A few days off, improved mindset

2010-07-31

It's Sunday afternoon here, and I've played one day of poker in the last five. In a poker sense, it's my least active stretch since summer and has given me some good time to unwind my brain, reflect on the past month's performance (my first losing month this year), reflect on some of the advice I've had from friends, and think about moving forward with positive momentum.

It's quite weird to think that eight weeks ago I was flipping for the chiplead in the 750k with 16 left, or two weeks ago had a healthy stack in the Monday fuper with 20 left, scores that could've potentially set me up for some time. But the reality is that dwelling on it is pretty pointless; almost as pointless as tallying up all the final tables I bubbled in July (which, sadly, I had kept track of), because reflecting on the times I fell short of the mark can hardly breed success going forward - in fact it's more likely to be a detriment to it since I'm focusing on negative outcomes as I play.

There's no doubt in my mind that my MTT game has improved considerably since the start of the year. I have slowly been able to put away old perceptions of my ability and acknowledge that I am putting in the volume and playing at a level that warrants me being in the top ten MTTer's in Australia for results and profit. But this downswing has also taught me that mentally, the way I view the game and the role that I allow poker to have in my life has some room for improvement. It's very easy to develop a sense of 'entitlement', to feel that because you put in a ton of hours that things deserve to go your way, and that it's 'not fair' when you have an extended losing stretch or 'only run good in the small stuff'. I have never really been jealous of anyone else's success in the game, if anything it's a motivator for me, but this past month I have definitely gotten bitter about what I felt I deserved to take out of the game financially. And the reality is, I need to be prepared for six week, 350 buyin downswing stretches, because things can consistently go against you for that long.

And I have been too focused on almost expecting to continue to run bad, which is the mindset of a loser and something I need to address. It's almost like I've rocked up more than once in the last month, expecting to play well, get deep and lose. Previously I was so focused on winning every day, playing my best poker, and the possibilities of what could happen, that things just seemed to go really.... smoothly. I haven't had that easy a childhood or upbringing, but in my life I have rarely ever fallen into a dark funk about my personal expectations - but I think because this downswing had been larger and longer than anything I'd experienced previously, a whole bunch of negative thoughts and fears just crept up, ranging from the ones I've just discussed above to things like "you're going to run out of money", "you're going to have to get a job", "it'll take you forever to dig your way out of this one".. etc. And when those negative thoughts start to consume you, everything gets... difficult. And that pretty much sums up July. By the end of it, I was having dreams about losing poker hands over and over, didn't want to talk to my poker friends because I was in such a down mood and wasn't even taking calls from my best mate, and it was then that I knew I needed to take a few days off.

From the advice of friends, I also realised that I spend too much peripheral time around poker (surfing forums, chatting and railing people) or helping other people with their game at no charge, when I should be using this time to unwind, recharge and enjoy the rest of my life. Just like any challenging pursuit, you do need to be passionate and absorb yourself in this game to be a winner, but I think I have been taking this to an unnecessary extreme, and that's going to change going forward.

These past few days I have totally unwound. I barely turned on the computer, I exercised, hit up cafes, cooked, called friends, restrung and played my guitar, read (non-poker) books, watched a bunch of movies, woke up when I wanted to, spent lazy time with my girlfriend chatting about other things we want to do in life, and went to the footy and drank beer with the boys. I felt like for once, it didn't matter how good or how bad poker was going, it wasn't going to dictate how I felt or what I thought about in the downtime.

And that's the frame of mind I'm kicking off August with. It's going to be a busy one, but I expect it to be a successful, winning month, and I am trying to realign my thoughts to focus on taking one day at a time, put the past six weeks behind me, and focus on playing my best poker for as many hours as I can.