Poker Discipline

dvdfan

Hi,

I have a problem with keeping discipline when playing poker, sometimes due to tiredness, bordem etc

I dont like playing more than 1 table at a time and i dont like blogs so has anyone any other suggestions on a good way to keep disipline and stop myself making bad moves eg chasing straights and flushes when the blinds are big and seeing through a small pair even though theirs several higher cards on the flop etc etc

Can anyone recommend any good poker books that can be got in Easons as apposed to online.

sikes

to solve the boredom, play at higher stakes. youd be surprised how quickly you pay attention when you have your whole bankroll on the line!

Goodluck2me

i act agree with that! also maybe try to constantly put people on hans and see how often you can get it correct.

Lafortezza

Think of all the nice things you will be able to buy with the $$ you save by playing better.

luckylucky

Yeah keeping discipline can be the most difficult skill of them all - I have been playing several years online and my discipline has improved but still leaves me down on occasion - I do keep my discipline (outside of turbo multis anyway ) 99% of the time but it's so easy to leave it slip just that one time which in my case nearly always proves extremely costly due to tiredness, boredom or especially after a few beers which is really stupid but I bet I'm not alone there.

The suggestion to play at higher stakes defo has some merit as long as you can are not uncomfortable at those stakes.

I'm not sure what books you can get in Easons these days. I'm guessing you could get The Super System Books from Doyle Brunson, better again if you can get Harrington on Hold em series of Books or books from 2+2 publishing including Theory of Poker and Hold Em For Advanced Players.
A great book for keeping your discipline is Zen and The Art of Poker - I have my doubts if you could get this one in Easons but if you could this is a little gem of a book and it reminds me I haven't looked at it in ages and after a horrendous day of it yesterday it looks like I need it.

lazlo

perhaps try punishing yourself in other areas of your life whenever you happen to tilt at the table. Eat food you dont like, abstain from alcohol/sex etc.... of course it takes another form of discipline to see the punishment through, however it would certain throw something other than financial loss into the risk factor of the game... losing money isnt exactly a gamblers greatest fear is it?

luckylucky

Another thing I had been doing recently was regularly cashing out, so if I did get tempted to get reckless there would only be a proportion of my bankroll readily available to me, I found this was working really well for me and just wish I had kept it up.

LuckyLloyd

This post has been deleted.

Hitman Actual

Sikes suggestion is good: play at a level where any losses annoy you, but not so high that they do damage to your bankroll (I assume he was only messing about the "playing for bankroll" part!).

Re. books, you wont get any in the local shops. A lot of people swear by "Zen and the Art of Poker" by Larry Phillips for emotional control, but I'm not sure if it applies to boredom in the game.

Sangre

Moving up a level for me really helped me refocus my game, I stopped the silly bets and examined every bet. Started making money fast. Of course, I never had close to my whole BR on the line though.

Nowdays, I play mostly to relax after a long day of study and work, not exactly on top of my A game

del_cav

How's this for a novel idea

You could try neuro linguistic programming (NLP) techniques. I've used this successfully for this and other things. I hired a NLP practitioner to help. I've used a couple but found this practitioner good

http://www.nlplifecoachireland.com/

Mr. Flibble

Get one of these jobbies for around your leg. Just a little tightning after each time you get your money in bad will do wonders for your game.

30something

try bringing a pen and paper to your computer and writing down everything that happens, keeps you too busy to tilt and keeps you away from hands you shouldn't play as you need the time to make your notes.

MadsL

del_cav wrote:

How's this for a novel idea

You could try neuro linguistic programming (NLP) techniques. I've used this successfully for this and other things. I hired a NLP practitioner to help. I've used a couple but found this practitioner good

http://www.nlplifecoachireland.com/

Tell us more.....sounds interesting

del_cav

I was winning consistently on line. And had cash out a couple of reasonably sizeable amounts. Then i started to yo yo. Up 1k down 600 etc. Generally an upward trend but with severe down swings. Basically for two the reasons everyone does.

1. Playing when I should not be
2. Or playing well and then tilting (river card) etc

This is the hardest part of poker, especially online. So when telling a friend this they recommended life coaching or more precise nlp. I've had several sessions since. Well worth the money in my opinion. It did two things. 1. Helped me focus my "A" mind before playing and 2. Enable me to "train" my brain not to tilt. She asked me questions like how I felt tilting -recreated the feelings then trained me to recognise these and step back. She used a variety of techniques. The one I found best was something she called "anchoring". Not sure how to describe it. Basically something to hold onto when playing if you feel yourself loosing control or the cloud is coming over. A trigger word/action to bring you back.

Now in saying that. It depends how much your playing. If you're playing .25/50 then prob not worth it but if you are playing 1/2 then all it costs is a buy in.

dvdfan

del_cav,

if you dont mind me asking, what kind of online poker were you playing to win that money, was it large stakes head to head or MTT etc and for what kind of stakes.

For example playing $500 head to heads games wouldnt take to long to rack up a grand but playing $8 MTT or $20 STT games would.

Cheers

del_cav

Cash games only.

1/2 cash no limit on party poker say 90%. Occasionally up to 3/6 if I'm running good but very rare. and even rarer since I was taught some discipline. But I'm no saint. I still occasionally come home from work and blow a buy in without thinking.