I was playing the same way as I did yesterday, packing the sessions tightly together. But at the 2.5hour mark I made a dumb mistake vs fish for 20bb, and this triggered some heavy guilt tilt. I had to stop for a day, still have some problems controlling myself. This is the main thing I'd like to fix before starting a marathon again. Because I don't wanna loose the 3-4 hours every time I make something stupid, and since I still learning, I'm sure I will make stupid mistakes lots of times in the future.
On the bright side even tilting, I didn't want to try and evade this bad feeling, as I usually tended to do, loosing much more time by procrastinating. Instead I was rereading Mental Game of Poker, I made sure that plans for the next day are ready, so I can continue working on my game tomorrow.
For the past several days. I involved myself into another side project. Now I'm translating and making a voice over fro Milos (who is Raskolnikov's student) 3bet-4bet HU course. So russian players who don't know English very well can also learn from Gordon and his protege (and listen to my awesome voice of course ♦)
Yeah, hi, I'm good.
Apparently I'm a very good translator of poker videos. Cause right after I finished they said: "Excellent, here is couple more". In addition to that I found one interesting thing about my work. When I have a clear objective and a deadline, I can work at 120% intensity, which almost borders on obsession. That's why I didn't read or write anything at all, I simply couldn't stop working. As a result I finished like 20% earlier than the deadline, but completely messed my sleeping schedule.
But now I'm back. And here is my plan. Last course I translated was Gordon's tilt free. This is a good, anti-tilt practice oriented course. And I got tons of ideas what to do about my tilt problems as well as my poker productivity issues. As always Gordon looks at the problem from the practical point of view, giving some very interesting exercises. The core principle of them is to add some additional rules for stopping your sessions, and this rules
are not set by yourself.
The first exercise is to determine the length of your session by throwing a dice and playing 15mins+X*10min where x is the number you got from the dice. Gordon idea was to train the ability to quit at any time in any condition. But the same principle can be used to train playing at any time in any condition too. And this would be the first exercise I will do myself.
As I already wrote once, I'm a perfectionist, and this often spoils my game plans for the day. Cause tend not to play enough when I don't feel well (which means everything that below perfect A-game, even as little as -5%). So the main purpose of the exercise will be to discipline yourself to play my best in any situation.
To do that first I will warm up a little. I will play random length 10 sessions from 10 to 60 mins in the next 2-3 days. As an additional condition I would determine the number of tables from 1 to 6 randomly as well. There were situations when I stopped my sessions due to sudden shortage of tables with fish and I want to stop using that fact as an excuse for stop playing.
After this warm up I will do 10 session with 1hour+X*10mins length, 3-4 per day. playing 4-7 tables. I plan not only to train my game discipline, but also to practice quick day replanning, since I don't know how long I will play (from 3.5 hours up to 8).
Played 6 sessions in 1.5 days (still recovering my normal sleep pattern).
So first 3 sessions were the same: I had a feeling that what I'm doing is useless.
- First I rolled 1table*50minutes, playing 1 table for me was as difficult as playing 15, because I had nothing to do between the hands, and had a big temptation to read something in the internet, or do other stuff which I considered "useful" at that time.
- Then when I was quite sleepy, I rolled 6*60. First 20 seconds were like WTF??? And then I almost threw the exercise away. I thought I already got over the tilt about thing I can't control, but seems I still have a lot of work to do, cause when I got unexpected, undesirable result, first thing was an emotional reaction. BTW, I played throw the session and it wasn't that bad. I think feeling of fatigue is quite deceptive and kicks in much earlier than the real fatigue comes.
- 2*20, nothing special here, except I noticed that the urge to follow the plan to the end overwhelmed the feeling of the uselessness of the exercise.
Before the next couple of session I got exact opposite feeling. I wanted to get as long session as possible. Which is not good either. This desire definitely came from ego issue. Cause I wasn't in my A condition, I wanted to overcome as hard obstacle as I could get, to make myself feel good.
But I got 3*10mins, 3*20mins. The problem here was not in playing but in standing up. Exactly as Gordon described, "The fish is too good I just can't stand up and leave it".
At the sixth session I finally got the right feeling of indifference about what I will roll. I was ready to play any amount of table, any time. I got 4*50.
Will try to play the rest 4 session tomorrow.
First 10 exercises done.
On the 3rd day I got the right mindset where I didn't pay attention to anything but playing good during the sessions. Which let me to play decent poker event when I'm tired or sleepy, because only thing I have to do is make a decision about the hand which is right in front of me.
I decided to make 30mins+x*10mins exercise 10 times to smooth the transition to the full hour+x*10min.
3days - only 7 sessions. My bad. Even after making detailed todo list for every day with priorities and stuff, I still start to do low priority tasks now and then. Also have some problems with starting to play early in the morning.
So after I finish tomorrow, I will repeat 30mins+X*10mins exercise. And I will get it done in 3 days or less.
Ok, I'm still here.
8 days and 3 attempts. It took 8 days and 3 attempts for me to do the exercise (10 sessions in 3 days). A week ago right after I failed the first attempt, I was so pumped, so result oriented, that I completely forgot what I had to do and why. That exactly the reason why I failed twice in the next 5 days.
I totally forgot that I'm doing the exercise to train the discipline and establishing the practice routine for the future. 10 sessions in the 3 days is not the end result, but I played if it were.
The result orientation can be devastating for the practice. Cause it leads to lack of concentration faster energy depletion. And even when you finish you sessions, it's very hard to start the next set, because you feel like you achieved something and sort of "deserve" some rest.
The good amount of play time through the day can be achieved by careful planning and execution, without any hurry, keeping the speed steady (btw it has a positive influence on concentration as a sideeffect).
Here is a little to-do list. I wrote it down on the piece of paper and kept it on the table, so I can read it couple times a day to remind myself what I'm doing here.
- First is planning, plan revisions. I have my plan for a day (I write it down in the evening of the previous day). I have also some middle distance plans for a 7-10 days. And I have some bigger plans for the month. (For now in the next week I have to find how to connect my session analysis without reduction of time for practice and month plan to start learning HU poker).
Every day in the morning I read my plans to remind myself what I have to do. - Second. I have to start playing write after the breakfast. I found that quick start sets a pace for the rest of the day.
- Third. Be disciplined with breaks between sessions. Strictly fixed breaks time limits lead to better planned day. Also it makes you take the break more serious, not wasting your time on some irrelevant stuff.
- Fourth. In the evening the plan for the next day must be prepared. Weekly and monthly plans must be revised in case some drastic changes happened during the day. And the current day must be evaluated. I don't like to write a long every day summaries. But it really helps to sum what happened during the day in a few sentences. It helps to understand if something went wrong or conversely you got some unexpected results or ideas.
Tomorrow I will start the next exercise 45mins+X*10mins sessions. Same stuff 3 days, 10 sessions.