Pokerwiner.com → Within poker principles
The Golden Key
We have come to what I see as the central feature of the professional attitude: The awareness of the need to focus not on short term results, but on the quality of your play. This is really a golden key to consistently good poker. Made possible by the elements described above, adherence to this focus will help maximize your hourly rate and provide you with substantial immunity to tilt.
When your attention is focused in this manner, you do not think, “Unbelievable, she drew out on me again! Now I’m stuck so bad it’ll be a miracle if I get even.” You think, “She was semi-bluffing with her flush draw. I think I charged her as much as I could by raising on the turn. Was there a better way to play it? Next hand.” You don’t think, “I’m tired of being stuck. I’m going to play this little suited connector even though it may not be correct in this spot. Maybe I’ll win a big pot.” You think, “Not profitable here.
I fold.” Thus, while your long term goal of winning remains, your focus in the present becomes simply playing well. Of course playing well means making as much money as possible over time. So it is intimately lined with winning in the long run.
It makes great sense, in fact, to think of your decisions in terms of monetary expectation or “expected value” (EV), to use current Internet parlance. You strive to make the decision which will average the most profit in the long run, but, that is not thinking about winning person. It is not thinking about competition, or victory, or defeat. It is analyzing decisions. I would suggest that you will do best if you can simply put winning out of your mind as you play. Your long term goal exists, but forget about it for the time being. Put it aside and think only about your play. Make playing well, playing to maximize EV, your only purpose at the poker table. (*Note that some otherwise good players go on tilt when they are playing at a limit that is too high for their bankroll ).
There are a great many skilled players whose results at poker are nevertheless poor simply because they are out of touch with the professional attitude. They get caught up in concerns over having winning sessions, go on tilt, and their judgment becomes impaired over prolonged periods. Ironically, there are less skilled players who do better at the game simply because they maintain the professional attitude very consistently. If you have any problem with emotion affecting your play, try shifting your focus away from short term results to the quality of your play. Work on your fluency with poker theory. Keep in mind that short term fluctuations of all sorts are inevitable.
Analyze your play and that of your opponents. Once the professional attitude is your natural state at the table, you will be tilt resistant. Moreover, your mental energy will be objectively focused where it will do you the most good – on the decisions which determine your long term earnings. Under these circumstances the threat of a loss preoccupies them and makes it especially difficult to focus only on the quality of their play. The solution, of course, is to play at a lower limit.
On Tilt: Part II – The Professional Attitude / Subtle Losses of Judgment: Part I
Subtle Losses of Judgment: Part II / A Poker Player in Therapy