The downfalls of being results oriented
Posted by Mushmellow
Posted by
Mushmellow
posted in
Low Stakes
The downfalls of being results oriented
Lately, I have been thinking a lot about how to get rid of my attachment to results. Coming from a background of being a competitive athlete, I've always been conditioned that how good you are is a directly related to how hard you work and the dedication of your training. When I trained hard, my hard work payed off and I won and beat others who might have slacked off at practice. I always had Alexander Karelin's motto "train like a madman" written all over my training journals (Google him if you don't know who he is, he's a beast). Learning poker has been a lot harder for me than picking up a physical skill. When learning something physical, you get direct feedback and you can make adjustments and quickly figure out what you need to do. Let's take riding a bike for example. You get on. Push the pedals. Fall down a couple times. Then you figure out you need to keep the wheel straight (omg i'm so punny) etc and you need to keep pedaling or else you fall. Eventually you figure it out. We all did.
Now think about how hard it would be to learn how to ride a bike if your results were not directly correlated with your actions. Lil baby Mushmellow gets on his new bike and Mama and Dadda Mush are watching and cheering him on. Unfortunately, Lil baby Mushmellow has a pretty weird bike and it rewards him randomly with a certain expectation based on how he tries to operate it. He pushes the pedals and starts rolling and then the seat ejects him. Was he pedaling the bike correctly and just got unlucky that the seat decided to eject him or was he riding it wrong? He won't really know until he rides the bike a million times and sees the true expectation of his actions. But by that time, he will already be too bruised up to want to keep riding the bike.
This is sort of what learning poker has been like for me. I'm on some sort non-deterministic bike and I keep getting ejected while I still have my training wheels on. Shown is my most recent batch of hands almost all of them are 25nl heads up. I'd have to say this is some of the most solid poker I've ever played in my life. Most of the beginning of the graph was me playing my A game and only did I drop into B and C game in the valley after spike where the green one starts to split from the yellow line. Today's session I resumed my A game and I think what helped was that I told myself "I'm just going to play my best and make sure to quit if I don't have a good edge and leave my ego at the door." Leaving the ego at the door for me usually means not checking the cashier until the end of the session. Whenever I'm playing my A game I never even think about how much I'm up or down, but when I'm not at my best I start to think about how much I've lost and it distracts me from being 100% in the moment while I'm playing.
I have to admit that recently I was a little bit irked by the fact that I've been running 18.5 buy ins below EV. I almost felt like giving up on my goals because I felt like I had just been thrown off the bike too many times. Losing was starting to affect my personal life as I think I subconsciously associate my results with my sense of self. Then, I realized. Why am I letting a random generator on some Isle of Man control my poker experience and my life experience? I thought to myself, if I ran 20 buy ins above EV would I be working on improving my game as much as I am now? No. Probably not. I would get cocky and think I was the shit. In contrast, why am I feeling bad about myself and doubting my game when dealing with what is basically (after rakeback) a 13k hand breakeven stretch?
Regardless of how we run, good or bad, it seems like people are affected too much by short-term results and it can even cause them to alter a previously formulated long-term battle plan. During one of my losing sessions, I did something which was pretty bad which was I clicked away from the Micro tab in the lobby to the Low tab and browsed the 50NL heads up games. This brief thought of playing out of my bankroll (which in my opinion is giving up and throwing in the white flag, by leaving the game more up to luck than you should) is a sign of mental game fishyness.
Has anyone else had any experiences with having the randomness of poker affect their learning of the game, day to day life, or decisions at the table? I'm looking for some advice and words of wisdom to help me push through this rough stretch of cards. This is when my mental game has been tested the most. I've been keeping a poker journal (as recommended in Jared Tendler's book, Mental Game of Poker) and have been doing poker warm ups and cool downs before my sessions. I've been marking hands for review in game and analyzing them post session. I've been focusing on quitting good players (table selection is one of my biggest weaknesses) and have been recording the people I quit and in how many hands and have been trying to beat my personal bests for quitting people and table selection. I've been talking through my hands as I play and making sure to focus on my breathing and have been playing in a completely silent environment free from external distractions. On the technical side of the game, I've been trying to extract more value from the fish and go for profitable bluffs when the situation calls for it. I've also been keeping fit and doing the Insanity workout during my lunch break at work. What more can I do to improve? Does anyone have any personal experiences to share about some of the harder times (mentally) they faced at the poker table and how you dealt with it?
Cheers!
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Just Compare your Poker experience to this chart. There are oscillations of short term upswings followed by the inevitable downswings. Dont be results oriented on the inevitable Cooler situations, which we term "Run Bad". At the end of the Day, we should be paying attention to the 0-15 Final mark results, as opposed to the little deviations that happens in between.I guess it happens to any poker player. I think you are in the right way if you are analysing your game. Something im trying to implement in my sessions is to not look at the result of the session during it. Just focus on playing your best. I agree being results oriented leads you to let that result affect your emotions.
I think in almost all areas, people tend to be result oriented, and then blame the cause of that results to wrong reasons, because they are just looking at the surface, without digging deeper.
Really small sample to draw any conclusions, just short term variance.
I believe our minds and interlinked. I'am the same way as your life being a competitive athlete and playing poker. Well I used to be the same way. Always checking my graph and being disappointed to be in the negative. Id jump up to the next stakes like you said to try and build my loss back and end up losing more and be more pissed off and angry just because i may be playing bad or suffered a bad beat.
I recently had a pretty sick run in one mtt this past weekend. Played in the $55 6-max mtt Friday night, Saturday, and sunday. Friday took 3rdplace, Sat - 2nd, and sunday took 1st. Confidence was way up. Mtt's are not my usual game as i perfer cash. But the past few days ive had a bad run in my cash games. But life goes on, study more, find my leaks and improve.
A book that may help you out alot if you havent read it yet is " The mental Game Of Poker" by Jared Tendler. If you havent read it, I highly recommend it. In the midst of reading it right now and I can say I have noticed improvement in my mental game this past month alone.
Results will come and dont let it get to you. Fish get lucky from time to time but they wont ever be ahead in the long run. Best of luck to u buddy and Good Luck at the tables
Got the audio book and listened to it during my commute to work. I'd have to say I've had really nice improvements in my mental game after keeping a poker journal. It's helped me tons and is really something to hold on to and be proud of yourself for even if you are in a bad run of cards or playing bad it helps keep you on track and let's you let go of results. Because as long as you are consistently improving every day you are going in the right direction and that's the only thing that matters and is really the only thing you can control. To play your best and constantly improve and learn.
Ye its an awesome book!
+1. couldn't of said it any better myself
I can understand where your coming from, but like Hustla said this sample is really small. Your just running bad, I've experienced running like ass for 40k hands and it felt like someone hit me with a car while on my bike :). One thing I can say is that if you preserver it will always turn around, its what we aim for "the long term"!
If you look at your EV-winrate it´s +11bb/100 - admittedly it´s a worthless sample, but you should still look at this number first - as kind of a reward - and be proud of your achievement.
It´s getting way harder if you constantly run into rivered sucker hands that won´t even showup in any EV-calculation, like you bet, bet, shove flopped middle set in a 3-bet pot and some random fish called you down with A-high on the flop only to make runner-runner-straight. And when that happens not over 12k hands but over 100k hands - then you can start feeling bad. :)
And this is no irony, this is meant absolutely serious.
100.37 BB/100Variance goes both ways. Most just don't complain about it when it's going in the other direction. People tend to attribute downswings to bad luck and upswings to skill. To stand above the rest, I pronounce myself outraged at my recent results! The site is confirmed to be rigged and a letter to the gaming commission is on its way!
Disgruntled customer,
Mushmellow
lol... ppl hope for this type of Result. :P
i'm doing everything i can do get better and be better. To lose everything you won and more from one day to the next is crushing me. i sit down having read all my objectives, strategies, warm-up etc i have both Jared's Books and worked through them. But none of it matters when nothing and i mean nothing goes your way. and the money is important, its what i survive on.
Daz, I think it would be beneficial if you had an experienced player sweat one of your sessions. Or perhaps, make a video of you playing and talk through not only your hands, but your emotions at the table. I'm sure if you start a thread here and link from Youtube there will be a lot of people willing to help and analyze.
And maybe, while playing on video you will be more aware of your tilt in game and this awareness will help you battle with your issues. 4 tables with commentary might help you with your current issue.
Most importantly, don't stress too much! This is only a temporary issue. Everything will pass. Keep focused, go easy on yourself, and you can push through.
Good luck,
Mush
@Daz-Volume.The more you play the stronger your threshold becomes.That and moving down in stakes where suckouts are less painful, but you can grind more less the same amounts of $, only playing more hands.
Have you noticed that your emotons are not related to the actual dollar amount you win/lose, but about interpretations of situations? For example let's say you win 3 flips in a row and suddenly you lose a big pot in a set over set. The set over set you lose will not hurt that much, because you can tell yourself that you are still running good because of the previous flips you lost.
Now let's imagine you had a rough session, climbing back to break even and then suddenly you lose a set over set situation. Boom, this will hit you like a hammer. While the event was not really that much different from the previous scenario. Both times you lost a big pot, but now your interpretation is totally different. You're much more likely to feel you did 'deserve' that.
Not checking results for a while benefits from this same principle. You won't be looking at graphs that often and make a story about it. 'Wow, today I ran so bad again after running so bad yesterday'. By not checking results you will focus on the bigger picture, which means keep on improving and do your best.
Mush,
As far as great posts go, this one is in a class of its own. I'm still very much learning poker, and I've only really took to studying in the past month, but I definitely see myself in what you described.
I always love reading what you write. Keep it up. It brings great discussion.
Thanks! It means a lot to me, I always spend quite some time writing my posts and proofreading etc.
As others have said, The Mental Game of Poker.
Reading and understanding Jared's book is one thing. But you will quickly regress to your old habits if you don't directly apply what you've learned.
I'm guilty of this myself. In the past I've read books like The Psychology of Poker and Elements of Poker. Both times after reading those books I was tilt free/non-results oriented for a few months until the real doomswitch was flipped on again.
This time after reading TMGOP 1 & 2, I decided to try something different.
Following Jared's advice, I created a "Session Report" form that I can fill out after every session I play. It doesn't matter if it was 15 minutes or 4 hours long. Live or online. Tournament or cash. If I play poker, I fill out that form. It's a quick and easy way of tracking my poker playing progress both mentally and skill wise, without a results orineted bias.
This is what my form looks like (copy attached here with explanation of ratings):
That's it. It takes 1 minute to fill out after I play. I frequently take water/washroom breaks when I play. So every 1-1.5 hours, I fill out that form before I resume my session. It's an excellent way for me to quickly evaluate how I'm doing and to keep me focused for the start of my next session.
Full-res picture hereI haven't been doing this for very long but I've already noticed a tremendous improvement in my stability and consistency as a player. I no longer care if I ran bad, as long as I was able to fill out that form and say I played well and handled my attitude well, then that's all that mattered.
I'm also working on an extended "Tilt Profile" report. Any time I answer "C" under Mental Game, it will take me to this report so that I can further explain why I tilted so badly. In the future when I review my Tilt Profile, hopefully the data will shed some light on the areas I am weakest in.
So far this form has been a concrete way for me to evaluate my game without being results oriented. It will form the foundation for all of my future goal setting and KPI's. I hope you can find something that works for you. Best of luck man!
This is very very very good. I can't say how much something like this will improve people's bottom lines. I've been using a physical journal myself, but using this GoogleForm is actually a great supplement because it is able to help you view the data later and track progress, something a physical journal can't do.
Thanks so much for sharing this, I'm sure it can help anyone who chooses to use it honestly and consistently.
this looks fantastic i will want to create my own, can i use yours as a template?
i have noticed that my levels of focus wax and wane during sessions of 6+ hours. like a wave with peaks and troughs so i notice after 2 hours my game deteriorates and i have to pick my self up again and re-focus. this happens quite a few times when i play longer sessions (daily).
What a great idea. Like many others I'm horribly results orientated, I see the downside of variance to mean I'm a terrible player and the upside to mean I'll be playing Phil at nosebleeds in a couple of months (LOL).
I realise this is idiocy but still fall into this trap regularly. It's clear to me that this needs addressing to get better as a player but the degen in me likes playing to much. Hopefully this will an easy step to implement that helps fix one of my mental leaks.
Thanks :-)
Of course :P
I can't even go more than 1.5 hours without losing a lot of focus. I have to take at least a 5-10 minute break before continuing. Otherwise I get zoned out.
I also think it's unrealistic to expect to be playing the same quality of game after 6 hours vs. when you started fresh. But maybe you can train yourself to not lose as much edge over time and build up some endurance.
As inspiring as ever, Mush. I really liked the part about baby Mush's first bike ride! Really made me laugh. :-) I'm afraid I don't have any good advice, but it is really nice to see some of your latest posts in the forum. Guess you've figured it out! Cheers.
;)
i liked little Mushy too *w*/ and dadda Mush :O
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