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

Originally posted by DukeXIII

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 ♦ !!

Of course not!!!

The more books you get the less you tilt, as TILT=1/number of books, so the more you buy the closer to zero TILT gets! ♦

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.

Originally posted by JaredTendler
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?

I've pretty much given up on the pipe dream of making £500k+ per year playing online. My goal now is just to be a winning player at decent stakes. The money is still a nice plus and if I were to win a tournament for $100k I wouldn't be too annoyed

I guess now it's kind of a pride/proving myself thing but typing this answer made me realise I don't enjoy the game half as much as I did a few years ago (whether this is because of not being a consistent winner for so long or simply playing too much I don't know, probably both). That's not good.

I've been thinking about learning MTTs properly, or perhaps even PLO, to refresh my interest (I didn't enjoy poker more than when I was learning and could see the results of this learning in my play, which was a far too brief period in my history at the tables).

I'm bored of NL cash, that's for sure.

Originally posted by JaredTendler
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.

Making a bad call, i.e. a bad hero call, is weird because I don't say or think anything. I don't think. The part of my brain that doesn't want to lose the pot/can't bear not knowing if I was bluffed or not takes over and if there's even the smallest chance that my hand is good (maybe even less of a chance than that) I just find myself calling.

Losing a pot... I kind of am neutral/expect it if it's a suckout, I guess. I notice that say I get it all-in v. J-9 with A-A on 9-x-x and the J binks on the turn I kind of think "well, yeah, of course that was going to happen."

It's funny because I am actually a very logical person in general and even though I know that I have to lose a pot or whatever it does indeed seem like it's possible to play perfectly/never lose.

I've been playing more HUSnGs recently simply to turn my playing every hand/trying to win every pot leaks into strengths. Of course you can't play that way in HUSnGs either, there's just more room for it.

Originally posted by JaredTendler
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?

Uhm... yes. This absolutely.

Thing is, if you took my poker knowledge and put it in the head of someone who doesn't try to win every pot and is less lazy than me, I'm sure that person would beat up to NL50 without too many problems. The leaks I do have I know are leaks and I know should be plugged, but...

EDIT: Regarding it being beneath me to grind the micros, I think I get kind of a "what's the point" feeling as well even when I win. I've been playing (not working 24/7 on my game, just involved in the poker world, which is a distinction the tilty part of my brain won't make) for years so when I play NL10 and make 15BI or win a $2/180 or something, I still feel like "great, three years* and a good day is like $100."

*Had to stop myself from writing "three years of work". It's been three years of playing occassionally on a whim and reading a lot of NVG

EDIT Mk. II because this post isn't long enough yet: I think I expect results to come without much effort in poker as well, because throughout school I never had to try particularly hard in order to get Bs and As. Every year I got "well your GCSEs/A-Levels/University will be harder so you'll need to work then" and that never turned out to be true. So I'm not really used to having to work at anything on an intellectual level. That's probably a factor.

I remember saying to you over Skype when we first spoke that I thought I had all 7 types of tilt. I'm definitely a guy with accumulated tilt anyway.

Originally posted by Cornie4ever
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?

I think this is a pretty interesting visual way of describing optimal performance, the only problem is that it's entirely dependent on results. In otherwords, you mental state is directly connected to how much you are up or down.

What my program seeks to solve, are the mental game flaws that make a player play poorly when they are up a lot of money, or down money. The goal is to be playing relatively high quality poker at all times at the poker table, and not only under ideal conditions. In the long-term, being able to do that is critical.

I got the impression from your post that you think I'm a poker player - I'm a mental game coach. I was a professional golfer, and was working on the mental game in golf before turning to poker (after I met Dusty Schmidt in 2007). I have a Master's in counseling and for the last 7 years have been developing my program.

If you have further questions on how to break through some of the ways your performance drops when playing under less than ideal circumstances let me know. Ultimately, being able to work through the issues that cause performance to drop is critical.

Originally posted by deezer79
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.

Great to hear you have the book - what do you think so far?

To your post - the key thing is that you don't want to numb yourself to the pain, you want to resolve the causes of your pain. Bad Beats are not the real cause of your pain. A bad beat triggers a flaw in your approach to the game. It's that flaw that makes bad beats painful. The reality is that bad beats aren't painful to every poker player - it's painful to those who have a flaw way of looking at them.

Keep in mind, these flaws are mostly unconscious. Logically you may know why a bad beat shouldn't cause problems, but unconsciously, you're mind is trained to think otherwise.

In order to break this pattern, we need to figure out what the flaw is. In order to get there I need to you to answer a few questions:

1) What is it about bad beats that's so painful?
2) Is the pain worse at some times?

If you haven't already, I'd encourage you to take a look at Running Bad, Injustice, and Hate-losing Tilt in the book. Plus, chapter 3: Emotion.

Post some more details and we'll break this problem down.

Originally posted by roopopper
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 ♦

What kind of beer do you like?

Originally posted by Shady9966
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?

Piracy is a big concern of mine and I appreciate you taking the high road. You can certainly purchase it via Amazon Kindle. It's available on Amazon UK, France, Germany, Spain, and Italy.

If you want a PDF or ePub version, we can work out payment through MB. I can't do Stars transfer. If you have a Neteller account, you can also get it directly here: http://professionalpoker.com/IP.php?type=Category&ID=27&productID=490

Sorry for the delayed response. I was out of town for a few weeks through the holidays. Thanks again for being so honest! Means a lot.

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.

Big picture, I'm a big believer in doing what works. If not looking at results works for them, or for you, I'm all for it. I think each player has to strike a balance as to how often they look at results and what purpose it serves. Looking too frequently is a distraction and takes away from playing quality poker. Looking too infrequently, can be a problem if small mistakes aren't being picked up to work on.

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.

Big picture, I'm a big believer in doing what works. If not looking at results works for them, or for you, I'm all for it. I think each player has to strike a balance as to how often they look at results and what purpose it serves. Looking too frequently is a distraction and takes away from playing quality poker. Looking too infrequently, can be a problem if small mistakes aren't being picked up to work on.

Originally posted by dooleslovs
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?

What you're struggling with is a form of Accumulated Emotion. Your impatience/bad play/frustration has being building during this bad run, and with each day, and each hand that you lose in a sick way, you're reacting to what's happening now, and what's been happening through this bad run. The goal is to try to reduce this accumulated emotion. It's a hard thing to do, but here are a few things:

1) Need to indentify the cause of your frustration and impatience. Why are you reacting negatively? What is it that's getting to you?
2) At the end of your sessions, write what's on your mind about your frustrations. Get the things that are weighting down on your mind out of your head on paper/word doc. This is huge in being able to help you put poker down, and allow your mind to relax and reset itself. Taking these notes will also help you answer question #1.
3) Rest is key. At this point, I'd suggest taking a few days off, if you haven't already.

That'll get you started and once you answer question 1 - I'll be able to give you some specific advice.

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.

Yes, you may not have gotten the promo about this when the ebook was launched. Please send me an email: jared@mentalgameofpoker.com and I can work out the details with you.

Originally posted by MJPerry

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.

Originally posted by JaredTendler
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?

I've pretty much given up on the pipe dream of making £500k+ per year playing online. My goal now is just to be a winning player at decent stakes. The money is still a nice plus and if I were to win a tournament for $100k I wouldn't be too annoyed

I guess now it's kind of a pride/proving myself thing but typing this answer made me realise I don't enjoy the game half as much as I did a few years ago (whether this is because of not being a consistent winner for so long or simply playing too much I don't know, probably both). That's not good.

I've been thinking about learning MTTs properly, or perhaps even PLO, to refresh my interest (I didn't enjoy poker more than when I was learning and could see the results of this learning in my play, which was a far too brief period in my history at the tables).

I'm bored of NL cash, that's for sure.

All makes sense. Get your goals straight and impatience will go away.

Originally posted by MJPerry

Originally posted by JaredTendler
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.

Making a bad call, i.e. a bad hero call, is weird because I don't say or think anything. I don't think. The part of my brain that doesn't want to lose the pot/can't bear not knowing if I was bluffed or not takes over and if there's even the smallest chance that my hand is good (maybe even less of a chance than that) I just find myself calling.

Losing a pot... I kind of am neutral/expect it if it's a suckout, I guess. I notice that say I get it all-in v. J-9 with A-A on 9-x-x and the J binks on the turn I kind of think "well, yeah, of course that was going to happen."

It's funny because I am actually a very logical person in general and even though I know that I have to lose a pot or whatever it does indeed seem like it's possible to play perfectly/never lose.

I've been playing more HUSnGs recently simply to turn my playing every hand/trying to win every pot leaks into strengths. Of course you can't play that way in HUSnGs either, there's just more room for it.

Why can't you bear not knowing if you were bluffed?

Originally posted by MJPerry

Originally posted by JaredTendler
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?

Uhm... yes. This absolutely.

Thing is, if you took my poker knowledge and put it in the head of someone who doesn't try to win every pot and is less lazy than me, I'm sure that person would beat up to NL50 without too many problems. The leaks I do have I know are leaks and I know should be plugged, but...

EDIT: Regarding it being beneath me to grind the micros, I think I get kind of a "what's the point" feeling as well even when I win. I've been playing (not working 24/7 on my game, just involved in the poker world, which is a distinction the tilty part of my brain won't make) for years so when I play NL10 and make 15BI or win a $2/180 or something, I still feel like "great, three years* and a good day is like $100."

*Had to stop myself from writing "three years of work". It's been three years of playing occassionally on a whim and reading a lot of NVG

EDIT Mk. II because this post isn't long enough yet: I think I expect results to come without much effort in poker as well, because throughout school I never had to try particularly hard in order to get Bs and As. Every year I got "well your GCSEs/A-Levels/University will be harder so you'll need to work then" and that never turned out to be true. So I'm not really used to having to work at anything on an intellectual level. That's probably a factor.

I remember saying to you over Skype when we first spoke that I thought I had all 7 types of tilt. I'm definitely a guy with accumulated tilt anyway.

I get the sense that posting all this has helped to get you clear on the issues and some deeper details about them that you may not have realized. I hear what you're saying about your level of poker knowledge, compared with your degree of mental game probs. I'd suggest really focusing hard on fixing your mental game issues for the next several months and see where that takes you. Of course the tactical will remain important, but for a bit, it seems less important.

What chu think?

Originally posted by JaredTendler

Originally posted by MJPerry
Wall of text

All makes sense. Get your goals straight and impatience will go away.

Yeah this seems to make sense. If I have no goal then I can't achieve it, so I'll be impatient at my perceived lack of progress when there is actually nothing to progress towards - is that what you're saying?

Originally posted by JaredTendler

Originally posted by MJPerry
The part of my brain that doesn't want to lose the pot/can't bear not knowing if I was bluffed or not takes over and if there's even the smallest chance that my hand is good (maybe even less of a chance than that) I just find myself calling.

Why can't you bear not knowing if you were bluffed?

I don't know if it's an ego thing or otherwise but for me it's because there isn't an immediate reward/satisfaction. You can never know. If you make a thin value bet or a bluff that works, you know it works because they call with worse/fold when you have nothing. If you have to fold to a bet, though, you can never know with 100% certainty whether or not it was the correct decision. I don't like making incorrect decisions.

Originally posted by JaredTendler

Originally posted by MJPerry

Originally posted by JaredTendler
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?

Uhm... yes. This absolutely.

Thing is, if you took my poker knowledge and put it in the head of someone who doesn't try to win every pot and is less lazy than me, I'm sure that person would beat up to NL50 without too many problems. The leaks I do have I know are leaks and I know should be plugged, but...

I think I expect results to come without much effort in poker as well, because throughout school I never had to try particularly hard in order to get Bs and As. Every year I got "well your GCSEs/A-Levels/University will be harder so you'll need to work then" and that never turned out to be true. So I'm not really used to having to work at anything on an intellectual level. That's probably a factor.

I get the sense that posting all this has helped to get you clear on the issues and some deeper details about them that you may not have realized. I hear what you're saying about your level of poker knowledge, compared with your degree of mental game probs. I'd suggest really focusing hard on fixing your mental game issues for the next several months and see where that takes you. Of course the tactical will remain important, but for a bit, it seems less important.

What chu think?

Yeah, absolutely. I did the stream-of-conciousness wall of text then when re-reading thought of other points, hence the edits. I think mental game work is definitely needed still, though I did of course know this anyway... that's why I posted here ♦

I loaned my copy of TMGoP to vhallee but I think he might have to give it back. Clearly I'm not done with it

Originally posted by JaredTendler

Originally posted by roopopper
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 ♦

What kind of beer do you like?

All kinds

Since I haven't read all the pages I don't know if someone asked something like this so here I go:

I'm a f.... scared money. I'm always worrying about my bankroll, when I lose more than 4 buy-ins in a session I tilt because it means a lot of money in my country (Argentina) and inmediatly believe that right thing is going back to a lower level to come back later. I never check how my session is going while I'm playing because that doesn't let me play my A game, but this situation happens when session is over or when I notice I'm losing more than 4-5 buy-ins.

Originally posted by MJPerry
Yeah this seems to make sense. If I have no goal then I can't achieve it, so I'll be impatient at my perceived lack of progress when there is actually nothing to progress towards - is that what you're saying?

Exactly.

Originally posted by JaredTendler

Originally posted by MJPerry
The part of my brain that doesn't want to lose the pot/can't bear not knowing if I was bluffed or not takes over and if there's even the smallest chance that my hand is good (maybe even less of a chance than that) I just find myself calling.

Why can't you bear not knowing if you were bluffed?

I don't know if it's an ego thing or otherwise but for me it's because there isn't an immediate reward/satisfaction. You can never know. If you make a thin value bet or a bluff that works, you know it works because they call with worse/fold when you have nothing. If you have to fold to a bet, though, you can never know with 100% certainty whether or not it was the correct decision. I don't like making incorrect decisions.

Poker is a game with a lot of grey areas. I know you know that, but in these moments you're concerned more with being certain, than you are with being correct. Which, goes against your desire to make correct plays. You don't like being incorrect, but I get the sense that you prefer to be certain or know more than you dislike being incorrect. That has to change.

Originally posted by JaredTendler

Originally posted by MJPerry

Originally posted by JaredTendler

Originally posted by MJPerry
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?

Uhm... yes. This absolutely.

Thing is, if you took my poker knowledge and put it in the head of someone who doesn't try to win every pot and is less lazy than me, I'm sure that person would beat up to NL50 without too many problems. The leaks I do have I know are leaks and I know should be plugged, but...

I think I expect results to come without much effort in poker as well, because throughout school I never had to try particularly hard in order to get Bs and As. Every year I got "well your GCSEs/A-Levels/University will be harder so you'll need to work then" and that never turned out to be true. So I'm not really used to having to work at anything on an intellectual level. That's probably a factor.

I get the sense that posting all this has helped to get you clear on the issues and some deeper details about them that you may not have realized. I hear what you're saying about your level of poker knowledge, compared with your degree of mental game probs. I'd suggest really focusing hard on fixing your mental game issues for the next several months and see where that takes you. Of course the tactical will remain important, but for a bit, it seems less important.

What chu think?

Yeah, absolutely. I did the stream-of-conciousness wall of text then when re-reading thought of other points, hence the edits. I think mental game work is definitely needed still, though I did of course know this anyway... that's why I posted here ♦

I loaned my copy of TMGoP to vhallee but I think he might have to give it back. Clearly I'm not done with it

As the conclusion is titled: You Have Not Mastered This Book. No way to solve all these problems just by becoming more knowledgeable. You've got to get in there and put it into action, gain experience, learn, refine strategy/knowledge, and keep at it until problems are solved. Get that copy back asap

Originally posted by LordLauta
Since I haven't read all the pages I don't know if someone asked something like this so here I go:

I'm a f.... scared money. I'm always worrying about my bankroll, when I lose more than 4 buy-ins in a session I tilt because it means a lot of money in my country (Argentina) and inmediatly believe that right thing is going back to a lower level to come back later. I never check how my session is going while I'm playing because that doesn't let me play my A game, but this situation happens when session is over or when I notice I'm losing more than 4-5 buy-ins.

If I understand correctly, you're tilting after the session is over, when you realize how much you've lost? And that's when you think about moving down in stakes? What affect does this have on the next session?

What is it specifically that you're scared of? I realize money is part of it, but for you what does the money represent? (Freedom, opportunity to travel, etc). How long has this been an issue?

I know I asked a lot of questions back to you - its important to me to have solid information before I reply.

Jared,

thank you for a great book.

When you talk about deep breathing in your book, do you refer to simply taking deep breaths, or to a more specific practice such as breathing through your stomach and not your chest? Are there specific breathing exercises that you can recommend which would work for both increasing intensity and calming emotions, toward achieving peak performance?

When trying the "mental hand history," I got stuck at step 3. I sometimes tilt when a fish sucks out on me on a big all-in pot. The reason I listed is this: "a suck-out now doesn't necessarily mean I'll compensate for it later, because cards have no memory" -- this is how I always rationalize my anger in-game, after I lose the pot. Now I don't know what to say for step 3, because I don't believe this logic to be flawed. Perhaps my mistake is not going deep enough and neglecting variance as an intrinsic part of the game, but on a logical level, I still believe this rationalization for my anger to be essentially correct. How do I fix this?

How do you define if someone does tilting a lot or not in general?
I am asking this because I tend to tilt of in Turbo HU SNGs (you are playing for 6 minutes, set all up and then.....A9 vs A6 .....board 66XXX). I know that the decision was the correct one (not only because I ended up being a favour, but because it is the right play for this situation) but still it tilts me. It feels like: all this work, for what? a suck out!

On the other hand 2 hours later i played NL50 SH CG and get my Kings in preflop against AA and lose and I am so: whatsoever, set up, happens rebuy and go on. No tilt, nothing.

Is this strange or is it just the situational tilt combined with the 'WTA structure' of HU SNGs?

Originally posted by JaredTendler

Great to hear you have the book - what do you think so far?

To your post - the key thing is that you don't want to numb yourself to the pain, you want to resolve the causes of your pain. Bad Beats are not the real cause of your pain. A bad beat triggers a flaw in your approach to the game. It's that flaw that makes bad beats painful. The reality is that bad beats aren't painful to every poker player - it's painful to those who have a flaw way of looking at them.

Keep in mind, these flaws are mostly unconscious. Logically you may know why a bad beat shouldn't cause problems, but unconsciously, you're mind is trained to think otherwise.

In order to break this pattern, we need to figure out what the flaw is. In order to get there I need to you to answer a few questions:

1) What is it about bad beats that's so painful?
2) Is the pain worse at some times?

If you haven't already, I'd encourage you to take a look at Running Bad, Injustice, and Hate-losing Tilt in the book. Plus, chapter 3: Emotion.

Post some more details and we'll break this problem down.

Thanks so much for the response Jared. I'm loving the book and it's made me adjust my thought and control emotion to a certain extent but it's still a work in progress. Motivation seems to be a major issue for me right now and your book may be a new excuse I'm using not to play; I shouldn't play until I digest it completely. LOL.

Am learning that it's OK to have an emotional reaction now but as I don't have a total understanding of why it makes me want to book a win, quit at losing one BI etc - I still have to take a break. Plowing my way through the Tilt section and I find that I'm spread all over the place and can't really pigeon hole myself. Injustice Tilt may be the most prominent, Hate Losing is certainly an issue, Entitlement and Revenge.

Injustice: Most easy for me to define. Have a hard time coping when variance and getting it in good often isn't a comfort to me. I think I judge skill and success in terms of money and if the "right" play causes my bankroll to drop, I question a lot about myself and it sometimes shifts towards paranoia. This site's out to get me!

Hate Losing: Poker is only fun for me when I'm winning. This effects motivation and although I know I need to be grinding hard to be successful and achieve my goals, I want to quit when I'm having no fun.

Entitlement: Am certainly no Hellmuth and think of myself as quite humble. Though when people suck out on me I see it as theft. That pot belonged to me. You have no right to river that one outer. It's negative and I know it. Often I find myself writing a sarcastic "well played" or something when someone plays a hand badly (imo) and gets lucky. I always feel bad about doing that after tho.

Revenge: Not a big issue for me but there is a paranoia that might fit. I don't use any kind of HUD or something like Poker Tracker but I know many of the people I play must do. When I'm on a downswing I reflect that onto what people must think of me; if my return on investment or EV is poor I think others know and put that down to me being a bad player. Sometimes I feel people are pushing me at the table because they feel I'm weak. Occasionally I get into wars I shouldn't because of this. Or feel the need to defend my blind when it's probably not the right time to do so.

So far your book has helped me to handle Injustice Tilt better. I now embrace bad players getting lucky cos I want them to keep playing. I made positive notes on them so they can be targeted at a later date (not for revenge).

1) What is it about bad beats that's so painful? That others get rewarded for bad play and I never do. Money is being taken from me; money is how I judge success and skill, so I feel devalued as a player (they don't just take money).
2) Is the pain worse at some times? After reading your book I realised that people sucking out on small pots don't bother me nearly as much. Recent example was someone buying in for only 30BB who limped into a hand, someone raised him and I had KK so I 3-bet. The limper shoves and the raiser backed out. Limper had AQ and won. It hardly registered with me because I didn't lose that much. When someone's bad play or plain luck gets me knocked out of a tourney - that really tilts me.

Yet to finish the book as I'm really trying to soak it in. Think it will have to be read more than once. Have not yet started a journal but I bought a nice leather-bound notebook to use as one.

Running bad doesn't seem to be bothering me too much right now. Just lost 3BIs in cash games in an hour and every great hand I had, someone had better. It battered the hell out of me but I felt OK about it - things worked out as they should. After that I played only one sit and go and bubbled out after 9-6 beat my KK. I'm f'king furious and know I won't want to play for days. The guy did nothing really wrong, got lucky on the river and my anger feels just unreasonable. Probably should stay away from SnG - they're too cruel.