel like an incredible grind. At that time, it’s important to set short-term goals that keep you focused on targets that feel manageable. When you’re tired, the last thing you want to do is focus on how much you have left to get done. Instead, focus on getting through the next hour, or playing the next 100 hands. Define these short-term goals ahead of time so you can use them as soon as they become necessary
• Warm-up and cool-down: The importance of a warm-up and cool-down cannot be overstated. Make sure you spend at least five minutes on each
• Minimizing active learning: Keep the amount of active learning away from the table to a minimum because you need to focus most of your energy on playing. Your main focus should be to improve the areas that you already know well. This will make it easier for you to make high-quality decisions without having to fill your mind with new concepts. New concepts can be distracting, require more energy to think about, and may cause you to forget about other, more important parts of your game. When learning away from the table, find the method that makes it easiest for you to learn. For example, if you find it helpful to talk about hands, then in your cool-down, identify a few key hands to review with a coach or friend. Whatever method you choose, make sure to have a solid A- to C-game analysis done before you begin your extreme grind. Then, focus your efforts mainly on improving your C-game. If you can do this, when your grind is complete, you’ll have solidified a higher low point for your game. You’ll also have created space to elevate your A-game should you choose to focus more on learning than grinding.
This is an excerpt of The Mental Game of Poker 2 by our very own jaredtendler and . For more poker books including several titles from PokerStrategy.com coaches, check out our poker books page.
