Poker Mind

I can only assume Waffles was trying tilt me with his second comment to my post below. In fact, it spurred me this morning to write a point by point refutation as a comment, which I'll attach, since I bothered to do it, at the bottom of this post.

I realized however that, just like last night, I was getting angry thinking about the hand. I then had an inspiration. Getting angry about this hand is the wall that is currently keeping me from moving to the next level. I read Charlie Shoten’s No Limit Life, which I bought from the author directly at the December WPBT event, read it, and felt like I’d never get it though I knew I should.

This hand is a Thought Terrorist indeed.

To be a better a player, I need to be very happy with this hand--I induced a strong but reckless player to stack off with nothing but a prayer (context for those don't know was this was at the final table of last night's WWDN). Had I won, with a huge stack I would have been the favorite to take down the whole thing, say 40% against the remaining 7 given the huge stack (almost half the chips in play) I would have had. So when the money went in, I was basically 33% or so to win it all, with various slices to finish 2nd-8th, and 12.5% to bust out right there. What more can I ask for?

I can ask for my hand to hold up. But that is just not in my control. Fortunately for me, this hand came at the end of the night, so I was not tempted to go play something else in a tilt-fugue. But this is not always the case. Sometimes this happens at a cash table and I can rebuy, or where the next tournament beckons. If I could transform my anger to joy at having made the right move at the wrong time, rather than tilt I would play stronger.

This is what people talk about when they say incentivize yourself with feeling rewarded by good decisions, not good outcomes.

Reasons why feeling good is the better result:

1. When you lose like this and feel good, it will psychologically reinforce the urge to make the similar, correct play in the future, rather than subconsciously creating an urge to play the hand less correctly (either by playing it even faster as Waffles would have had me and giving up my AA EV or worse, slower than I did)
2. It will allow me to stay centered when sitting at a table (particularly at a cash game) with someone who is willing to put money in against me way behind.
3. It feels better to feel good than bad (duh).

Conversely, it makes sense to try and temper the good feeling that comes when I am rewarded for a bad decision (last Friday, I managed to win a huge pot on a 2-outer with of all hands QQ on a king high flop against slick, but I knew I was the fish in that hand):
1. Don't let it subtley increase your willingness to make stupid gambles.
2. Don't let the euphoria cloud your own adjustment to the effect that it can have on your table image (which you want to capitalize on as well).
3. Remember what you did so you're less likely to make the same mistake again.
4. It still feels better to feel good than bad--don't completely ignore the joy, it's part of the reward of poker. I am sure GRob felt a bit of it and I won't begrudge him it.

I think I am starting to get it, at least as an idea. Actually living it is the next step and it's a doozy.

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Reply to Waffles' comment:

You're completely wrong about preflop bet and it's not even close.

He raised the BB 3x to 1800.

I raised him 3000 to 4800.

He was calling 3000 to win 7000.

His chances of winning were 3:17, assuming he can see 5 cards (I suppose this assumption was correct since he showed a willingness to call off his whole stack in with TPMK). Also, he's out of position, but again, giving his willingess to stack off with relative crap, that's less important.

I want his call every day and twice on Sunday. He is giving me large sums of money here.

I clearly induced him to make two huge mistakes (if I can take credit for that), and I think despite your comment, the preflop call was considerably worse. The postflop call was 13730 to win about 40000, and he was a 1:4.7 dog, plus he was no longer hurt by position. This mistake was not as bad, though still pretty awful.