Thinking About Poker

My trip so far has given me a lot of time to contemplate many poker related issues. I've come to the realization that the times where my enthusiasm for the game has faltered have come at times where I'm not thinking about the game on a deep enough level. If I get into too much of a rut and fall into a pattern of taking the game at face value the desire to play quickly goes away. I love the complexity of the game and trying to put all the pieces together is really what drives me to succeed. If I'm not constantly improving my game my subconscious gets bored and wants to explore other activities.

Luckily I haven't been in this sort of rut for a while, but being able to recognize when it's happening will go a long way in making sure it doesn't last long. It really shouldn't be that hard to prevent, as I really do want to be constantly improving and learning everything I can. It's the attitude I want to wake up every morning with, but that's easier said than done. Nobody can maintain a completely gung ho attitude, especially when you are putting in a large amount of hands per week.

When people start to get burned out they are usually given the advice "Take a few days off and don't even think about poker". That may work for some, but in my case I would be better off taking a different approach. Instead of taking a retreat from poker I will take a poker retreat. If I feel I'm getting stuck in a routine I'll take a few days away from the table and immerse myself in poker theory. I'm of the belief that after you reach a certain level of experience that you need to do a large portion of improving away from the tables. When you first start of the experience will have the most effect on your profits (so improvement comes from 75/25 playing to study). Once you've seen most of what the game has to offer you need to do a lot of brainwork and then test those conclusions at the tables (improvement now comes 75/25 study to play). I’m not saying you should spend 75% of your time studying poker, just that when you reach a certain point that’s where most of your improvement will come from.

I don’t think many people really understand this and it gets a lot of mid stakes players in trouble. When they hit their first road block after crossing the tipping point instead of doing some deep analysis of their own play they do what has always improved their game the most; hit the tables. When this doesn’t give the same results it used to they can become incredibly frustrated and even burn out of the game. If they would just spend a little extra time thinking about poker and then testing their conclusions at the table, I think they would be very pleased with the results.

This turned out a lot more articley than I had originally planned, but that’s ok. The whole point was basically to say that if I fell like I’m falling into a bad rut that instead of taking time away from the game that I will sink myself in as deep as I can to get those brain juices flowing. I guess the real conclusion that can be drawn is: If you ever find yourself in a bad poker mindset just figure out why you love the game and immerse yourself in that aspect for a few days. With that at the front of your mind it will be hard to not be excited about poker.