29 Aug 2024 mindset mental game discipline motivation downswing In this article, seasoned professional poker player Alec Torelli will share useful tips on psychology from his vast experience. You will learn: How to get through downswings with the least amount of pain, How to get back into the game after a break, How to properly observe your opponents and also How to make smart adjustments to them. Without further ado, let's get down to business. Next is Alec Torelli's speech. How to overcome downswings less painfully? For this article, I have selected 3 of the most interesting, in my opinion, questions from Twitter subscribers. The first question is about long drawdowns and one-time huge losses of money. - Question: what does it feel like to lose in one evening the amount of money that an ordinary person earns in a year? Losing money always sucks. In addition, the pain of losing is always stronger than the joy of winning. Imagine that you lost $100. And now - that you won the same $100. Or even better - 10 buy-ins of the working limit, so that they cost 1/5-1/3 of the bankroll. The amount is the same, but the feeling is not. We feel that winning is something self-evident and happens by itself, because we are supposedly such cool players and play so well. In general, that this money was rightfully due to us. But we feel a loss as if we were robbed: we play well, but see only a loss. - What, they say, is going on? Such a negative asymmetry (when pain is stronger than pleasure) is characteristic of any person with a still normal, - human, - brain, whose chains of expectation of positive results from their work have not yet atrophied. Therefore, we always face the challenge of retraining ourselves to completely ignore any emotions at all. Another thing that is typical for us is that the more expensive we play, the more painful the losses are. Even though we have a proportionally increased bankroll. I know many who believe that by raising the limit, it will still be acceptable to keep the same number of buy-ins in the bankroll. People think that since they play calmly and confidently at NL10 with a bankroll of $300 (30 buy-ins), then they will play and feel just as calmly and normally at NL25 with $750. - With the same 30 buy-ins. However, no, it will not be as good. At least at first. One hundred dollars is an amount that can be called a kind of psychological boundary, a large chunk of the bankroll. And $25 is already 1/4 of $100. 1 lost buy-in is already felt much more noticeably even though the number of these buy-ins remains the same. At the NL50 limit, each lost stack / buy-in is already a whole half of $100. At NL100 - the whole hundred. The more expensive you play and the more money is at stake, the more painful it is to lose it because each buy-in has become much more expensive in absolute value - you can buy much more for $100 than for $50. How can you ease this pain? First, immediately divide the money into 2 categories: Bankroll, which includes money specifically allocated exclusively for poker and Liferoll - this is the money that you use in real life. This means that you keep the poker bankroll in the room / rooms / in quick access for a deposit in the poker room, and it does not relate to the liferoll in any way: Neither in fact - when you regularly transfer money back and forth, Neither «in reserve» - when you clearly know that if something happens, you have a good «stash», Neither in any other way that implies the availability of money in the poker bankroll. Useful video: Watch this if you ever felt Lost in poker Use the bankroll only for development in poker and as a safety margin: play not as safe as possible, but as the game requires for maximum EV, shoot the upper limit more often, go through downstreaks without a significant rollback in limits and especially - a deposit for a while or forever ... It's better not to touch the bankroll at all until you manage to reach the «liberation limit». The «liberation limit» is where your $/hour from poker starts to exceed $/hour from salary / other income. At the same time, you need to be confident in your profitability over a significant distance and be able to withstand significant drawdowns. When you have a separate bankroll and liferoll, everything is fine with you: you don't worry too much about failures, even when they drag on, and at the same time you don't lose your mind when the game is going too well. All the ups and downs are within the boundaries of the safe part of your bankroll. And about liferoll I will say this. Unlike poker, with which there is little to compare in terms of variance and unpredictability of results over a certain period, real life is relatively stable in terms of money, savings and income. And there are always ways to save and increase them, without risking them in the process. And when the main share of my money is under my control, and separate money is allocated for poker, then I am calm and I play great, without fears or any serious concerns. Habituation to variance On the other hand, we should mention such a concept as habituation / tolerance to variance or tolerance of its consequences. Here is an example. When you drink coffee / alcohol / smoke / eat / do anything else, the first portions of the substance consumed cause the most vivid emotions: The first cup of coffee is the most invigorating, The first cigarette / shot is the most relaxing, And at the same time they are the most intoxicating, The first portion of ice cream brings maximum pleasure, etc. And further portions bring less and less pleasure. The same applies to unpleasant activities that cause discomfort and pain - the first portions are felt as the most unpleasant, and gradually we get more and more accustomed to it. At some point, a moment comes when it does not hurt so much - we are accustomed and do not feel it as much as it was felt before. Now about poker The first time you shoot a new stake and lose, no matter what stake, it's very painful and offensive at first. But the more attempts you make and hands you play there, the easier subsequent losses are to bear. I'm not saying that losing will become easy and will not hurt at all, but it will be much easier than before, that's a fact. So, let's briefly summarize this point, and then move on. To bear downswings easier, you need to: In every sense, separate your bankroll from your main life money, Gradually increase your insensitivity to poker events that are beyond your control, And gradually learn not to feel any emotions at all about both losses and wins. This is part of your advantage over others. How to get back into poker after a break? The second question is about how to get back into shape quickly and suffer less at first. - What is the best way to get back into poker after a 2-month break? I will try to answer this question briefly. When we temporarily stop doing something, we lose shape. Poker shape includes not only strategy, but also many other things that have been forgotten / dulled: perception, thinking, willingness to take risks and other psychology. The zeroth action that should be done right away is to drop your importance and become a humble person again. This will open your mind and eyes, and also reduce your ego in poker. You have been away from here long enough to forget how to play against opponents who have been here all this time and have been building up experience, skills and bankroll. It will be completely natural if at first you find it hard and the results are not pleasing. So, the return to competent and conscious poker should be done in approximately the following order: Start with oral analysis of anyone's hands - involve friends, listen to their opinions and think, Then I recommend that you practice in the software to find the best ways to play the spot you are interested in, Look through articles and videos on the most key topics and spots that are most frequent and relevant in each hand, Start a real game: (1) with a limit lower than the working one; (2) play as simply and straightforwardly as possible at first - a minimum of difficult situations and a maximum of simple ones; (3) get involved in the game, and watch how your thinking begins to accelerate to its former values, Start «stretching» your mental endurance - we talked about it above. Your main task is to gradually, step by step return to your previous form in order to gain an even better form. In order not to overexert yourself and at the same time enjoy the process of learning, remembering everything and getting the game on the right «rails», you need to start with the basics and gradually move to more complex topics. Open your mind to everything new that will happen to you. After a short time, you will «return» fully. How to observe opponents and make smart adjustments to them? And the last question, but the longest: - In sports, the best athletes and coaches know how to correctly adjust their behavior right from the start of the game. What adjustments right during the game of poker - not requiring a large sample - can an amateur player make? How should he adjust? Don't label players hastily I discuss this with my clients quite often. As I mentioned in the answer to the 2nd question, it is worth approaching any game with a humble mindset. In addition, try to avoid making unambiguous verdicts about opponents based on too small a sample, and especially - sticking to these labels. When you sit down at a table, watch the action for only a few hands and see some unusual play for a regular, you can label the player as a fish. Sometimes this is justified, however More often than not, quickly labeling someone will lead us to ignore new information about the opponent's game in the future. In addition to the fact that you too quickly categorized the player as a reg or fish, you did not give any specifics about what kind of fish / reg he is and what his ranges are approximately filled with: An aggressive fish who bluffs a lot, and plays more passively with value, An aggressive fish who donks a lot, (check-)raises and barrels with single-pair hands, An aggressive reg who plays a balanced game / he has value, bluffs and semi-bluffs, An aggressive reg who plays too aggressively, but his range is probably not up to that amount of aggression, A passive fish who doesn't bluff at all, but will call everything until he's done, A passive fish who can sometimes bluff with a draw / completely random depending on his mood, A passive fish who plays narrow ranges and overfolds right away, so you can't win a lot of money from him, A passive reg who likes to set traps, which means his passive lines have a lot of valuable hands... This is still a very small cross-section of possible variations reg/fish and their habits. And besides that, there are other players between regs and fish... That is, the label «reg», «fish» or «semi-fish» is not informative at all, and you won't be able to adjust very well with such data. Always clarify: if it's a reg - then which one and why? If it's a fish, then what kind of fish is he and why? An aggressive fish, and that's it? - Is that a full-fledged basis for adjustment? - And what adjustment? So it will be good to have several types of players described by behavior at once, so that later you can mark all the new ones, as well as observe those already marked and, if there are good reasons, give them a different label and characteristics. And therefore, play accordingly with the updated type of opponent. Poker is not football, where you can more or less study the opposing team in advance, find out the strengths and weaknesses of both the team as a whole and its specific players, and accordingly develop adequate adjustments to behavior. In our game, everything is much more complex and ambiguous, and we need to spend much more time collecting truthful information. If we watch players on TV or streams - especially when their hole cards are visible - it's easy to draw conclusions. However, if a stranger sits down at your table, where are you going to get information other than the stereotypical age, mannerisms and dress code? What influences the behavior of players and possible changes in it? Firstly, this is a change in the situation at the table: Аor example, when a player in position on you gets a bigger stack, then usually the fold equity on him decreases due to the fact that now he not only sees your actions (as before), but it has also become cheaper for him to play with you. Therefore, he will call you and raise more often, and you, in order to effectively counter this, will have to play tighter, because the big stack in position is a significant factor. And he controls much more here than you. Secondly, when someone wins or loses a serious bank, then usually he experiences strong emotions. This means that his tilt is just around the corner. This is especially true for those who were «humiliated» when their opponent won in a very offensive way. - Be on guard. Thirdly, a change in the composition and seating of players. As you know, regulars generally play differently against fish than they would play against other regulars. Therefore, the fact that one unknown player showed some nonsense in a separate hand could be caused not only and not so much by tilt / his incompetence, but also by who he was playing against (in his opinion). Let's say, based on the result of the hand, you labeled him as an aggressive fish, and in several subsequent hands against you, he shows you a hand of a different strength. Or he won't have time to show it ... And also keep in mind that you are probably also an unknown player for him ... In general, here's what I advise you to do: Constantly update your strategy and views on your opponents in real time Watch others and in each subsequent hand, change your game a little: by 1, 2, 5%, etc., based on new information. This means that you will have to really watch what your opponents are doing, and not stare at your phone or be distracted by anything other than poker. You will have to learn to be focused for 2-5-8 hours straight. And for this, in turn, you need to be in good physical shape, eat right and meditate regularly, relaxing your mind. - Anything to learn to be in the moment and better notice opportunities. I remind you that every seemingly insignificant detail gradually grows into your advantage over other players. Do you need it and at what cost - you decide for yourself. That's all for today. I hope the information in this article has given you some food for thought. This article was written from the How to Overcome Downswings and Losses in Poker video by Vladimir ABIVPlus.