Dealing With Running Poorly and Emotions in Poker in General

This will be my most serious blog post and I encourage all who read it to post their reactions and insights on the topic. First a quick update to bring everyone up to speed: I had an incredible month of December, my best month ever and it had me very excited about my prospects for 2010 and my goals included making SNE and winning a decent amount at the tables. Well, I ran terribly in January, my first losing month in a long while, and so far it's continued into February. I finally reached my boiling point last night after another losing session and took a tilt shot into high stakes games and lost an additional couple grand. So now I'm down $4k for this month, which isn't a huge amount for someone used to playing $100-$300 buyin SNGs, but it's more the longevity of the downswing that has me bummed, and the huge swing in emotions from the top of the emotional spectrum after December, to the low end of the spectrum this month.

Anyway, now that everyone's up to speed, I'd like to talk about emotions in poker. I've always been kind of a perfectionist, when I take an interest in something I jump in fully. For example, when I learned poker and decided I wanted to play seriously I studied hard and probably read 10 books in the first month or two. That's the positive of being such a perfectionist, but the negative side of it is that it frustrates the hell out of me when my results aren't what I think they should be.

I used to tilt pretty hard at times a couple years ago. I've smashed a handful of mouses, punched a laptop screen which broke it, and have thrown away money at the table pouting and whatnot. I think I've come a long way in controlling my tilt and a large part of it was reading books on psychology and Zen which helped a bit more in understanding why I was reacting the way I was.

Fast forward to today, where I obviously proved that I haven't nearly come as far in emotional control as I'd like to think. In the grand scheme of things, tilting off a couple grand is no biggie to me, the thing that hurts more is the realization that I'm still immature enough to let things like this bother me so much.

I'd like to highlight a couple key thoughts about emotions and running bad and I believe writing them out will help not only me, but probably most of you as well

Point #1: In the grand scheme of things, do a couple buy-ins here or there even matter?

You can look at this from a couple different timeframes. For example, in 70 years (or whenever) when I pass away, everything of value I've ever attained will go to my family. Does it matter that I ran poorly that one stretch 70 years ago and now my estate is only valued at 745k instead of 750k? Results at this very moment seem hilariously miniscule when you look at them from this perspective. Even looking at results from a shorter timeframe, like the end of this year, will it really matter whether I make 60k or 55k? I have a feeling either way I'll be just fine, adapt, and live on.

Point #2: Bitching and moping about results serves ZERO purpose

OK, you've lost AA for the 6th time in a row and haven't won any of your last dozen coinflips. So what? What good can possibly come from shouting expletives, throwing or smashing something, or threatening the opponent via chat. The answer is it serves ZERO purpose and actually is quite harmful in the long run. One key aspect of Zen is that we should strive to be mindful or 100% focused on the task at hand whether it's cleaning the dishes or playing poker. If I've taken a bad beat and spend the next 5 minutes thinking "man I am so damn unlucky, if I had won that hand I'd be in great shape now, I must be the unluckiest person on the planet, etc." well guess what, you sure as hell are not being mindful of the current hands you're playing.

Point #3: EVERYONE feels anger from time to time, but it is up to YOU how that anger affects you

Another key point from Zen is that everyone will experience anger from time to time, but different people interpret the anger in different ways. If you're in a hand that is shaping up to be the biggest pot of your life and you get all in and the opponent spikes a 2 outer on the river, even the most seasoned Zen Master will feel a twinge of anger, but an interesting thing happens next...nothing. The Zen Master will choose not to act on that anger at all, and it soon dissipates and he's back playing with 100% focus. Anger only becomes a problem when we let it become a problem. You can dwell on that anger and it builds and builds until not only are you losing focus and tilting on the tables, but soon you're getting violent and taking that anger out on the things and people around us. We can learn to simply not let the anger build and it soon passes.

There are a couple other points I wanted to make, but I'll save them for another time and maybe another blog post as this one is already pretty lengthy. Anyway, I'll leave you with an interesting hypothetical scenario that I've thought up while pondering these concepts:

Let's say for shits and giggles Bill Gates has hired you to play poker for him, but with one caveat: you keep 0% of your wins and pay back 0% of your losses. Instead, Bill Gates has hired an emotional analyst (there maybe an actual term for this, can't think of it right now) to determine your happiness and level of focus every 15 minutes on a scale of 1 (pissed and super tilt) to 10 (100% focused and happy). You get paid $200/hour if your average score is a 10, all the way down to $1/hour if your average score is only a 1. Unbeknownst to you, the whole experiment is really a study in emotions by Bill Gates to see if it's possible to play poker completely unaffected by results.

In this scenario, do you think you'd be pissed off by bad beats? Hell no! Whereas in normal poker, your monetary results are directly linked to your success at the tables, as Bill Gates employee, your monetary results are directly linked to how focused on the task you remain. You won't give a damn whether you run well or horribly b/c it's all Gates' money and he's a trillionaire anyway. You know you can't control how you run, but you can choose to ignore the results at the table, and can choose to remain 100% mindful of what you're doing.

OK, maybe a silly example, but I think it highlights an important point. Real poker is the almost the exact same thing as the Bill Gates example!!! A) Your results are directly tied to your emotional state in both examples! Maybe not to the extreme that the sliding scale for the Bill Gates example displays, but I can assure you, the closer you are to a 10 out of 10 on the emotional scale, the better your results will be and You can't control how you run in either example! It is kind of a fun mindset to be in and I think I will try it in my future sessions. Instead of living and dying over the turn of every card, I will just pretend I've been hired by Bill Gates and to maximize my salary, I need to stay 100% focused and let bad beats roll of my back.

Thanks for reading, let me know what you think.
Fossilkid93