Mental Coaching (1) - Introduction

Introduction

In this article

• What is mental coaching?
  
• The difference between psychology and mental coaching
• Calling up your A-game
  

Imagine you're at the final table of the WSOP. A myriad of cameras are fixed on you. You hear the voices of the TV presenters and the murmurring of the audience. To your left Phil Hellmuth is listening to "Eye of the Tiger" on his iPod. Mike Matusow is opposite you, cursing your name because you called his bluff in the previous hand.

To your right, Phil Ivey is watching you with his intense stare, making you nervous. Your hands move shakily to the chip stack. You can smell the sweat on your brow and can still sense the now dry taste of coke in your mouth.

The dealer, the audience, the television; everyone is waiting for your decision. Ivey raises your raise. You've got AKo and have the choice between going all-in or folding again. If you go all-in, you might find yourself leaving that final table you've been preparing for for nearly 4 months, after only five minutes.

"The game is decided in your head" - Unknown

In difficult situations which require important decisions, such as the situation described above, there's a possibility that your emotions will block your common sense and so too your strategic skills.

It doesn't have to be the final table at the WSOP, it can happen in any hand. You can prevent this kind of mental block by working on your mental strength. The right mindset arms you with supremecy and the ability to stay cool and react appropriately in difficult situations.

What is mental coaching?

Mental means "of or pertaining to the mind". So it's about controlling the mind, rather than letting it control you. In this way, it's possible to simply observe negative thoughts during a bad beat, instead of getting consumed by them and allowing negative feelings and emotions to build up. In general, mental coaching aims for inner balance, so as not to let yourself be negatively influenced by external factors.

On the other hand, coaching (according to Wikipedia) is "the practice of supporting an individual, referred to as a coachee or client, through the process of achieving a specific personal or professional result."

For me personally, a coach is somebody to whom your success and well-being is important. He strives to support your potential and to make the resources lying within you blossom. He challenges you and motivates you. A coach has access to knowledge and experience, simply because he's tackled the subject matter before you. He is no better or more talented than the people he assists. However, because of his experience advantage in certain areas, coupled with his didactic skills, he can impart knowledge in a concentrated manner. So you can achieve significantly improved performance in a short space of time.

At the same time you should be aware that you alone are responsible for the results of the coaching. The more you participate and the more you invest, the more you'll get out of the coaching personally. I have experienced coachees who approached me with the attitude that I can solve all their problems, lift all their blocks and improve their performance.  They did not realise that only they themselves can solve their problems. You can use the coach as a kind of compass to show you what options there are. Still, you have to walk the path yourself if you really want to improve.

The term coaching originates from competitive sport and encompasses the training of sporting skills (=trainer) through to the goal-oriented support and motivation of the sportsperson. Imagine, for example, an Olympian athlete. He does not only concentrate on his physical training. He also works continually on his health, his spirit and his inner balance. Only when he has all areas of his life under control can he perform at his physical best. Boris Becker was one of the pioneers of high-performance sport and was one of the first to work with a mental coach. He also uttered that famous quote after a one clear victory:

"I was mentally ready" Boris Becker

Whether that helped him during his broom closet adventures with the Russian model? Who knows. Although the child does look very similar to him.

Current examples of how mental coaching has helped to professionalise competitive sport include Tiger Woods, Lance Armstrong and Michael Schumacher. Mental coaching has also become common practice in top management positions.  Apple CEO Steve Jobs and Deutsche Bank boss Josef Ackermann are prominent examples here. Even in politics, people are becoming aware of the effects, with Barack Obama fine-tuning his charasmatic appearances.

After initially gaining an edge in poker through books and forums, then later with videos and strategy coaching, new methods must now be found to stay a step ahead of the competition. In World class poker, mental coaching is certainly a topic. Phil Hellmuth, Antonio Esfandiari and Dusty “Leatherass” Schmidt, to name but a few have all taken on mental coaches and say there have been dramatic improvements to their game.

"I had lost my hunger to win. I had no drive to win. I wanted to win, but I really didn’t care. I was in a comfortable place in my life and was used to living that way. After working with Sam (editor's note: name of his mental coach), I implemented the things he taught me. Now I want to win so bad that I can’t wait until the next tournament.”

"Many underestimate the value of being able to free your mind up to make the best decisions possible. Trust me, it’s huge." Dusty “Leatherass” Schmidt

Mental coaching involves working on the entire character and thought processes of the coachee. Behavioural patterns and thought processes in the brain are not separate from everything else. So the effects of mental coaching can also be felt in your private and working life. For example, always reacting in a calm and relaxed manner at the poker table can be applied to your relationship with your partner. As a result, the coachee has a better quality of life.

"Whether he likes it or not, a man’s character is stripped at the poker table; if the other players read him better than he does, he has only himself to blame. Unless he is both able and prepared to see himself as others do, flaws and all, he will be a loser in cards, as in life." Anthony Holden

I define mental coaching in poker using the following summary:

"A poker mental coach is an experienced companion on the way to developing and mastering the mindset needed to call up your A-game as often as possible at the poker table."

The difference between psychology and mental coaching

Psychology is a science which describes and explains human behaviour (cf. Wikipedia). The main aim is to explain why people do what they do, to be able to understand it. Basically, it's about the why.

Mental coaching on the other hand is about collecting practice, methods and techniques to be able to act in a more focused, motivated, disciplined fashion. Here it's mainly about achieving solutions and results quickly.

Calling up your A-game

By definition, the mental coach is concerned with the A-game. But what is the A-game? First, a definition of the term:

• "A-game is fully utilising all the strategic and mental resources available in the moment."

Fully means 100%, thus correspondingly, even the smallest deviation from this optimum state leads to the next state, the B-game. To illustrate and for better differentiation, we will define between A, B, C, D and E games in this article. The differences aren't always clear cut, as every player feels differently about thier game, so this should only be referred to as a rough guide. You can define your own classification parameters.

• B-game: very slight deviation from your best game, 95-99% of your A-game.

The difference from your A-game is bearly perceivable, however, you miss one or two spots, for example a tight shortstack in the big blind. Small, careless mistakes and lapses in concentration make themselves evident. The winrate is hardly affected by this mental state.

• C-game: slight deviation from your best game, 85-94% of your A-game. 

This is where the first noticeable signs of inattentiveness become evident. Some situations weren't played as well as they could have been and you keep on thinking "what did I actually do there?" In this case, it depends on the winrate as to whether or not you can continue to play profitably or if you're already achieving a slightly negative winrate.

• D-game: medium deviation from your best game, 70-84% of your A-game.

Many now feel the uncertainty and nervousness. You should stop grinding and take a break by this point, at the very latest.

• E-game: major deviation from your best game, 0-69% of your A-game.

The weakest level. You rarely deviate more than 50% from your A-game. Depending on the extent and tendency, hands are played without controlling the mind. For many opponents at the table this state will be extremely obvious. Continuous preflop shoves and excessive bluffs also fall into this category. Your game is clearly unprofitable and, as is to be expected, you burn your bankroll.

At a first glance, these deviations appear an irritation. However, you can also see them as an opportunity and use them to your benefit by not seeing them as failure but as feedback. Your mental and strategic poker skills are seriously put to the test and you can see the weaknesses in your game. It is precisely the uncomfortable feeling which you intuitively supress that could help your mental development the most. These feelings actually hide inappropriate behaviour, that your body is trying to draw to your attention. You can read more about this in the article on "beliefs and the application of affirmations."

At this point it's down to you to decide if you want to identify these weaknesses in your game and combat them to improve further. You can have a potential edge over many other opponents here, or you're already losing money against opponents who don't have this weakness.

Mental coaching offers solutions here. You can build on your mental abilities, just as you have already built up and continually improve on your strategic skills. Just as with improving your strategic skills, there will be successes here and your mental strength will grow. First of all, this involves becoming aware of your weaknesses in the first place, which currently still potentially lie in your own mental abilities.

There is a practical tool for this, which should help you to realise when you deviate from your A-game and to what extent you lose sight of your best game. Reflecting in this way will help you to develop realisation and to observe how  behaviour alters from your A-game to your E-game. The aim is to look at the end of every day at what game you've played, to find out why and then enter this information in the table. This will help you to quickly get to the bottom of your mental weaknesses. Moreover, in time you'll become more quickly aware when you're in a less than optimum situation. That's the first step. In the next articles there'll be more practical examples which will help you to estimate your mental abilities and improve on them.

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Source: http://jaredtendlerpoker.com/forum/mental-game-discussion/mentaltracker-v1-0/

Summary

This article has shed light on the historical development of mental coaching in professional sport, top management and politics and given an outlook of its future role in poker. The aim of a poker mental coach is to provide you with the necessary resources to enable you to call up your A-game as often as possible at the poker table.

You may have noticed we haven't referred to tilt in this article. In my opinion, the term is sometimes used in an inflationary manner and is heavily negative, which is why it hasn't been mentioned here. However, tilt is looked at explicitly from another perspective in a further, exciting article. In addition, over the next weeks there will be more articles on "beliefs and affirmations", "poker habits" and "motivation". You can of course also suggest topics relating to mental aspects that you would like to learn more about.

About the author: Carsten Bruns is a successful mental coach. He coaches and holds seminars for amateur and professional poker players. He has been a successful poker player himself for many years at mid and high stakes.