Mental Game Forum

Hi:)

When it is ok, i would have one further question to you regards to a topic of your

great book – it is about the process model:

Ideally i should go this way: I play for example a session -> I get some shortterm results -> then I am evaluating them (spotting variance, mistakes, etc…) -> finally I am analyzing some strategic stuff which has come up -> then I prepare for my next session (physical exercise, meditation, autogene training or other Warm-ups..) -> to very finally play my next session and then the circle is starting from new.

I am a professional poker player and I always wanna have a pretty structured day (I use for example a to do -ist, etc…):

Here is my personal problem:
I like to analyze for example special hands where I have some uncertainites directly after my session by posting the hands in a forum or ctach someone of my studygroup per skype up…

That is great, but i find myself then spending sometimes too much time for analyzing and it also eats so much mental energy from me, that I am way too often just not capable to direclty start with a short preperation after the theoretical work in order to play my next session – this ends up in way too long preperation-timeframes (where usually a 10-minutes meditation is for example enough for me to refocus and refresh, and also just clean my mind, I suddenly need to do it 30 minutes +).

The thing is that i need to play 3 sessions daily (~2h netto per session) to reach my volume-targets…

b/c of the described issue, i end up pretty often to just not reach the volume.

I have tried now a few times to mark every questionable hand or issue and only start with analysing and the theoretical work after all my sessions.

This works so far pretty good to me and it feels for me just better when i have one part of my work completely done (practice work) and then can do my other part of my job (theoretical work) without any time-pressure.

So in practice my process Model would look like:

Performance (Session) -> Results -> Evaluation (also marking hands and noting stuff down on what I wanna work, next to spotting variance, mistakes…) -> Preperation – > Session -> Results-> Evaluation -> Preperation..->… -> Evaluation -> Analyizing most of the stuff what came up during the sessions.

- I know that this might be not ideally, but can this be an alternative for me?

- Maybe some of your students had similar probs like me in the past?

- What you think about that?

Maybe you find some time,

Best Regards,

Placebo

Hey, thank you very much for your very helpful response:)

Hi Placebo,

It sounds like you have a more disciplined framework implemented than a lot of players, so kudos for that.

Have you considered dividing your time up in a different way. For instance, what about studying/reviewing one day, then playing one day?

Also, what is driving your volume target? Why are you so concerned about volume?

Good idea with the Tilt Journal. I can't see any bad coming from having a brutally honest dialog with oneself over such a topic.

- Shane

Yea, it certainly couldn't hurt to try out splitting up your time differently. I'd suggest two to three weeks, see how you do with that.

With regards to your volume and # of tables,

In a poker game, we are faced with hundreds of decisions when we sit down at the table. Each one of these decisions is a side-effect from a situation on the table we are put in, and each decision leeches a various amount of energy from us.

So, I think it's fair to assume that if we lessen the amount of complex decisions we have to make in a poker game we could start adding more tables.

One way we can do this is practice equity calculations away from the table. One thing I have been attempting to do is estimating my equity on the flop each hand against a range, which is based on opponent preflop actions.

Just imagine if you developed the muscle memory to call out your equity on nearly every street almost instantly. This certainly IS NOT the answer to winning poker, and there's obviously many more variants to consider. But this would be a tool in your arsenal for easing some of those energy leeching complex decision points in a match.  I think a tool like this would enable you to add more tables confidently and therefore allow you to grind more volume.

You sound like a really experienced player and someone trying to get better. If you're interested in working practice sessions or to discuss hands, private message me and perhaps we can skype!