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The Mental Game of Poker

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VBlue:
I am re-reading The Mental Game of Poker and setting aside a couple fo hours each week to making notes and looking to apply the new knowledge to my game.

If anyone is up for joining this thread, I"ll keep it going as long as there is interest. I will post the notes I have taken for discussion and every week I hope to move it on a step.

We"ll have the whole thing cracked in no time.

AAroddersAA:
I will certainly be following this, good thread.

Maybe I actually need to get around to reading the book but I pretty much agree with almost all of that you said above. What do you do about it though? Or do I really need to read the book?

I would say though things like tilt most definitely do happen for totally illogical reasons. What reason do you think it happens for?

Keep up the good work on these threads.

VBlue:
All in good time Rodders.

I aim to use this thread and an identical posting on another forum to work through my own Mental Game along with anyone else who wishes to join me.

It would be great if you would continue to follow and we can add a few more interested parties.

I would take it as read that if Jared says tilt happens for predictable reasons, then it does.  We will come on to why as we work through the book.

Swinebag:

--- Quote from: VBlue on November 08, 2012, 23:02:22 PM ---

Is anyone concerned that this is just plagiarism and I could be over-stepping the mark reproducing so much of the book material?


--- End quote ---


I was going to post that this seemed pretty blatant plagiarism, but you have pre-empted the question.

Not sure how the mods/Des will feel about this.

Back to the topic: I started reading the book in January but have not finished it. I agree that mental game is pretty important, but I felt that this book tries to overcomplicate things. If people do have mental game frailties it seemed that the style of the book would go over the heads of the exact people that are targeted by the book. I don"t mean to connect intelligence with mental game frailties (though I think that is what it may sound like). It is just that the sort of person who is a mental game fish is simply not going to bother reading this book. They may recognise a bit of themselves in the book but the cures that are pretty straightforward IMO go into so much detail that you develop more mental game frailties trying to break them down. In short, I felt the book rambled on a bit ( a bit like this post LOL!)

I feel I have a pretty decent mental game. I would list it as one of my strengths (I nearly aced the mental game fish test). One thing that I do consider a weakness is how poorly I tend to play after a decent win. I have thought about this a lot and feel that the deep root to the problem is a brief hatred of money that I have after a win. It may be down to guilt or a feeling that I am playing with other people"s money so I don"t need to focus as much. It only lasts a few days now and I am able to assess when I am playing my best game (Whatever that is) and can separate results from this assessment. I still think I will drift but by acknowledging it, I feel I am on the road to recovery ;D

VBlue:
On reflection I have removed the posts as it is clearly just plagiarism and making Jared"s content available in this way is probably ill advised.

Swinebag - the first point you make I disagree with.  I cannot see that anyone who would find the content of the book to high-brow would pay so much for a learning text in the first place.  It is very well-written, easy to follow, and full of practical advice.  If you think it is over-complicating things I believe you have misunderstood, or perhaps you feel the scale of the work involved is too much to bother with - which is completely fine if you have no desire to put the work in.

I don"t see anywhere where Jared rambles on and I wouldn"t have thought that your knowledge in the field is on anything even close to the scale of Jared"s so to be able to say that the cures are pretty straightforward in your opinion is a bit of a throwaway remark.

Professional sports people and teams at the very highest level, Tiger Woods is the example Jared used in how golf as a sport changed it"s view of how to be competitve (players looking at fitness and mental game to create an edge), so it stands to reason that everyone could benefit from working on their mental game.  New problems reveal themselves ongoing to, so, much like poker itself, it is never "solved".

In my opinion, you cannot assess whether you have a pretty good mental game, without actually assessing it.  Otherwise it is just as throw away as the lad who wins a £5 game in the pub declaring his status in the game.  When Jared list the main indicators of a mental game fish, it is certainly not a "test" to see if you are one or not.

It is good that you have identifed a weakness and started to unveil the underlying reason for it, something which Jared talks about a lot.  As an example, I raised two concerns with Jared which on the face of it seem obvious, but it is important to dig a little deeper:

1) I felt that I was not focusing when playing poker being too easily distracted - browsing, social networking, watching TV, talking to people in the room, etc.
2) I have had a go at making improvement in my game but lacked a consistent approach.

Jared asked:

1) What are your overall goals with poker?
2) What"s the reason your motivated by these poker goals? (Basically the why you want to achieve them.)
3) Why are you motivated to develop a consistent approach to learning?
4) Why are you motivated to eliminate distractions while playing?
5) What do you want to get out of poker, and from doing this extra work to improve?

I then replied with some goals, but what Jared picked up on as being most useful was that I had uncovered a desire to be productive with my time and feel satisfied that I"ve used it productively and to have accomplishments in poker that are entirely in my control.

You may not see the significance of undertstanding that, but to me it has had an effect and helps me to review those senitments before each session.

Jared"s advice:

Pulling these out aren"t going to blow your mind, but when it comes to eliminating distractions they"re critical. Now when you notice your mind drifting, Inject Goals, like you would Inject Logic, as a means of regaining control of your state of mind.

To close this post - the Mental Game field is largely misunderstood and players have traditionally followed some fairly poor available advice.  There is quite probably nobody better qualified due to the training and hours Jared has put in to this field.  To create a unique edge in the game, mental game becomes an essential element of the most successful players and is as much of a game as the game of poker itself.

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