+++Q&A with Jared Tendler!!+++

Originally posted by JaredTendlerYou must be thinking of Joe Navarro - I didn't make it on ESPN - I wish I did! Or maybe I did, and didn't even know it, lol. What do you remember?

Sounds good, we'll set-up round 2 in a bit. Keep up the great work until then.

Nope, this was on the ESPN live broadcast. It was an interview just off the feature table leading up to a final table or something. Just a short, maybe 30 second spot talking about what players will face and preparation.

I think that year ESPN was putting out feelers for a lot of commentary options, maybe because of the huge demand for a quality live broadcast. I have a knack for recognizing these spots and I think this is probably still a real opprotunity. The WSOP commentary booth has an open door so far this series. Good step off point.

Hi Jared,
I have really huge problem with running bad tilt. I mean firstly for me it doesn't have to be even that long 2 days of shitty results might kill my motivations to play.
So run bad kills my volume and it is really bad when you do it for a living.
Basically I have problems with reseting my mind. I tried producitvaly venting,started the cool down rutine yet there is still very little progress.
(BTW I remember watchnig your Playing your a game Cr series where you mentioned Biofeedback I did some digging didn't find anything particulalry usefull, could you suggest some books,vids or any sources that could be helpful with the biofeedback stuff??)

Another issue is increasing my volume. I still can't push myself to play longer than 1-1.5h sessions. I did some job with this e.g.watched making the supernova or supernova elite dtb series. The problem is I always end up with burnout and I am not able to play for a couple of days. So I am able to play like 2-3 days a little bit longer and then it is done can't play anymore for a couple of days.

Originally posted by JaredTendler

Originally posted by poketingaces
hi jared,
i find myself always being satisfied and losing motivation to continue grinding once i have won a certain amount. it doesnt matter what volume or stakes i was playing to get that amount but whenever i hit that x amount in winnings i decide to call it a day. any thoughts on this?

thank you.

For example, do you lock up a win because if you're up say 4BI and then you end up break-even on the day, you'll be tilting your face off. In this case, locking up a win, not only locks up the money, it avoids the potential for tilt.

Its funny you say that because yesterday only i had a session where i was playing 6-8 tables and was up 4.5 buyins and was about 4 buyins short of that x amount and i was surely gnna quit if i hit it. then i lost most of it back and was really frustrated and spewed some more before realizing i was playing like a monkey.

How did this pattern start? How long has it been going on for? Why do you want to break it? What are your goals in poker - short and long-term?

i dont really have any short term goals except just moving up. Long term goal is to play the biggest games one day. But i know i have some big mental problems on moving up. i play 50NL even though i have 100+ buyins for it. as long as i can remember i have been very conservative with BR, even when i was playing 5 NL i had 100 buyins for it. And i feel its not the ideal way of playing since like u said i am playing too much in my comfort zone.

Originally posted by datsmahname

Originally posted by JaredTendlerYou must be thinking of Joe Navarro - I didn't make it on ESPN - I wish I did! Or maybe I did, and didn't even know it, lol. What do you remember?

Sounds good, we'll set-up round 2 in a bit. Keep up the great work until then.

Nope, this was on the ESPN live broadcast. It was an interview just off the feature table leading up to a final table or something. Just a short, maybe 30 second spot talking about what players will face and preparation.

I think that year ESPN was putting out feelers for a lot of commentary options, maybe because of the huge demand for a quality live broadcast. I have a knack for recognizing these spots and I think this is probably still a real opprotunity. The WSOP commentary booth has an open door so far this series. Good step off point.

I love the idea of me being on ESPN, but either I blacked out last year and was on ESPN without knowing it, or you're thinking of this interview I did with Lynn Gilmartin from PokerNews: http://jaredtendlerpoker.com/blog/interview-with-lynn-gilmartin/

Originally posted by franeczek
Hi Jared,
I have really huge problem with running bad tilt. I mean firstly for me it doesn't have to be even that long 2 days of shitty results might kill my motivations to play.
So run bad kills my volume and it is really bad when you do it for a living.
Basically I have problems with reseting my mind. I tried producitvaly venting,started the cool down rutine yet there is still very little progress.
(BTW I remember watchnig your Playing your a game Cr series where you mentioned Biofeedback I did some digging didn't find anything particulalry usefull, could you suggest some books,vids or any sources that could be helpful with the biofeedback stuff??)

Another issue is increasing my volume. I still can't push myself to play longer than 1-1.5h sessions. I did some job with this e.g.watched making the supernova or supernova elite dtb series. The problem is I always end up with burnout and I am not able to play for a couple of days. So I am able to play like 2-3 days a little bit longer and then it is done can't play anymore for a couple of days.

I'm not convinced that Biofeedback is what you need. It's a tool that much better used to increase focus, but the problem you're experiencing is that you're creating a lot of emotion without the ability to get rid of it. Instead, it lingers in your mind and impairs your ability to reset your mind.

Have you tried using the Mental Hand History? Productively venting is essentially the first step of the Mental Hand History, but without doing the additional steps, you're not figuring out the underlying cause of your emotion. Consequently, it's like you're fighting up against a hidden enemy. You're mind often overwhelmed with subtle emotion - like a computer with a lot of programs running in the background, sucking up resources.

I suspect this is a big reason why you get burnt out while trying to play longer session or a lot of volume. It takes a lot of mental energy to play, AND fight against these hidden mental game issues.

So we need to break down the specific reasons why losing is so hard. Post a Mental hand history for it and I'll help you work through it.

Originally posted by poketingaces

Originally posted by JaredTendler

Originally posted by poketingaces
hi jared,
i find myself always being satisfied and losing motivation to continue grinding once i have won a certain amount. it doesnt matter what volume or stakes i was playing to get that amount but whenever i hit that x amount in winnings i decide to call it a day. any thoughts on this?

thank you.

For example, do you lock up a win because if you're up say 4BI and then you end up break-even on the day, you'll be tilting your face off. In this case, locking up a win, not only locks up the money, it avoids the potential for tilt.

Its funny you say that because yesterday only i had a session where i was playing 6-8 tables and was up 4.5 buyins and was about 4 buyins short of that x amount and i was surely gnna quit if i hit it. then i lost most of it back and was really frustrated and spewed some more before realizing i was playing like a monkey.

How did this pattern start? How long has it been going on for? Why do you want to break it? What are your goals in poker - short and long-term?

i dont really have any short term goals except just moving up. Long term goal is to play the biggest games one day. But i know i have some big mental problems on moving up. i play 50NL even though i have 100+ buyins for it. as long as i can remember i have been very conservative with BR, even when i was playing 5 NL i had 100 buyins for it. And i feel its not the ideal way of playing since like u said i am playing too much in my comfort zone.

Moving up is a good goal, but the real question is how. It doesn't seem like you have a plan for it, and without a plan or an idea of how to do it, you're just randomly going about playing. Or perhaps your plan centers around money, which means that your focus on making money makes perfect sense. Except, that while it may be money that gives you the chance to move up, it's your skill and ability to improve your skill over time that will allow you stay there, crush, and move up again.

With your focus centered around results, you're missing what's really causally connected with long-term success: Skill.

I also wonder if there are some hidden fears of failure that may be undermining your efforts here. That would explain your strong connection to results, as people who struggle with this often have their fears eased by focusing on results because results are easier to know and quantify. Skill is harder and creates more unknowns. With more unknown, there's more potential for fears to be exaggerated.

I say this mostly to just to get you thinking. Ultimately, your ability to make sustainable mental game progress will depend on your ability to accurately assess the problem.

What do you think?

Hey Jared,

I've spent the whole day reading this thread (Boss was out, so it was a quiet day). I don't think I realised quite how much there was to the mental side of poker before reading it all. I'll definitely be purchasing your book.

So here are my questions:

1. I'm currently on a massive life-tilt that has nothing to do with poker. I've always dreamed of living in New York, last Summer, I got the chance to do just that, and I have been out here on an internship since August. It's been the best year of my life, I've made some great friends and me the most amazing girlfriend ever.

There was much talk of securing me a full-time job out here, and I got a concrete offer between one and two months ago. Now here's where it all started to fall apart. I needed a ful-time work visa, which are controlled by the US govt. So we started filling everything out, and sent it off. Only to find out that the quota for the year was full. The apps starting in May for a visa starting october the same year. Now last year's visa quoted lasted way beyond october, and ran in to 2012. This Visa quota filled up in less than two months, and I missed out by less than a week.

I was devestated when I found out, knowing that I would have to say goodbye to all my new friends, my girlfriend, and the best time of my life. All because management had stalled on the job offer and the visa papers, I was so close to my dream and it feels like it's all been snatched away.

Its started affecting the rest of my life. Any time anything emotional happens, whether it's a small argument, or just something slightly depressing, it brings all these feelings out to the top, and I just instantly become insanely depressed and angry. It's making me argue with my gf more, and generally get pissed off all the time.

I know it was out of my control and there was nothing more I could have done, but that hurts me even more because I feel like I've been let down by the people that I've been working closely with for the past year.

I don't know how to get over it, because even thinking about returning home makes me feel like I'm having a panic attack, because I feel like I'm losing everything I've worked so hard for.

This is really strange for me, because usually my emotions are almost non-existant, but now I just can't control them. Is there anything you can think of that might be able to help me come to terms with it all?

(as of yet this has nothing to do with poker, but it is heading that way)

Originally posted by bennisboy
Hey Jared,

I've spent the whole day reading this thread (Boss was out, so it was a quiet day). I don't think I realised quite how much there was to the mental side of poker before reading it all. I'll definitely be purchasing your book.

So here are my questions:

1. I'm currently on a massive life-tilt that has nothing to do with poker. I've always dreamed of living in New York, last Summer, I got the chance to do just that, and I have been out here on an internship since August. It's been the best year of my life, I've made some great friends and me the most amazing girlfriend ever.

There was much talk of securing me a full-time job out here, and I got a concrete offer between one and two months ago. Now here's where it all started to fall apart. I needed a ful-time work visa, which are controlled by the US govt. So we started filling everything out, and sent it off. Only to find out that the quota for the year was full. The apps starting in May for a visa starting october the same year. Now last year's visa quoted lasted way beyond october, and ran in to 2012. This Visa quota filled up in less than two months, and I missed out by less than a week.

I was devestated when I found out, knowing that I would have to say goodbye to all my new friends, my girlfriend, and the best time of my life. All because management had stalled on the job offer and the visa papers, I was so close to my dream and it feels like it's all been snatched away.

Its started affecting the rest of my life. Any time anything emotional happens, whether it's a small argument, or just something slightly depressing, it brings all these feelings out to the top, and I just instantly become insanely depressed and angry. It's making me argue with my gf more, and generally get pissed off all the time.

I know it was out of my control and there was nothing more I could have done, but that hurts me even more because I feel like I've been let down by the people that I've been working closely with for the past year.

I don't know how to get over it, because even thinking about returning home makes me feel like I'm having a panic attack, because I feel like I'm losing everything I've worked so hard for.

This is really strange for me, because usually my emotions are almost non-existant, but now I just can't control them. Is there anything you can think of that might be able to help me come to terms with it all?

(as of yet this has nothing to do with poker, but it is heading that way)

Hey Bennis,

I hate hearing stories like this. Feel for you man.

There's a few ways of looking at how to look at the issues here:

1. When you say, "any time anything emotional happens...it bring all these feelings out to the top and I instantly become depressed." This sounds to me like Accumulated Emotion, which means that the emotion that you're feeling right now, is so intense, because it's triggered a lot of old emotion (emotional baggage) that has build up over time. If that sounds right, dealing with you Accumulated Emotion is going to be a MAJOR part of the solution, both in the short-term, and for preventing such a strong emotional reaction to something else like this in the future.

2. I'm always looking for the underlying issues embedded within a person's perspective, that is both causing intense emotions, and is also preventing them from seeing a solution. What I'm hearing you say is that you don't have a lot of control of the situation, and that's reason for you to give up, and give up control of your emotions. Bull-shit. Yes, there is a lot out of your hands, yes, it's possible that the people you work for could have done more - but so could you. Yes, this situation sucks and in an ideal world there would be an easy solution. But situations like these hold hidden life lessons - Look for them. They will help you to come to realize that situations like this, although beyond our control now, if learned from, can make us stronger in the future, and help us to appreciate the fragility of life - which makes the experience of life richer and more deeply satisfying. It also can help you to see everything that is required to support a great life. It's not standard, nor automatic. It has to be earned and made yours. It may feel like you've lost it, but you cannot know that. You're not a psychic and you don't know the future. Rather than wallowing in negativity, find a glimmer of hope that it can be possible to return here. When you do return, you'll appreciate it even more, and be even more aggressive to do everything you can to protect it.

I certainly wish you the best, and hopefully I offered a few words that have helped.

Best,
Jared

Thanks Jared,

I'll definitely try to use what you said. I'm fed up of feeling bummed out, it's just not who I am!

Are there any methods to start dealing with accumulated emotion that you could recommend or point me towards? I definitely agree with you that it seems to be the reason for my extreme reactions.

I'm trying to look on the bright side, like I loved playing poker while I could, but obviously couldn't play online while in the US. So I've decided it could be fun to split my time between job-hunting and poker when I go home. I'm not gonna have bills to pay because I'm moving back in with my parents first of all, so it gives me some freedom to see how far I can take it, and if I can get some money in to pay back my parents, then that would be awesome as well.

But obviously, without doing some work on my current mind state, I'll be in no state to play a game like poker.
I also need to start pretty much from the bottom again, which I may struggle with from a motivation point of view (usually I do something once and I know it, I'm not used to having to learn something twice!). Are there any practices that you could recommend as basic motivation for this?

And you're right, even if there is zero chance of staying here right now, I'm going to fight like hell to get back here.

the mental game is the best poker book i have ever read.

i played midstakes (mostly 400) 3 months ago. i had always been a winner but never really got to be a constant reg.

started playing nl100 fr to see if i could achieve that "thing" that people like nanonoko and vinivici do, they seem to constantly make money. i played like 150k hands in 10 days (lol, the max i had played before was 3k hands/day), and i felt pretty bad as my ev was at 2bb/100.

i took a break (travelled around europe for 3 months heh ) and i sort of struggled wondering why i couldnt be a midstakes reg, even though i could beat the game.

until i finally found your book it provided solutions for all the problems i had. too lazy to post examples, but i guess you know what i mean. i'm gonna start playing poker again in like a month, i'll make another post then to see how it goes.

Hey Jared,

My problem might sound weird but, when I do something wrong like make a mistake on poker I get this thing in my throat which makes me feel bad and makes me not play my A game. I also get this bad feeling in my throat when I do something wrong in real life, like cross street on wrong spot or something. I had this problem gone for few months (when I didn't play poker) but now it has come back. I'm 19 years old and healthy. It's all good if you don't know what to do about it, I'm not expecting you to know. Thanks a lot for making this thread and finding solutions for people.

Originally posted by JaredTendler... or you're thinking of this interview I did with Lynn Gilmartin from PokerNews: http://jaredtendlerpoker.com/blog/interview-with-lynn-gilmartin/

Yep thats the one. I must have miss-remembered.

Also, I'm really excited after working through our latest session. You have an elegant ability to help people see their own BS which became much more clear after a good night sleep and a second look. As much as I like to beat around the bush, I'm responsible for falling short of my hand volume targets.

Of course there's still lots to do, but I find myself enjoying the process.

Originally posted by bennisboy
Thanks Jared,

I'll definitely try to use what you said. I'm fed up of feeling bummed out, it's just not who I am!

Are there any methods to start dealing with accumulated emotion that you could recommend or point me towards? I definitely agree with you that it seems to be the reason for my extreme reactions.

I'm trying to look on the bright side, like I loved playing poker while I could, but obviously couldn't play online while in the US. So I've decided it could be fun to split my time between job-hunting and poker when I go home. I'm not gonna have bills to pay because I'm moving back in with my parents first of all, so it gives me some freedom to see how far I can take it, and if I can get some money in to pay back my parents, then that would be awesome as well.

But obviously, without doing some work on my current mind state, I'll be in no state to play a game like poker.
I also need to start pretty much from the bottom again, which I may struggle with from a motivation point of view (usually I do something once and I know it, I'm not used to having to learn something twice!). Are there any practices that you could recommend as basic motivation for this?

And you're right, even if there is zero chance of staying here right now, I'm going to fight like hell to get back here.

Great to hear your head is in a better place. Let's see how much better we can get it. Accumulated Emotion is the toughest mental game problem to address. I say that primarily to manage your expectations of the process.

The most important thing toward resolving accumulated emotion is to find the underlying flaws in your psyche/unconscious/belief system/etc that's causing the emotion to begin with. To help you to do that, I suggest writing about, in as much detail as you can, the emotional baggage that you're carrying around. Also, try to find when or where it originates - ie: earliest instances where it's occurred. Then you can do a few things:

1) See if you can identify what you've learned since, that would help to correct or relieve the emotion. In otherwords, if you could go back in time, how would you want to have thought. Actually write this out. You're in essense rewriting the past, and doing so doesn't CHANGE the past, it helps you LEARN the corrections to flaws that you learned in the past.

2) Do a Mental Hand History to help you break down the underlying flaw and learn the correction. (Just another way to do #1). Follow these five steps:

1. Describe the problem in detail - thoughts, feelings, actions, etc.
2. Describe why it make sense - the rationale - for why you would think, feel, or react that way.
3. Describe why that logic is either flawed or incomplete.
4. What is the correction to the faulty logic?
5. Why is that correction, correct? (The theory behind the correction.)

This can be hard to do on your own. It's a big part of what I do 1-1 with my clients. So, if you want feedback on what you find, post again. Also, realize, that this is one of those things that if you do the work, the benefit will come. How long depends on the severity of the Accumulation, and on how well you're able to work through it. But, if you keep at it, you will make progress.

Originally posted by vmarqui
the mental game is the best poker book i have ever read.

i played midstakes (mostly 400) 3 months ago. i had always been a winner but never really got to be a constant reg.

started playing nl100 fr to see if i could achieve that "thing" that people like nanonoko and vinivici do, they seem to constantly make money. i played like 150k hands in 10 days (lol, the max i had played before was 3k hands/day), and i felt pretty bad as my ev was at 2bb/100.

i took a break (travelled around europe for 3 months heh ) and i sort of struggled wondering why i couldnt be a midstakes reg, even though i could beat the game.

until i finally found your book it provided solutions for all the problems i had. too lazy to post examples, but i guess you know what i mean. i'm gonna start playing poker again in like a month, i'll make another post then to see how it goes.

Wow! Love to hear the book has helped so much. I can take some guesses as to what did the trick...were you a big mental game fish?

Enjoy the rest of your travels!

Originally posted by muumionu
Hey Jared,

My problem might sound weird but, when I do something wrong like make a mistake on poker I get this thing in my throat which makes me feel bad and makes me not play my A game. I also get this bad feeling in my throat when I do something wrong in real life, like cross street on wrong spot or something. I had this problem gone for few months (when I didn't play poker) but now it has come back. I'm 19 years old and healthy. It's all good if you don't know what to do about it, I'm not expecting you to know. Thanks a lot for making this thread and finding solutions for people.

I've been doing this long enough to know that nothing is weird. People are all unique and often react differently to common issues.

First off, if the thing in your throat makes you play badly, I suspect the main reason that it does, is because it's a distraction and because you've learned to associate that feeling with bad play. It's a trigger and that trigger brings up history where you've played worse with the feeling.

Having emotion be experienced in the body is common. Some are more sensitive in their experience of it than others, and I suspect that you have strong awareness.

The thing that I'm most interested in understanding more about what you think about mistakes, or doing something wrong. Can you share a bit about your opinion of mistakes, what you think about them, etc? I'm looking to see if there are ways to improve your perspective, and I suspect that if we're able to improve your perspective the impact of the thing in your throat will decrease. I'm not saying it'll go away, but the trigger will be defused. It'll be there, but instead of causing you problems, it'll instead be a reminder to take action to correct your perspective and work your way back towards playing well.

Originally posted by datsmahname

Originally posted by JaredTendler... or you're thinking of this interview I did with Lynn Gilmartin from PokerNews: http://jaredtendlerpoker.com/blog/interview-with-lynn-gilmartin/

Yep thats the one. I must have miss-remembered.

Also, I'm really excited after working through our latest session. You have an elegant ability to help people see their own BS which became much more clear after a good night sleep and a second look. As much as I like to beat around the bush, I'm responsible for falling short of my hand volume targets.

Of course there's still lots to do, but I find myself enjoying the process.

I'm just happy that I didn't somehow no remember being on ESPN, lol!

Thanks - as a reformed Bullshitter, I can spot it pretty easily Very happy to hear the session was valuable! I'm looking forward to seeing what you can do when you take full responsibility.

Originally posted by JaredTendler

Originally posted by muumionu
Hey Jared,

My problem might sound weird but, when I do something wrong like make a mistake on poker I get this thing in my throat which makes me feel bad and makes me not play my A game. I also get this bad feeling in my throat when I do something wrong in real life, like cross street on wrong spot or something. I had this problem gone for few months (when I didn't play poker) but now it has come back. I'm 19 years old and healthy. It's all good if you don't know what to do about it, I'm not expecting you to know. Thanks a lot for making this thread and finding solutions for people.

I've been doing this long enough to know that nothing is weird. People are all unique and often react differently to common issues.

First off, if the thing in your throat makes you play badly, I suspect the main reason that it does, is because it's a distraction and because you've learned to associate that feeling with bad play. It's a trigger and that trigger brings up history where you've played worse with the feeling.

Having emotion be experienced in the body is common. Some are more sensitive in their experience of it than others, and I suspect that you have strong awareness.

The thing that I'm most interested in understanding more about what you think about mistakes, or doing something wrong. Can you share a bit about your opinion of mistakes, what you think about them, etc? I'm looking to see if there are ways to improve your perspective, and I suspect that if we're able to improve your perspective the impact of the thing in your throat will decrease. I'm not saying it'll go away, but the trigger will be defused. It'll be there, but instead of causing you problems, it'll instead be a reminder to take action to correct your perspective and work your way back towards playing well.

The mistakes I make in poker can be fixed of course, but in real life the things that cause this throat thing are so little and nonsense, like after having a little argue with friend or have an angry bus driver shout some crap- possibly because I'm afraid, or something similar to being afraid.

Hi Jared.

I am currently reading The Mental Game of Poker and have had a little communication with you previously through another forum.

The two areas that have stood out for me so far do not concern tilt, but concern motivation and approach to the game.

I play, mainly due to time constraints, weekly online (one or two 4 hour MTT sessions - two-tabling), and less often live (fortnightly/monthly). I have put work into areas of my game but been unable to consistently commit over the longer term. I do find that I go so far with a particular subject - such as working on ICM, fundamentals, MTT strategy, but then fail to follow through and get the most out of what I have learned.

I also tend to find myself treating poker as recreational time as much as anything and typically am listening to music, social networking, chatboxing, etc. Current decent results, despite not always making the most optimal plays, perhaps nurtures this attitude further.

I want to lose the distractions and focus on my game in the short time I do get to play and I want to split my time between playing and improving, although I too often fall into the trap of only playing due to the short sessions I have available to me.

I am taking a lot from the section on ALM and Inchworm and when I do get around to putting in work on my game I do follow these processes. I am also taking some good advice from Nick Wealthall's videos ensuring that you view poker as fun and challenging.

I would very much appreciate any direction or insights you can give me to help me move forward.

Kind regards

Mark

I have problems tilting after playing for a while, especially when I'm down in that session. Would you recommend removing the stats BB/100 from the HUD for that reason? I have problems stopping play if I'm not up, and usually my play gets worse after around 500 hands.

Do you have any suggestions for dealing with this sort of tilt?

Hi Jared,
First of all thanks for your great book, read it twice and now I slowly start implementing stuff into my daily poker plan, my overall understanding of the mental game, learning processes and variance has increased tremendously already, still not using your book enough, though, but now I will start doing things like a strict warm-up procedure, mental hand history (except for notes), etc., so there’s still so much to improve on…

Also loved your mental game radio show, haven’t heard all of them yet, why do they stop at some point? Not enough listeners? Listened to the one with Miss Cardner lately and looking forward to her book, plz get your show back online if that’s somehow possible.

After working through your book for the 2nd time, I started writing down some of my tilt thoughts, so that I had some sort of database to work with when starting to actually improving it.

Here are some of them…

-„Ahh, I would have deserved to flop a set here” after running bad for a certain amount of time before, what exactly is my underlying flaw here? A lack of mathematical understanding, or, accepting that I can’t influence the cards? After not flopping a set 20 times in a row, I feel like I deserved flopping it, even though I know that the cards/dealer/variance doesn’t care about how many times I haven’t flopped a set, my chances still stay around 12%...

-“nonononooooo” after building up a very loose image, then getting QQ in the perfect 3bet spot to abuse that image and timing out because I was still writing a (rather detailed) note after busting out of another tourney, therefore not focusing on the other tables for a few seconds. Seeing that I had missed a perfect opportunity made me very angry and tilted me. That day, luckily, my mindset was ok and I went back to playing my best shortly after, still I would try to erase that short period of tilt because of being so angry with myself.

-Constantly playing aggressive, feels like getting action on pretty much every hand and then only getting folds/walks whenever I actually hold a monster, not playing any different to when I play a weaker holding is also a cause of frustration for me.

-Playing a bad session due to unexpected RL issues (but as a MTT player not being able to quit) and already being stressed, being at the final 2 tables of a soft tournament that could make this a rly +++ day, despite all the fucked up stuff… knowing that my opponent calls me down extremely light, still bluffing, opening way too loose, then fucking it all up and losing my really nice stack and then getting really angry with myself, thinking “omg this would have been such an easy win, great stack, (theoretically) biiiiig edge, just waiting for good spots, why did I have to try it with the crowbar”
Use a session like this to clarify that I haven’t yet developed my understanding of playing callingstations and the importance of not playing too loose (no matter how bad opponents are postflop) anymore would be great I guess? What else can I learn out of it? Except for obviously avoiding RL issues to influence your session, but sometimes you just can’t avoid it, and if you have already started a MTT session you can’t just say fuck it I quit.

-The feeling of having to justify myself in front of others, wanting to tell ppl (which I luckily almost never do then cuz I think it`s very lame/stupid) why I haven’t won the tourney after losing to an 2outer for the chiplead with 5 ppl left. I hate ppl who constantly whine about getting sucked out, running so bad, saying “running as good, one time!” whenever somebody wins (also loving them for not understanding variance/not working enough on their game and therefore allowing me to gain an edge), and absolutely don’t want to be like them, still I think sometimes I also have that flawed thought process.

-An idea I got lately:
not wachting All-In showdowns anymore, just making a note whenever my range was wrong. Cuz in reality, you’re there praying that it goes alright, and getting sucked out on the river, or even getting resucked, losing a flip or w/e hurts way more than just looking at the hands and then checking whether I actually won/lost .
perfect example: reshoving KQ into AA, flopping trips and villain rivers a fullhouse. KQ vs AA for god’s sake, shouldn’t have bothered me, but due to the great flop it frustrated me.

What do you think?

-General Problem: Still in the learning phase, started poker less than one year ago. I know I beat the low limits and make great improvents on a weekly basis, but I also know I still got enough leaks that make blaming variance for not winning enough ridiculous. So, when I’m down quite a lot it might also mean my game isn’t good enough yet, what is quite frustrating as well, after putting a lot of work in it. It feels like being really bad and just being able to improve and thereby get better results, or being really good and therefore being able to (correctly) blame bad results on variance, seem to be easier spots to be in.

-Problem to get away from poker away from the tables, especially when showing bad results for several sessions. I know variance is biiig in MTTs and luckily now I shipped something/had some good results and broke even for the last 6 weeks (with around 20 sessions), but when I was down 700$ in my longterm staking/coaching (quite a sum for me) I absolutely wanted to make it up, while at the same time not rly feel like playing, due to the bad results and too much pressure on myself I guess. I still kept on reviewing, got coaching, tried to improve my mental game and I actually think for as many sessions and as many bad results, I managed it quite well, keeping up the hard work, but still there are some leaks included that I’d like to erase.

Also, since my coach/staker put a decent amount of time/confidence in me, bad results, or even worse, bad play make me feel bad, even though he says it’s natural and that I was just running bad + still am in the learning phase…

-Every 55 minutes the tourneys stop for five minutes, and whenever I’ve got a good stack somewhere I’m in a good mood, and vice versa, even though it might be in the early stage and isn’t rly worth anything at all, guess the underlying flaw is that I value stacks too much and if my mid/shortstacked game is as good as bigstack game, I wouldn’t think that some double ups early on are the greatest thing in the world and make me ship the movie later on, cuz one bad beat (as a big stack) or even good beat (as a short/midstack) and some key hands can totally change everything within 2 minutes, that’s poker.
Also concerning pauses: What should I think about in those 5 minutes? Poker related stuff or sth completely different? I always try to run a bit through the house or get fresh air, and to never just sit infront of the laptop and chat with other ppl (what I used to do before). But is it better to think through my approach to the different tourneys and how to beat the specific tables, or to just free my head from poker for this short period of time?

I’ve got mooore notes, but I guess that should already be too much for the moment, sry for the long post, hope you find some time to answer it one of these days/weeks, keep up the great work and plz get that show back online! (or has it just changed servers or sth?) take care