Archive for 'Psychology'
Multi-Tasking is for Losers
Posted on05. Jul, 2010 by Gugel.
I have an assignment for you. I want you to run a mile, juggle 3 balls for 15 minutes and spin a hula hip around your waist 100 times. Unless you’re a well trained circus performer, you instinctively know that you won’t get ANYTHING done if you do everything at once. You have to [...]
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Money Doesn’t Motivate
Posted on08. Jun, 2010 by Gugel.
I guarantee you’re not gonna be a great poker player if money is the only thing that keeps you going.
I’ll prove it to you. A study by M.I.T. researchers had students try to beat a series of challenges. They did stuff like memorize strings of numbers, solve word problems and shoot basketballs into a [...]
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20 Things Bruce Lee Can Teach You About Poker
Posted on11. Mar, 2010 by Gugel.
Bruce Lee is widely considered to be the best fighter of all time. He died when he was 32 from an allergic reaction to a painkiller, but his philosophy and wise words (which are shockingly relevant to poker) continue to be an inspiration. Here are 20 lessons you can learn from Bruce Lee.
Mental Toughness
Don’t fear failure.
Optimism is [...]
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No Money Heads Up, Everyone’s Solid
Posted on14. Feb, 2010 by Gugel.
I’m kidding of course. There’s still plenty of weak, exploitable players in HU (despite what some people think). At many points in your poker career, you’ll feel like the game is unbeatable. We’ve all been there, but dedication in the face of adversity is what makes the good players great.
Props to IheardJoeblows for creating the [...]
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Cash Out, Reward Yourself & Stay Motivated
Posted on28. Dec, 2009 by Gugel.
We all know that setting goals is an important first step towards success. In a previous post, I said:
Don’t set goals for yourself that are out of your control. Whether you win $3,000 this month or not is something that’s not entirely up to you. Set goals on things you can control, like playing a certain [...]
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40 Poker Tips From Sun Tzu’s Art of War
Posted on11. Oct, 2009 by Gugel.
Sun Tzu was an ancient Chinese military tacitian. His military strategy masterpiece, Art of War ($2.99), has some pretty solid advice for poker players. Here are 40 great poker tips from Sun Tzu:
Deception
All warfare is based on deception.
When able to attack, we must seem unable; when using our forces, we must seem inactive; when we [...]
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What Ayn Rand Can Teach You About Making Your Opponent Tilt
Posted on01. Sep, 2009 by Gugel.
I’m almost done with Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand. She’s a really good writer, though the story can get a bit frustrating at times. Anyway, one of the key points in her philosophy is that guilt is a powerful way of controlling people. Make them feel guilty and they’ll do almost anything you want. It works [...]
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10,000 Hours
Posted on10. Aug, 2009 by Gugel.
Back in May, I talked about the three things you need to master to become a great poker player. But the key ingredient to greatness that I didn’t talk about is experience. Beyond just playing lots of hands, experience includes watching training videos, getting coached, or posting in forums. The more you play, the better [...]
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Playing Good When You’re Running Bad
Posted on21. Jul, 2009 by Gugel.
Seth Godin had a great post on his blog today. Even though he’s talking about marketing and customer service, his advice applies really well to poker. Let’s say you have a bike race coming up and you obviously want to have the best time you possibly can. The thing is, everyone goes super fast on [...]
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Mistakes
Posted on07. Jul, 2009 by Gugel.
About a week ago, I made a mistake at $200NL HU vs. Smokin Mokin (a breakeven reg). Here’s the hand in question.
Hero (BB) ($200)
Button ($245)
Preflop: Hero is BB with 8♦, 6♦
Button bets $6, Hero calls $4
Flop: ($12) Q♦, 6♠, 9♦ (2 players)
Hero checks, Button bets $8, Hero raises to $30, Button calls
Turn: ($72) J♠ (2 [...]
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The 7 C’s of Mental Toughness
Posted on19. Jun, 2009 by Gugel.
Practice the seven C’s (Competitive, Confident, Control, Committed, Composure, Courage, Consistency) of mental toughness.
That quote is from a book called Mind Gym that HokieGreg was raving about on Twitter yesterday. A lot of players (myself included) put mental toughness on the backburner. But recently, I’ve begun to realize how that’s a huge mistake. Jack Nicklaus, [...]
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Your Brain on Tilt
Posted on18. May, 2009 by Gugel.
This is tilt. This is your brain on tilt. Questions?
Emotional control is what makes good poker players great. Here’s an amazing 2+2 post about tilt by mental game coach Jared Tendler. And just in case you missed it, here’s my writeup from a while back about controlling tilt.
The Only Reason Tilt Happens
Republished with [...]
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The Biggest Mistake of All
Posted on15. May, 2009 by Gugel.
“To avoid situations in which you might make mistakes may be the biggest mistake of all.”
- Peter McWilliams
You’ll never be a great poker player if you avoid difficult situations. The more you get challenged, the more you’ll think and adjust, and the better player you’ll become. The great thing about heads up is that it [...]
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Obi-Wan Kenobi: Put Away Your PT3 and HEM HUDs
Posted on11. Mar, 2009 by Gugel.
CTS doesn’t use a PokerAce or Hold ‘Em Manager HUD. Ansky doesn’t use a HUD either.
But I use my HUD all the time. Maybe they know something I don’t. And the more I think about, the more I see how relying on stats can do more harm than good. Let’s take a really simple example.
I [...]
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Lie Detection
Posted on08. Nov, 2008 by Gugel.
A detective pounds on the desk and looks the criminal in the eye. The uneasy crook fidgets and can’t meet the detective’s gaze. “It looks like we have a liar here,” the detective declares.
Despite what Hollywood would have you believe, fidgeting and avoid eye gaze show absolutely no correlation with lying. I’m here to tell [...]
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How to Control Tilt
Posted on05. Nov, 2008 by Gugel.
We’ve all done it. We ask ourselves how an idiot can stupidly win so many pots. At some point in our poker careers, we’ve thought that “it’s my turn to win” or “that donks luck is bound to run out!” Unfortunately, that’s not how poker works. Each hand is an independent event. The hands before [...]
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Poker and Emotional Sterility
Posted on15. Feb, 2007 by Gugel.
There’s an interesting post on the 2+2 psychology forums right now about how playing poker trains you to minimize your emotions. Emotions are the bane of poker players. We want to make rational and unbiased decisions at the table. Emotions just get in the way. The more and more we play, the more we become inoculated [...]
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Ansky on Tilt – Been There, Done That
Posted on03. Jun, 2006 by Ansky.
One of the best parts of my game, and my take on poker in general, is that I almost never tilt or get affected by results. I pride myself on being able to take a 1 outer and not blink, and remove my emotions from variance, the element of the game which we cannot control. [...]
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