The Poker Mindset – Attitude #7

The Poker Mindset is a set of seven attitudes that every poker player should try to master, regardless of their game, limits, or technical skill. Just like technical skills, the Poker Mindset will help you make better decisions at the table. In fact, in some situations it could be argued that defects in your Poker Mindset could lose you more money than defects in your technical game.

This is the seventh and final article of a series where we have examined each of the seven attitudes of the Poker Mindset. It includes excerpts from my book, coauthored with Ian Taylor, The Poker Mindset.

Attitude #7 Dedicate Yourself to a Continuous Cycle of Analysis and Improvement
The great thing about poker is that every strategic level you master unravels yet more layers. For players who continue to analyze, study, learn, and improve, the sky is the limit. You will never reach a point where you know everything there is to know about poker; even the best players are still learning.

You must continuously strive to improve your game. Even though you may only notice a slow, gradual improvement, it is important to keep that momentum going. As soon as you stop trying to improve, your game will stagnate and then regress.

New poker players, if they are serious about the game, are often eager to learn and will process and absorb a lot of information very quickly. However, many get to the point where they lose the enthusiasm to learn. There are many reasons why long-time players might become less keen on learning over time. Here are some of them:

Complacency

When players are new to the game and are losing, they have a strong incentive to improve. They want to be like the good players who are raking in the money. However, if you fast forward a few months, this same player may now have improved to the level where they are winning. They are beating the lower limits for a bet or two per hour and are happy to be doing that. While they would like to be able to beat the higher limits and make some serious money, they no longer have the burning desire to put in the effort to do so. They have other things they would rather spend their time doing now that they can “beat the game.”

Illusions of mastery

Poker is a lot like speaking a foreign language fluently. Most people never become fluent to the point that a native person could not tell the difference. Poker works in the same way, but unfortunately some players have a very limited view of what being a good poker player entails. Once they get to a certain level, they believe they have mastered the game and no longer need to spend time learning. They might have improved to a point where they are making money because of the weaknesses of their opponents, but do not realize that they still have glaring weaknesses in their own game. Metaphorically, they believe they have mastered the language once they can ask directions to the post office.

Loss of enthusiasm

Most people have a huge enthusiasm for the game when they first start playing. They want to spend all their free time playing and reading about poker. Eventually, though, the initial enthusiasm wears off, and while they still enjoy actually playing the game, the learning side of the equation becomes less attractive. The result is a decline in the time spent analyzing results and studying the game. the learning side of the equation becomes less attractive. The result is a decline in the time spent analyzing results and studying the game.

Stagnation

Players will often find that their game has stopped improving, despite the fact that they are still studying hard. They will then lose sight of the link between study and improvement, and stop studying. Incidentally, this situation normally arises when players have been focusing on the wrong areas and using the wrong methods for study. Or maybe they are just having bad short-term luck and are not seeing good results for this reason. Either way, it is highly unlikely that they have reached a point where study will not help.

Poker is an extremely complex game, and the cycle of learning and improving should never end. Top players may disagree on many things, but one thing that they will voice resounding agreement on is that they are still learning.

Some players have the attitude that once they reach a certain level, they are happy with their play and their win rate and have no real inclination to improve any further. What they don’t quite understand is the concept of regression. First, you can pick up bad habits that you never correct if you stop studying the game. The long term in poker is so long that if you pick up a bad habit, it may take a very long time before you see it for what it is. Second, you will lose much of your ability to adapt to change. Although the rules of poker tend to change very rarely, the dynamics and strategies actually evolve quite quickly. While it’s not likely that a good player will become a bad player overnight by playing the same game, there is a lot of new poker literature that provides new angles on old strategies and new ways of playing marginal hands.

In order to ensure long-term success at poker, you must commit to a long-term program of analysis and improvement.

So how should you go about it? The modern poker player has a number of tools available to improve his game, and you should use as many of these as possible. Use a hand-tracking database for online play to evaluate your play. Speak with players. Read about poker strategy in books and online forums. Join an online poker video site. Of course, experience counts for something, too. Just make sure that it isn’t the only tool you are using to improve.

Bringing It All Together

This series of articles discussed seven important concepts that you need to take on board and understand.

1. Understand and Accept the Realities of Poker
2. Play for the Long Term
3. Emphasize Correct Decisions over Making Money
4. Desensitize Yourself to Money
5. Leave Your Ego at the Door
6. Remove All Emotion from Decisions
7. Dedicate Yourself to a Continuous Cycle of Analysis and Improvement

Together, these concepts provide the Poker Mindset with which you should approach the game to hopefully take you to the next level, now and for the long-term. ♠

Matthew is the owner of Dimat Enterprises, “Publishing Today’s Best Poker Books” and is a coauthor with Ian Taylor of The Poker Mindset, available at Kindle, Amazon, and pokerbooks.InternetTexasHoldem.com in both print and e-book format.