Heads Up with Remko – Jared Tendler

During the WSOP I did a really good long form interview with Remko Rinkema where we talked esports, the WSOP and how to prepare for the big MTT grind.

I have been doing more interviews with entrepreneurs like this one I did with Jay Wong from The Inner Changemaker Podcast. We dive into what is the mental game needed to be successful in life. If you want to have a strong mental game you’ll want to listen in.

 

For the last six months I’ve been making videos at LearnWPT. The WPT’s learning arm captained by Nick Binger. Below you can check out a sample of one of the videos I made about decision making.

The reality is that your results in poker all come down to the decisions you make and that’s why I think it’s important that players actually work on training their decision-making process. If you find yourself making bad calls or ill-timed raises in spite of all your study and hard work, then you need to spend some time working on your decision making. Sure there could be other mental game issues, like tilt and fear, blocking that knowledge from being easily used. But strengthening your decision-making process can help you make better decisions even in the face of tilt and fear.

If you want to check out more of my videos, along with more than 100 other poker strategy episodes from Nick Binger, then check out LearnWPT. They’ll give your first month for $5. They also have a big promotion going on, where you can get 20% off their live workshops.

After showing you how to prepare for the WSOP and then manage your emotions, my final tip for those of you taking a big shot at a live event like the WSOP sadly wont be relevant for most of the people playing, because it is about how to manage getting deep into the tournament. However, it is precisely because it happens rarely that you need to do prep work now, because otherwise you will be ill prepared the times that you do.

The biggest problem poker players face when they get deep into the tournament is managing themselves away from it. Poker is so mentally taxing, especially when you are playing for 12 hours or more a day, that it often requires effort to be able to switch off. How you rest is just as important as how you perform when it comes to playing for many long days in a row.

During the breaks

I think poker players actually do what I would recommend them to do and that’s to talk about hands, to vent. It’s a good thing because it helps your mind to process what’s going on – sometimes you can get tired because of what I call “bloated brain”, the mental equivalent of eating too much food. You’re not tired physically, but you’ve stuffed your brain with too much information and it weighs you down.

Talking about hands, getting things out of your head, “digesting”, is good but you need a buffer of about five minutes – a window to relax. I would try and find a balance where you start by getting the hands out of your head by venting for the first 10 minutes of a 20 minute break, before going for a 10 minute walk or something else that will clear your head. You want to come back from the break refreshed. If you spend every 20 minute break continuing to think about poker, you’re going to burnout faster.

Ending the Day

Most poker players do not have a “cool down” process, but they should. Not only does a good cool down prepare you tactically for the next time you play, it is also a good way of putting poker to bed for the day. When it comes to the WSOP, I would keep your cool down simple, and something which allows you to vent and make sure you don’t make errors the next day.

Start by journalling for five minutes, on a piece of paper or on your phone/laptop. Simply write down anything that comes into your mind. My clients have found that the process of writing it down has the cathartic effect of taking it out of their head and putting it on paper. This technique has helped a lot of players sleep better that night, whereas previously they would have had thoughts swirling around keeping them up at night.

The second part of the cool down process I would advocate is tactical. As we have previously mentioned, we want to keep active learning to a minimum, so now is not the time to discover new poker information. Instead, make a note of the biggest mistakes you made, and why they were mistakes. This will keep those errors top of mind the next day, so you are less likely to make them again (especially if you reread this journal the next day).

Switching Off

Not only is poker so mentally exhausting, modern life does not help you relax. All those distractions like Twitter, Facebook and poker forums that you tell convince yourself are a form of relaxing, are actually the opposite. They keep your mind active when and absorbing new information when you really need to be decompressing and getting it clear. I’d actually advocate a complete digital detox during the WSOP, or at least ration your internet usage. For some of you that will be very hard, but at a minimum try and make your last few hours before bed internet and poker free.

Most importantly, try and get some solid sleep. The only thing I would advise against is going to bed immediately after poker. You need some time to decompress, otherwise you may have problems sleeping. Try and spend time doing something completely non-poker related, and fun — go for a meal, work out, have a beer, watch a movie — something that is as far away from poker as possible. Of course, if you’re playing poker until 2am that many not be practical.

I hope these tips have helped. I go into much more detail about how to decompress after poker, improve your focus and manage distractions in my book The Mental Game of Poker 2.

Finally, I plan on having more of these guides so make sure you join my newsletter to be the first to hear about them. Also, if you are playing in the WSOP this year and these tips helped you, make sure to tell me about it.

If you are interested in some of the insights in this post, I cover them in more detail in The Mental Game of Poker 2, which you can currently get for $15 off. You can also download either of my books for free on Audiobook when opening a new account at Audible.

In my previous post I gave you some tactical advice on how to approach training for that big once a year live event like the WSOP Main Event. My core approach is to keep learning simple during this time, so don’t worry, what follows wont overload you. Today I want to prepare you for how your attitude may impact your performance.

Overexcitement

The WSOP is a once-a-year event that gives you the opportunity to test your game against the best poker players in the world. The excitement of the event is awesome, and it’s why so many of you will walk away with great memories. But it can be easy to get too excited and that’s a big problem. While it is often the case that everybody nits up near the bubble in the Main Event, it is also the case that a similar number of people throw away their once-a-year tournament in the first few hours of Day 1.

Each player has a line, where too much excitement leads them to do things on and off the table that causes them to perform poorly. You want to put yourself in the best position to do well, and that might mean having to consciously put the brakes on. It would be terrible to go out and get wasted the night before you are supposed to play, so I’d advise making plans ahead of time to do something light and relaxing the night before you play.

It might not be partying that is your problem; it could be that you want to play the night before the Main Event. This might seem more productive than getting drunk with your buddies, but if you end up playing too late, or losing quite a lot, it could have serious ramifications on your mindset the next day. If this is your likely Achilles’ heel, then plan in advance to do something a bit more social and relaxing instead.

Finally, while a lot of players play too tightly, others are not used to the two hour levels and slow structure and overplay hands early because they are overexcited or lack patience. This is where my previous advice of being aware of what your biggest leaks are, maybe having them written down on a piece of paper, as a way intervening before you press the self destruct button.

Dreaming Too Much

It is every player’s dream to win the Main Event, but each year over 7,000 players have that dream quashed, and only one person has it fulfilled. There is nothing wrong with having high aspirations, but dreaming too much can wreak havoc on your mindset, particularly in a game like poker, where the best players lose more often than in just about any other sport.

Dreaming too much can interfere with your poker game at the WSOP in two ways. First, it simply can get in the way of making good quality decisions in the moment. You only have a certain amount of mental space at any one time during a hand, and when you are too focused on the end result of winning the Main Event, you’re not focused on making clear decisions right now.

The other way it becomes a problem is when your stack takes a hit or has slowly dwindled down. Dreaming too much can make it harder for you to recover and continue to fight. You’ll get deflated when it feels like your dream isn’t going to come true, which is bull shit. You’re not a psychic; you don’t know what’s going to happen. Lay everything on the line and if you do bust, you’ll know that you did everything you could.

It’s inevitable that your mind will wander towards what could be in the Main Event, so here is the best way of using that too your advantage. When your mind wanders, start to think about what you would do in certain tough tactical spots, rather than what you would do for your winner’s interview. Think about, for example, what the best approach would be on the money bubble or if you found yourself facing an all-in call with Pocket Kings during the first blind level. Think about the situations where you know yourself well and could make mistakes, and try and make the daydream about what you would do in that situation. Not only may this arm you well if that scenario comes up at the very least it won’t surprise you when it does. Otherwise you will make mistakes when a call for your tournament life presents itself when it woke you up as you were planning how you were

If your mind is prone to wandering, let it wander towards something practical and useful.

Stay tuned for a final tip this week dealing with how to stay sharp when you make it deep in a big event.

I’m going to be providing a lot more free content this year and the best way to hear about them first is by joining my mailing list below:

If you are interested in some of the insights in this post, I cover them in more detail in The Mental Game of Poker 2, which you can currently get for $15 off. You can also download either of my books for free on Audiobook when opening a new account at Audible.