Hello Hawkeye,

Having an immense love for the game is always a great starting point in my opinion for being a successful poker player. But I see that you are struggling with some basic concepts such as bank roll management, being too results oriented and having a short term outlook on the game. This is causing you to display your C game tendencies hence adopting a "gambling approach to the game", putting yourself under too much pressure to win every time you sit at the table. I hope some of the points below can help you:

1) Results oriented to Task oriented - As humans our minds are generally tuned to focus on the positive or negative result of the session which is not always in our control. This result affects our mood. Instead, we have to try to train our mind to focus on certain tasks instead. For example "trying to focus on making the best decision every hand" is a little too broad and difficult to focus on so we need to make the tasks more specific in order to really train the mind. Some example tasks could be: "marking key hands during the session", "focusing on choosing optimum bet sizes", "analysing our opponents tendencies", "playing structured ranges pre flop" etc. Try focusing on tasks instead of results and you might see some improvement. Pre define the tasks before the session.

2) Right attitude - Making mistakes is part of poker, striving to play perfectly is an exercise that will always end in frustration and disappointment. Developing the right attitude which focuses on learning and making improvements will get your mind off results and more towards improving as a player. Focus on putting in your max effort and doing your best.

3) Find your strengths - After your session try and write down 3 things you did well and are proud off. After many such sessions you will find your "key strengths" and you can remind yourself of these before each session.

4) Prepare for randomness - Many players that start on the path of improving their game get met with unforeseen circumstances. Sometimes we can lose 4 buy ins very quickly despite having prepared for a session. You need to prepare for these scenarios before hand, how would you react? etc.

I hope some of these points have helped you. I'm sure other forum members will have some better ideas. With regards to bank roll management you must be honest with your financial situation, only playing games where the result will not affect you.

Be rich in EV and not in chips and the hard work will pay off

Good luck.

Good respons by seeris

It sounds like you need to take a look at your approach to life in general, what do you want to get out of it, what is your dreams and goals in life? This might sound like big questions but having a direction in life in general will help you stay motivated and disciplined in whatever you set your mind to.

If you (as you describe) are bad with money in general, set a budget, change your habits and make sure to take care of yourself and you will see these things spill over into the poker part of your life.

GL

Great responses here and also, great that you seek help and have the courage to ask the tough questions !!

Being results oriented has many reasons, but one thing that will help at least to a degree is having the proper bankroll, so that you don't have to worry about money in poker.

If you have money problems in general, poker, while it might seem that way is probably not the best profession to start out in, since the variance is heavy unless you are a top player and even then. You want to be able to build your bankroll steadily and improve your game, not play with anxiety that you might lose the next pot and your bankroll gets low again.

Overall:
Often the question that one asks contains the answer and this is the case with your questions as well. Go through your questions step by step and answer them for yourself.

For example, like Zeneka says. If you have money problems or are bad with money, learn to set a budget.

If you feel like you are gambling too much, look into why you think that is, what makes you want to gamble instead of play solid poker? Is there a way to change this?
Again, I find that some problems often stem from low bankroll and no bankroll management, where money anxiety sneaks in and controls some of your actions either consciously or unconsciously.

You certainly would want some stability in your life so that you can go about studying the game and improving it systematically without having anxiety control your behavior.
Impulsive behavior is another thing to be aware of.

There are two great quotes from the Tao Te Ching.

Do you have the patience to wait till your mud settles and the water is clear?
Can you remain unmoving till the right action arises by itself?

If you let restlessnes move you, you lose touch with who you are.

Basically these things tell us to not be too impulsive and be ok with sometimes no doing anything. And that not doing anything is at times better than just doing something for doing sake, especially if this doing for doing sake is leading you to do very unhelpful things, like playing when tired or when you feel like you have nothing else to do, or not playing focused and still continuing to play, even when you truly know you should not.

This is some difficult stuff to do, but focus and taking your game very serious is very important and a crucial skill to learn

Hello Hawkeye! It's been a long time since you wrote this post, but I just saw it and it responded inside me, because I recognized myself there. Honestly, a great desire to play, to improve, as well as a love of the game will definitely benefit you. These factors are critical to your success. I can give advice on my own that in order to get even more success and skills, it is imperative to conduct analytics of your games. Now there are many services where you can track your victories, defeats, trends, falls and vice versa your achievements. Thus, you can build a strategy, according to the general rules of the game, but optimal for you.
By the way, tell us, how are your progress in promotion?

"Being results oriented has many reasons, but one thing that will help at least to a degree is having the proper bankroll, so that you don't have to worry about money in poker."

it might look like a proper bankroll is what allows someone to not worry about money,
but this isn't true.

this view creates a fragile mental game.
instead: see that "money" is 100% an inner game.

it's never your bankroll (or lack there of) that's stressing you out.
it's your thinking about your bankroll (about money) that stresses you out or not.

it's possible to have a big bankroll and worry.
it's also possible to have any bankroll and not worry.

so, my advice for you Hawkeye10 is to look deeply into the nature of thought and free your mind.

this is possible.

and it changes everything.

look in this direction, with an open mind.

be patient.

With baseball season back in full swing, we get to see variance on display affecting uninitiated
fans.

Professional athletes all have systems of training in place to track, improve and maintain their skill set, just as any serious (or aspiring) pro card player does. They show up to train, study their opponents, play and then recover from play all with various coaching systems in place.

Last weekend my fav MLB team removed a left handed batter and subbed in a righty who was around 0-20 this season in a clutch spot. My friend exploded at the TV saying how bad this player was and how terrible a job the manager was doing (despite their obvious skillsets).
There was no convincing him otherwise.

The exact same situation arose today, and this happened:

Jansen hits a 2 run homer to tie the game

My friend declined to answer his phone when I called him 2 seconds after this hit ;)

Since OP made this post 4 years ago and dipped I will leave it at this:

You have to set up the correct systems for long term success to happen in todays games. We have all the tools on this site to build the right systems and maintain the right mindset to do this. You just have to put in the work.

Or perhaps I'm just being results oriented?