A note on Success, Failure, and the Downswing Mindset

I cam across this thread on two plus two http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/showthread.php?t=280899

I really made me realise that my poker mentality could be fundamentally flawed. I tend to think of my self as having a fairly sturdy poker mindset.... I am not playing for a living so I am not relying on running well in poker to support myself and I am being staked to play so I should have less emotional attachment to the money I am playing with. All this should mean that as long as I am content that I am playing +EV poker, the outcome of the game should not effect me... after all, so long as I am playing good poker, the immediate results should have zero impact on my mentality.... I am not looking to cash out every day.... I am not having to account for the daily swings out of my own pocket.... and I know that variance is a fundamental part of poker (albeit a rather horrible one). So, why is it that when I loose a HU match I am effected in a negative way?

There are 3 possible ways to loose a HU match:

1) I am outmatched and outplayed..... However, at the $10 HUSNGs on Full Tilt it is very rare to come accross even a winning player and so I think that it is unlikely that I am going to come accross many players who simply just dominate me. (I am not claiming to be a great poker player, just that my opponents tend to be worse than me)

2) I play badly and make -EV decisions..... We all make -EV decisions sometimes, (there is no such thing as the perfect poker player) and they are usually the result of not being in the correct mood to play poker. Maybe you are too tired, too tilted, too drunk.... playing in the wrong mood leads to making -EV decisions, which finally result in you loosing a match which you should have won.

3) Getting outdrawn.... It happens to the worst player in the world and it happens to the best player in the world, it is something that we cannot escape.


Reasons 1 and 2 are aspects of poker which can be avoided (in the case of HUSNGs you cannot leave a match once it has started..... but there is still an aspect of game selection at the higher levels), however reason 3 CANNOT be avoided.... we WILL get outdrawn again and again and again. We have NO choice. Since we have no say in the matter, this aspect of poker should not effect us in any way.

So... to improve my poker mentality... I am going to concentrate very hard on making correct decisions and ban myself from checking my sharkscope stats / cashier balance every 2 minutes.... Correctly calling a shove with 77 on a 355 board vs your opponents K8 and them hitting a K on the river (hand from today) should make you ecstatic that you made a great call, not bitter that your opponent always hits his cards.

I am going to finish with a quote from Irieguy from two plus two:

Everybody will eventually run worse than they thought was possible. The difference between a winner and a loser is that the latter thinks they do not deserve it.

So, am going to try to post much better content on my blog from now on, and improve my poker mentality and attitude towards running bad vs playing bad.

Gl to all