+++Q&A with Jared Tendler!!+++

Congrats on the engagement

Just bought this book after a long wait fora bargain of £5.49 on my iPad ♠_cool: Been wanting to read for a long time so really looking forward to it, get ready fro some questions in the following weeks Mr. Tendler ♦

Hi,
I have no problems with dealing with bad beats, I just know that sooner or later I will get that money back and it doesnt bother me but I have another kind of problem - when I run good(above EV) I have trouble to put volume in because I know that I will have to lose money. Its not a fact that I will lose money, but I dont feel motivated to play to lose.
Any advice?

Q: Would ya mind, add me as a friend (sent the invite couple of weeks ago) ♦

Feedback for you Jared
Damn can't believe I've missed this thread. Jared i listen to as many podcasts on Quadjacks where you are on as i can, and read your book almost twice. Not to mention all the stuff I've absorbed elsewhere from you. Right now i'm a professional poker player and i received your book right when i started playing professionally (i preordered it). I know this is not a feedback thread but i just want to thank you for how much you've helped my mental game, and without your help i would never have gotten as far as i am today. I used to be the kind of guy who would be very disciplined with quitting all the time because after 30-60 mins i'd be completely tilted always. Whether it was winning or losing tilt i'd just always play poorly. And since i didn't warm up either (which i started doing now after listening to your podcast with Leatherass) i was basically only on top of my game for 20-30% of my sessions. So solving the actual cause has helped me so much. Not saying that it's solved since i'm still trying to work on my mental game every week.

And as you can see it has payed off from my latest session at 100NL (i used to be only able to play 350-700 hands in a session) :

By mathhnes at 2011-12-23

Also really happy with the video answer you gave to my question some months ago: Mathhnes question to Jared

My Question
So for the question, if you've answered it already in this thread please let me know, i have yet to read the whole thread (will do later), but here is my questions:
What do you recommend eating as snacks while playing? Right now i eat mostly nuts and bananas. But i'm interested in what is good for my brain to have a stable but high focus - making me able to stay "in the zone" longer, if you know what i mean. Also which fruit is good for giving me a stable and good energy level?

My second question is then what to drink? Right now i drink either 100% water/75%water+25% real orange juice/Coke/Energy drink. Which one of them would you recommend me to drink + any other drink you can recommend? I heard in a podcast with you that you wouldnt recommend energy drinks although some days i just feel too tired, and i just need some energy for my last session or something. Perhaps you can comment on these coke/energy drinks what they do to my brain

Thank you so much once again Jared.

Originally posted by MJPerry
Hey Jared

I presume this is a great thread, I haven't had the chance to wade through it yet.

I'm recently starting to play again after kind of being recreational for a while. I had the typical poker journalist approach to the game of playing too many hands because I write about poker = I must be awesome at poker.

Given I've mostly been playing microstakes where no one folds you can imagine how that went.

So logically I know that when I start trying to build up a bankroll again tomorrow I will want to play less hands, bluff less and generally play like you should at micros. This works for a time, until I lose a decent sized pot or I make a bad call*.

Overall, as well, I have this impatience. From TMGoP I would say entitlement tilt, Phil Hellmuth tilt and hate-losing tilt are my main breaking points.

*This happens a lot because I hero call too much, I feel like I want to fold sometimes I have to call in order to see if my decision to fold was right. It's obviously stupid but I guess it's part of hate-losing/entitlement that I need to try and win the pot and/or see if I am outplaying someone.

I realise you're going to come back with questions of your own so I'm gonna look back over this post and think about it a bit more.

Mr. Perry - first off - big welcome to the PS show! (Sry for being a month late)

You know me well, and i do have some questions.

1) What are your goals? What's your objective playing now, and is it different than before?

2) You mentioned Entitlement/Hate-losing as the cause of you getting pissed from losing a decent sized pot or a making a bad call - describe a bit more of the specific things that you say or think around that time. Also, one thing I'm suspecting is either a desire to be perfect or a belief that it's possible for you to play perfectly and not lose. Logically I know this doesn't make sense, but deep down do you think you wish it were possible to win all the time.

3) Do you think your entitlement/expectations extends to how you learn the game? In otherwords, do you expect to be on another level and feel like it's beneath you to have to go through the grind of learning the game from the micros up? I suspect this a bit because of the impatience you mentioned - the reality is there's no way to circumvent the learning process entirely. All you can do is become more efficient working within the system, for example, getting a lot of repetitions (in-game) for the correct strategy. Each time you make a mistake that you already know very well is a mistake, you take a step farther from mastering the correction to that mistake.

Look forward to your reply and cracking this problem with you.

Originally posted by StaticMoth
Congrats on the engagement

♦ Thanks! Exciting/happy times.

Originally posted by Wriggers
Just bought this book after a long wait fora bargain of £5.49 on my iPad ♠_cool: Been wanting to read for a long time so really looking forward to it, get ready fro some questions in the following weeks Mr. Tendler ♦

Crazy bargain - Apple offered some deep discounts.

Look forward to your questions and any feedback you have on the book.

Originally posted by daun666
Hi,
I have no problems with dealing with bad beats, I just know that sooner or later I will get that money back and it doesnt bother me but I have another kind of problem - when I run good(above EV) I have trouble to put volume in because I know that I will have to lose money. Its not a fact that I will lose money, but I dont feel motivated to play to lose.
Any advice?

This is a form of leveling yourself. Yes, you will lose hands, sessions, tournaments, but it's impossible to know when you're going to lose. Often this anticipation of losing is actually worse than the experience of losing. In part, it's a problem because you don't get in volume, but you're also dreading the losses. All of which add to a cloud hanging over your head even when it's not actually raining. You're just expecting it to happen. I get why you wouldn't want to just show up and take you're punishment, but losing is a BIG part of poker. Technically, you can lose 50% of your sessions and be a very profitable player. There is a skill to being able to handle losing and having that skill is an important part of being a well rounded player in today's games.

What do you think about changing your motivation in the short-run, no matter if you're running well or poorly, to being focus more intensely on the quality of your play, rather than on results?

Another thing that comes to mind is that you might be prematurely realizing more of the money won during the good run to be income. You're income is based on your earn-rate, not the money won/lost. Are you getting ahead of yourself here?

Originally posted by Th0m4sBC
Q: Would ya mind, add me as a friend (sent the invite couple of weeks ago) ♦

Sry for the delay - added.

Originally posted by MathhNes
Feedback for you Jared
Damn can't believe I've missed this thread. Jared i listen to as many podcasts on Quadjacks where you are on as i can, and read your book almost twice. Not to mention all the stuff I've absorbed elsewhere from you. Right now i'm a professional poker player and i received your book right when i started playing professionally (i preordered it). I know this is not a feedback thread but i just want to thank you for how much you've helped my mental game, and without your help i would never have gotten as far as i am today. I used to be the kind of guy who would be very disciplined with quitting all the time because after 30-60 mins i'd be completely tilted always. Whether it was winning or losing tilt i'd just always play poorly. And since i didn't warm up either (which i started doing now after listening to your podcast with Leatherass) i was basically only on top of my game for 20-30% of my sessions. So solving the actual cause has helped me so much. Not saying that it's solved since i'm still trying to work on my mental game every week.

And as you can see it has payed off from my latest session at 100NL (i used to be only able to play 350-700 hands in a session) :

By mathhnes at 2011-12-23

Also really happy with the video answer you gave to my question some months ago: Mathhnes question to Jared

My Question
So for the question, if you've answered it already in this thread please let me know, i have yet to read the whole thread (will do later), but here is my questions:
What do you recommend eating as snacks while playing? Right now i eat mostly nuts and bananas. But i'm interested in what is good for my brain to have a stable but high focus - making me able to stay "in the zone" longer, if you know what i mean. Also which fruit is good for giving me a stable and good energy level?

My second question is then what to drink? Right now i drink either 100% water/75%water+25% real orange juice/Coke/Energy drink. Which one of them would you recommend me to drink + any other drink you can recommend? I heard in a podcast with you that you wouldnt recommend energy drinks although some days i just feel too tired, and i just need some energy for my last session or something. Perhaps you can comment on these coke/energy drinks what they do to my brain

Thank you so much once again Jared.

Very cool to hear how well you've improved using various sources of advice! Great to see! Yw ♦

To your question:

What to eat/drink while you play is important, but it's not the most important factor in being able to play in "the zone." I don't want you to think there's a mixture of food that is going to get you into the zone - there are foods that can help you get there, and there are foods that are likely to guarantee you won't - but it's not like you can eat "zone" food.

Honestly, I'm not 100% sure which are the best foods to eat, but you want to look for complex carbs or sources that have high glycogen - these are the slow burning sources of energy as opposed to simple sugars or high fructose corn syrup that give you a quick energy boost but then you crash. Nuts and bananas are good examples, and I'm sure you can find others looking in some nutritional books.

Regarding energy drinks - the question I have for you on those days that you're really tired is: Are you burned out and need to rest? If you are, and you instead use an energy drink to fuel you, you're delaying the inevitable crash. Plus, rest is critical to learning to the UC level. If you're constantly working without getting proper rest you won't master what you're learning. The other thing about energy drinks is that you don't develop the internal skill to push yourself to play when tired. Is it hard, yes. It's the kind of strength that gets built when you're in the gym lifting weights. Imagine you went to the gym and instead of you lifting the weight alone, you had someone else lifting most of the weight. That's an energy drink. On some days, and especially, when you're working really hard it's totally fine to have a "spotter" and an energy drink can do that. The key, is that you don't want to overuse it as a source of your strength because it'll create dependency on it, and your mental muscle will atrophy.

Helpful?

Hi there,

long time no hear in EN community But I´ve decided to share something with my old friends here in EN. How are you doing?

I´ve been working on my mindset recently and also found out (thanks to my work in community management) that other people experience similar cycles, including the best players.

So after some meditation, I made a picture that discusses cycle of relavite quality of your play in relation to actual profit (and usually in time). Do you go through similar cycles?

The picture is about relative game play of every player. (i.e. how well you play on the scale of your ability). It does not discuss absolute quality of your play (absolute quality means that if somebody plays bad, does not understand theory and play post-flop, even his optimum is not enough to be in profit. On the other hand, somebody who worked hard in the past is still so good, that even if he is not in optimum and plays below his possibilities, it is still enough for decent profit).

Some observations:

players usually have the best mindset and play A-game (they are in optimum) when they are in small profit or are currently about breaking even or slightly losing. This is the time when you are the most focused and try to play your best.

Lot of good players are usually somewhere right from optimum on the curve, because it is enough to score some profit in short-run. And they play worse than they could. (Which makes it even more painfull, when suddenly they realize that their edge slipped away).

Many winning players are usually in the grey zone right from optimum. They play big volume and do not focus on the quality of their play. When they suddenly feel (usually based on their cashier) they need to improve quality, they go back to videos, hand judging forum and coachings.

What do you think about these cycles? What are you doing to stay in the optimum or close to optimum?

Jared, just bought your book off ebay. I hope all the respect you're being given from this site is worth my hard-earned cheddar :). Having a lot of mindset problems lately and have felt myself slip away into apathy over the last week. Same story you heard a million times but now I'm numb to the pain, don't want to bitch about beats. Don't really want to play much either. Gone from dreams of grinding SnG into a nice stack and improving my game as much as possible. Now playing very little and at stakes so small I don't care if I win or lose (not sure if this has effected my play, I stand by most moves I make). Looking forward to see if your words will have profound effect.

Hey Jared

I like a few beers when I get home from work and sit and play some poker (its my firegazing thing) Problem is I get distracted once I reach 4 beers and start trolling on the ps forum ♦

Jared i can have your book ( The Mental Game of Poker ) via torents and stuff but i will like to buy it. I can't buy it via ebay or amazon ( if it's there) it's possible that you send me the book via email or skype and i will ship the money via moneybookers or pokerstars. I really think that it's note fair to profite from others work. So can we make this happen?

To some extent seems about right.

How do you view ppl who don't look at their results? Hence they can't be as much affected by the profits/losses.

Originally posted by Shevtshenko
To some extent seems about right.

How do you view ppl who don't look at their results? Hence they can't be as much affected by the profits/losses.

I merged Pavel and Shevtshenko´s posts in here as it seemed relevant and perhaps not worthy of a thread

Hi, I will post my mindset problems so Jared or (and) other community members could give me some tips how to deal with them.
To begin with I am on the biggest downswing of my long (10month) poker career. I am aware that it can happen so before each session I say to my self, stay cam, only good decisions matters, play your best and so, but then comes hand like top set in 3bet pot got sucked out by gut shot, I say it is ok such things happens I will win ton money then such situation repeat in long term, then after like 10 min my nut straight is busted by full house on river, I say to myself it is random cooler stay cam I did my best, but I then feel something is raising inside me, some emotions are starting to bother my play, and after like another 10 min in BB vs BU situation my AK got sucked out by AQ, so I am 3BI down when all my decisions were right, so I should be happy, because that is all what meters, but I am definitely not. When I loose so much in such a short time i am starting to get inpatient starting to bluff more vs bad opponents starting to play marginal situations very aggressively to recover my losses like i have AJ and flop comes 9J9s and it is 3way. I cbet and got raised by unknown if i were up at that moment i would must likely fold, because he is unknown, I do not know how he plays draws in 3way pot, is he aggressive enough to raise them etc, but then I am down I just say to myself yeah wright he must be on draw, or weaker J i go ALL IN because I was so unlucky 3 times before I must be lucky now. And of course I were not lucky he had 9x and I am now -4BI. I am more upset and I start to play more marginal situations, so despite being -3BI I end up much more. And during those sessions everything seems going wrong way, then I check raise bluff everybody calls, then I check raise for value everybody folds, then I have set and cbet guy with 20% fold to cbet he finds strength to fold, nobody 3bets my premium hands everybody 3bets my marginal hands and ETC. Then I recognise that I am upset, inpatient but I can not stop playing, I want to recover those losses so badly but usually I end up -10BI or more, my new record is -15BI in one session 4k hands. From those -15BI i spew like 4 another 4 is marginal and other just bad luck. So i guess you got my point I just play so much better then I am up a little bit or brake even, I would like to play like that then I am down too. Any suggestions are greatly appreciated, maybe somebody else had similar mindset issues and find a way to defeat them?

Hello Jared.

I already have a hard copy (two actually) of the book. Is there any way to get a discount on the pdf version?

Thanks.

Originally posted by suaveplayer
Hello Jared.

I already have a hard copy (two actually) of the book. Is there any way to get a discount on the pdf version?

Thanks.

M8 you know that in order to become better player you need to actually read the book not to buy it many times ♦
I m just kidding !! Just was in the mood.. No hard feelings ♦ !!