Session Preparation (part 1)
Posted by Leszek Badurowicz
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So cool!! I'm just starting to read the Mental Game of Poker, just finished reading the part about the importance of preparation for sessions. I just took a quick look at the pro video feed and found you had just posted this!!
Really good video. Feeling pumped to get into analyzing my mental state before playing. Will you be making any other mental-game vids besides this twopart ? Thanks !
I am glad you liked it! I record most of my videos for PLO section. However that's definitely not my last mental-game video ;-)
Great video on session preparation! I look forward to the next video in the series. The game is more than math and odds. One's emotions and mindset are big factors of the game. Thanks for putting this series together.
Great content as always, i hope we'll get more than only two parts of your mindset videos.
Thanks for the video! you made it much clearer to me, how to use a good pre session preparation. I read the book The mental game of poker but had some troubles with it in reality. I really hope to see some future vids about the mental aspect of poker. Good information is hard to find and so valuable to pokerplayers of each level. :D
Great video, starting to keep a diary now in anticipation of the next one!
One of the best videos I've seen on this site. I much prefer your style over Tommy Angelo's and your story telling and presentation is very good. I'm looking forward to more videos from this series.
Awesome video man, thank you. Great to see some mental game videos. Can't wait for part 2
Hi Leszek,
I've been keeping the diary for the last two days of play and I have a question.
Is there a reason you don't track the same specific emotions each time?
What I mean is, instead of listing the emotions you feel as they occur to you, having a list and filling in the scores, something like:
Confidence
Focus
Happiness
Energy
What I mean is that instead of sometimes listing sadness at and sometimes happiness, we could just use happiness, and mark it as 2 or 3 when we are sad.
Hope you see what I mean, I feel like it might make it easier if each time we are tracking the same emotions, but maybe you have a reason for not doing so and having different categories at different times?
Anyway, the idea of keeping track seems good, already got me to quit one session where I was kind of tilted but didn't realise until I started filling out the diary so that's a good result already!
I think everyone is different so it's important to do what works for you while staying open-minded and receptive to any emotions that may come up during a session. It might be the case that only focusing on 3 or 4 emotions may, over time, limit your ability to recognize the rarer emotions when they do pop up. The important thing with mental game is to become more aware, and ultimately maintain that emotional focus throughout our sessions from beginning, middle to end!
Very good point. I am not sure if I expressed that clearly during the video but the main idea of the diary is to find main emotions related with your A-game. The way how you achieve it - it's up to you. They way I have shown you, seems to be the easiest but feel free to modify this, the way you want.
1) You can definitely try your idea. Tbh I think it might be very helpful. The only problem is that it might be more time consuming because you will need to pay attention to more emotions during every break.
2) You can keep the diary in the way I presented in the video
3) For players with less self-awareness I would recommend to start with analysing just their general emotional arousal 1-10.
4) PuraVida - very good points.
Thanks Leszek, great video as always. I really enjoyed the practical aspect - the 'emotional awareness diary'. I'm looking forward to testing it out and your next mindset video.
Great video! Great story, looking forward for more!!! :D
Yes, absolutely looking forward to more of these, awesome work Leszek! I feel like it is similar to Tommy Angelo's playing with your A-game. I can't wait for the next video in this series.
What kind of energetic music do you listen to?
Also, do you have music that keeps you in a calm/satisfactory mindset?
When it comes to energetic music I prefer electronic music e.g. Chemical Brothers. In order to calm myself I listen to Hemi-Syncs - here you can find an example https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6pauVdQMkYw - of course in better quality and with proper headphones it sounds great! But music is very individual so feel free to experiment ;-)
Hi Leszek,
Great video. I am a chess player as well and I also coach chess. I've been wanting to help my students with mental preparation, but I didn't know what specific steps to take. This video gave me a lot of great ideas. Thanks!
just finished this video and it has been very practical in developing a good mindset. I will do the very thing you mentioned and starting a journal. It was informative.
Hi Leszek,
Great video! I find that during sessions I sometimes have trouble identifying negative results related to variance from negative results related to bad play (or positive results from playing well versus getting lucky). Any recommendations on how to objectively rate your game during a session when you're experiencing a lot of positive or negative variance?
Hey :-)
Good question and pretty difficult one to answer here ;-)
The main point of identyfying the impact of variance on your session is to find out whether you were playing well during the session or not. You dont want to play very good session and start looking for mental game mistakes. You want to find out your strengths and correct mistakes. The main point of identifying the impact of variance is to help you :-) So you can go 2 ways:
1) Try to evaluate your game without emotions after the session. You can evaluate how did you handle tough decisions and how many mistakes have you made
2) You can also skip the variance part and just focus on other factors: evaluation of your game, mindset and focus.
Remember that the main point is not to find out he impact of the variance but to find out when you are playing your best poker and to start regularly creating the environment in which you can play repeatedly your A-game :-)
Are edges and profitability bigger in trading? Would u recommend give it a go besides poker? Shall one start from forex or stocks? Thx!
It depends. These are different games. In poker you can make a specific amount of money each year. lets say that average mid stakes reg makes a $60k/ year. In trading you make a % of the capital so lets say 30%. Therefore your profits depends more on your starting bankroll.
In poker it is easy to start winning even after few months of education you can start beating the lowest stakes. In trading you are still trading against the market so usually it takes longer to start winning (few years).
Forex or options trading are similar to poker so imo it makes the most sense to start trading those instruments because your poker experience will help you.
Great video! Definitely make some other videos, maybe about how to create our session cooldown routine!
Thanks for the video!
Hey Leszek... lol I'm sorry I wanted to like and reply to ur words .. and accidentally flagged it ... And do not know how to reverse it.
Thank you a lot for ur reply. I'll definitely keep that in mind moving forward. I think my plan is to get really good at poker and generate some cash/steady income, develop analytical skills, emotion controls, and then gradually put in more effort/resources into trading as improvement at the margin in poker drops sufficiently low. Trading can be a better brag after all.
U traveled a road I want to embark on. Thx again for sharing your thought.
I can find a lot off knowledge in this... Though i remember i having these stated, i could not give them a place...
Like confidence. I can play, be focused and tell yself i do allright. But then i can watch a video here over the range of 4-betting for example against villians 3-bet range... And poof, confidence gone, because i have never thought about it. So with that in mind, the next session i start up, my confidence is not that great, because i feel uneducated in PLO.
I got through the Jeff Hwangs books and tried to apply them. But i got to this site and saw some video's and man... My confidence is really on the lower side becaus there so many things i hvae never heard about and it's difficult to apply all off them because od the bulk of info.
Now i try to absorb as much as possible, but i'm not the youngest player and this really is some heavy literature. Not in a bad way, but giving all that info a place needs time and i feel it will affect my game in multiple ways and i would prefer not to play until i can place the info in a 'safe place' in my head. But nothing beats experience, so i will see it as an investement in the long run.
My live sessions always have been better for me, i could play better, define peoples ranges a lot better, i was more in the zone than online.
I think that had to do with the prep of a live session at home. As i would prep the table with cards, counting chips, etc. i would play the previous live session in my head. Plays that where made, hands that played out great, hands that a few villians would play, bet sizing etc.
Never knew why, but this video cleares that... Prepping the state of mind, i did unconscious while prepping. Great video. Dziękuję
Hey I think your question is more about confidence than session preparation and in the future I am planning to make a video on that. I think you need to think how you define your confidence. It's seems like you have an assumption that makes you loose your confidence when you implement big changes in your game. I think it will be good for you to accept that it's ok to change your game. Poker is a game of constant improvement and it's good to accept and don't blame yourself for not playing perfect in the past.
Another question is building a stable feeling of self-confidence. But this is something hard to explain in few sentences. I promise I will make a video on that within 2-3 months :-)
Wow this was very helpful and interesting even though it was posted like a year ago!I'd definately be interested in watching more of Leszek's videos on mental game.Diary seems like a great idea,actually ill just start one as well and see how it goes!!
Very good video! Thanks!
Awesome! What is your chess rating?
Are you a chess shark or a fish?
i think its a lot easier for pro or people who have settled into a stake to not look at results but when you playing micros trying to grind out you really do have to watch your bankroll and move up and down and shot take. cuz getting out of the rake trap is a must
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