Mental Game Forum

Post edited 4:22 am – August 13, 2010 by Jared

It’s obvious when you’ve won something in poker, your chips, bracelet, title, money, account balance is starting you right in face, but it’s not that way with the mental game.  The mental game challenges you to define winning on your own, and especially for goals that take a long time achieve, sometimes you’ll win and not even realize it.  

I was talking with a client yesterday about this.  He’s among my oldest poker clients, over two years, and he was talking about increasing the hours he plays from 25 to 30 as though he was pissed at himself for not being able to play 30.  He’s a full time player, so there’s no excuse in his mind.  Except when you put 25 hours in the context of where he’s been, 25 is a solid accomplishment and he didn’t even realize it.  Basically he’s wanted the same thing in cycles for over two years.  When he was only playing 8-13hrs, he wanted 20, when he got to 20 he wanted 25, and each time along the way forgetting the progress that had been made before.  

The point is, that when you fail to recognize the accomplishments you’ve made in the mental game, not only do you not get to enjoy it, you also fail to validate the means or the process that got you where you are now.  Leaving you instead feeling unfulfilled, and with less energy to go after what you want NOW, and less certain about how to get there.  

I don’t often talk about my own mental game, it’s not purposeful, I just never have too much I think, as poker players you’d be interested in.  Unintentionally, I think that’s lead to some of you thinking that I don’t struggle myself.  It’s because I do that I understand so much and am motivated to learn more.

I have a live interview coming up on a morning radio talk show that broadcasts through Michigan (at 8am – i'll link to the podcast when it's available) and last night I was feeling a nervous about it.  Back in my golf days nerves in big tournaments was what I struggled with most.  I’ve put a ton of work in over that time and along with knowing that my unconscious competence is really solid, a lot of my nerves are gone, but some of course remains.  There’s two side of it for me, the excitement nerves and the nervous nerves.  In doing some writing last night I realized my nervous nerves were a fear of looking stupid.  I’ve definitely looked stupid before so this isn’t a completely irrational fear, just one that doesn’t account for how strong my core knowledge is.  

The speed at which I was able to move through and past my nerves is one thing of note; the other is something I don’t really know what it means.  In the past my nervousness was always centered in my stomach and last night it was in my chest.  Given the first point, I knew I’d accomplished something being able to compare it to the speed I could resolve issues in the past, and the second point added further proof since it must mean something, I just don’t know what.  

So in a way, I see the interview a tangible reward for my work and helped me to measure my mental game progress.  

So this got me thinking that I need to create the mental version of Hold’em Manager.  There’s so much value to being able to track progress in the mental game, and since our minds and emotions need to be trained to see that progress and not lose perspective, some kind of software would be great for it.  What do you think?

I agree Bryan, the market is probably small, but for people like yourself who are really passionate about it, it for sure would be valuable, and may see be financially viable to build.  To be honest, I really think it would make me even better at what I do to try to create something like this, so it might be worth it for that reason alone. 

If I decide to pursue this more down the line, would you be interested in being part of it in some way?  Obviously nothing defined now, but having someone like you who's excited about the process as well as the material would be a great help.