09 Dec 2024 Intermediate This material is for medium-skilled players mental game motivation moving up stakes Over the years I have coached a lot of poker players who struggle to meet their volume goals, typically at low stakes, since players who have this issue tend not to go very far in poker unless they have access to extremely soft sites. My approach to overcoming this challenge has two core solutions. Number one, embrace the minimum viable action. That means starting with the smallest possible step to build momentum. And number two, adopt the just do it mentality. Take action without overthinking or waiting for the perfect conditions. Introduction Before we go into those solutions, I do think it's important to understand the unique nature of poker and why this is a problem for so many players. It might seem easy to dismiss somebody who plays a game for a living and can't show up for work, but poker does have a unique lack of external accountability. There's no boss, no fixed schedule, no customers waiting for you to show up to work, and the freedom that poker offers makes it really easy to procrastinate. As a professional poker player, your expected value is going to be determined by your stakes, your win rate, and the number of hands that you play. So a lot of your success in poker depends on your personal motivation to play enough hands and your ability to effectively create your own structure. Variance also makes it more difficult to stick to a consistent schedule. Players tend to protect their wins, and this is actually a form of self-sabotage. Players will win early in the month and then stop playing to sort of protect their gains, which reduces their overall volume, limits their earnings, and hinders their overall development. Routine of an Online Poker Pro Let's imagine a typical scenario of a player who's struggling to put in volume. As you get closer to the time that you're supposed to put in your session, there's a mix of excitement and anxiety, and then some doubts start to surface. You start to question, am I in the right mindset? What if I don't play well today? Eventually you come to a moment of avoidance. You start to seek distractions. You decide to have a snack first and maybe watch a quick video before your session. One video turns into an hour of browsing, and then you rationalize your procrastination. You convince yourself maybe that the games aren't very good right now anyway. When you postpone your session, or maybe even cancel it altogether, you will feel an immediate relief. You may then go enjoy some sort of leisurely activities, but behind that relief there will be an underlying sense of unease, and then a sense of guilt begins to build. At the end of the day, you'll realize that the day has passed without playing any hands, or without playing nearly as many as you had planned, and feelings of regret and self-doubt will start to surface. You'll promise yourself to make up for it tomorrow, not realizing that that just makes the next day's expectations feel heavier. You'll wake up with the weight of unmet goals, which makes starting even harder. This can turn into a cycle of avoidance, eroding your confidence, where each day of avoidance chips away at your self-esteem. It can cause frustration and disappointment to accumulate, and this will ultimately diminish your enjoyment of the game. You may not be totally caught in this cycle, but probably some parts of it do resonate with you. When you look back at the end of a month, or at the end of a quarter, at the number of hands you played, there's a sense of underwhelm. Like, man, is that really all I played this month? I think I should be able to do better than that. Concept of Minimum Viable Action So how do we break free from this pattern of avoiding sessions and actually play the volume that we plan to play, if not more? This is where the concept of the Minimum Viable Action comes into play. The Minimum Viable Action is a concept that I picked up from the author Mark Manson, and it's about taking the smallest possible step toward your goal to build momentum. To apply this to poker, this could mean breaking down your sessions. Instead of one daunting 6 hour session, aim to just play 100 hands. Then when you finish that 100 hands, try to play another 100. You know, the other morning, it was time for me to go for my morning run, and I felt really unmotivated. And I don't mean that I was actually exhausted. My body was fine. But I just really didn't want to go. So instead, I started by putting on my running gear, and then I just went for a short walk. And sure enough, 5 minutes in, I felt like jogging. And then I eventually completed my run. So the lesson there is that sometimes you have to start small to overcome that inertia. Don't think about your entire session - just focus on starting. I really think that this is one of the most, if not the most important concepts for becoming a quote, productive person. «Just Do It» Mentality Now I also want to talk about the second solution, which is the Just Do It mentality. Because the problem with the Minimum Viable Action, if you just use that concept in isolation, is it can lead to you over-celebrating small, insignificant accomplishments. You can use all of the tactics in the world, but eventually you are just going to have to force yourself to sit there and do the work. This is why I opened with that quote from Neil Gaiman. Neil Gaiman is an author, and he struggles with writer's block. He eventually came up with this rule where he would schedule his writing sessions, and he would sit there at his desk, and he would only give himself two options. If he really couldn't write, then that's okay. He wouldn't write. But he wouldn't allow himself to do anything else. He would literally just sit there, and after an hour or two hours of just sitting there, the thought of writing feels a lot better than the alternative, which is to just continue to sit there and do nothing. One of your core problems, if you're failing to put in sessions that you schedule, is probably just that you have allowed yourself some sort of alternative. You'll probably do some sort of rationalization to get there, like I already discussed, but ultimately what you're telling yourself when you blow off a session is that you have an alternative. You can go and watch TV instead of playing this session, rather than treating a poker session like an appointment that you absolutely cannot miss. I think for the players who struggle with this the most, it's actually an identity issue. They not only allow themselves alternatives to working, but they actually think of themselves as the kind of person who slacks off, not the kind of person who sets goals and meets them consistently. Changing your identity is probably the hardest thing, and it's a bit outside of the scope of this podcast, but it is an important thing to consider. Key Tips on How to Improve Your Volume Let's talk about leveraging some tools and techniques to help you improve your volume in the short term. First I recommend planning out your day. I do this extensively, and more recently I've actually leveraged large language bottles to help me with this. So I went on ChatGPT and I used the new Model 01 Preview to actually plan out my entire day. I said, these are the things that I need to do in my day, everything from taking out my dog to the specific blocks of work that I typically need to do in a day, and I told it to help me build a schedule that I could easily follow. I also recommend setting alarms or notifications to keep yourself on track. So if you're planning to play at 7, you should have an alarm that goes off at 6 or 6.30, and make sure that you're really set up to go into that session. It shouldn't hit you as like a surprise when it's your time to play. Another strategy is to get a poker coach who can hold you accountable. It's sort of an easy way to outsource your self-discipline. You know, I'm more of a technical coach, and I tend to pride myself on helping players with their poker strategy, but I'm always surprised, even with the high stakes players that I coach, how often that they say one of the main things that they value about my coaching is just the fact that I hold them accountable. Because if they didn't have me, nobody else would be checking up on them to make sure that they're hitting the proper volume every month. Finally, you have to track your results. At the end of every week, or perhaps the end of every month, you should take a look at how much volume you played, and how much you plan to play. And if you fell short of that, then it's time to be honest with yourself about what went wrong. As we wrap up, I want to challenge you to pride yourself on consistency. Because small steps add up, regularly taking the minimum viable action will lead to significant progress in hitting your volume goals. Remember that imperfection is acceptable - in most cases, it's better to play imperfectly than not to play at all. Try to take immediate action when you feel that avoidance setting in, and begin with just a few hands, because even a short session will move you closer to your goal. But remember that self-discipline is ultimately your responsibility. And there will come times where you have to just chain yourself to the chair and do the work. And over time, you may actually see the beauty in this. You can enjoy the journey, embrace the process and the discipline that it builds, and see how it translates to all other areas of your life. So I hope that helps you if you're struggling with this. That's all I've got for this topic. GL at the tables!
