Stay Young; Play Poker

Parts I-VI said that combining poker, diet, and exercise can help you to stay younger, healthier and smarter. This column will discuss a generally ignored topic: taking breaks to help you to play better and stay younger.

I’ve often said that you need breaks to think more thoroughly. When it’s your turn to act, you feel you should act quickly. This feeling inhibits thoroughly reviewing your own and your opponents’ play and planning strategic adjustments. The right kind of break will help you to:

• Play better immediately
• Develop your skills
• Control your emotions
• Stay young and sharp

Nearly everyone ignores my advice. Recreational players say, “I want to play as much as possible.” Pros regard poker as a job and believe they should play the maximum number of hands to pay their bills.

That’s just silly. It’s as if an NFL quarterback said, “We’ll stop huddling. We can’t waste time analyzing situations and planning strategies. We’ll just do the best we can without thinking.” If all good football teams take extremely frequent breaks, why do you think you can play your best without breaking?

In fact, several researchers found that breaks increase workers’ productivity. They compared the output of people who worked eight hours without a pre-lunch or post-lunch break, and ones who spent eight hours on the job, but took two 15-minute breaks. Although the second group worked less time, they produced more.

Productivity differences are greatest for intellectually demanding tasks, and poker is certainly demanding. You obviously can’t make good decisions without fully understanding the situation, which means you need some uninterrupted time to analyze it thoroughly. In addition, if you use breaks wisely, you’ll slow down aging. It won’t have much impact, but every little bit helps.

Almost any break is helpful, but you’ll gain the most by applying some principles from earlier columns: Emphasize physical and mental exercise, active learning, novelty, and moderate stress.

Exercise

Americans don’t exercise enough to stay healthy, and serious poker players probably exercise less than average. To reduce this problem, walk for 20-30 minutes every few hours to think carefully and improve your health. Increase the health benefits by walking up some stairs. It will help keep your arteries open, which is critically important for staying young and healthy.

Walk and Talk

While walking, dictate your thoughts into a recorder. Talking is much more active and productive than just thinking. When you say something, you can often see that your ideas are inconsistent, and the machine will record your words. When you replay them, you’ll see things more clearly.

Talking also provides a different type of mental exercise, and novelty increases stimulation. In addition, talking can help your mind roam more freely, coming up with new ideas.

Analyze The Situation

Solving puzzles helps to delay aging, and earlier columns recommended treating poker as a set of puzzles. During a break you can solve much larger and more complicated puzzles than usual. When you’re playing a hand, you analyze a narrowly defined situation. During a break you can analyze the overall patterns of your play, individual opponents, and the entire game. The subjects to analyze depend upon your feelings and goals.

If you’re confused and want to adjust to a challenging game, analyze your opponents. If one player is giving your trouble, focus on him. If you’re playing poorly, criticize your play. If you’re playing unusually well, determine why so you can be tougher tomorrow. If you don’t have specific objectives, let your mind roam freely. Here are some questions to ask yourself. You can certainly think of others.

Replay specific hands:

• What did each player do? Can you remember exactly what they bet? Their body language? Their words? If you can’t remember the details, you’re not observing well or taking good notes.
• How did you read the situation then?
• How do you see it now?
• Why has your perception changed?
• What did you learn about those opponents?
• What did you learn about yourself?

Analyze specific players:

• If you’ve never played with him, how would you describe his play?
• If you’ve played with him before, how does he usually play?
• How is he playing today?
• If he’s changed, why did it happen? Is he winning or losing a lot? Drinking? Distracted by sports bets? What else could cause the change?

Analyze the overall game:

• How tough is it?
• What style is it?
• Has it changed recently? Become tougher, tighter, looser, more or less aggressive, shorter-handed, more serious or relaxed? Why?

Analyze Yourself:

• Is the game too tough for you?
• How well does it fit your usual style?
• How well did you adjust to game changes? Why did you adjust well or fail to do so?
• Are you playing better or worse than usual? Why?
• If worse, are you losing more than you can handle? Are you emotional, tired, frustrated, or distracted? What other reasons could there be?
• If better, are you winning, getting lucky, and feeling more confident? Is this just the right kind of game? Why?

Plan Adjustments

Use your analysis to look for new and different ways to play. The novelty may increase your profits, and it will certainly stimulate your mind. You’re too busy to think originally while you’re involved in hands, but when you’re walking around you can think of new strategies.

Some people say they’re more creative when they act on the spur of the moment. Perhaps they are, but most people act habitually, doing the same old things, unless they review their play and plan their adjustments.

Do “What If?” analyses. What would happen if I became tighter, looser, more or less aggressive? Changed seats? Changed games? A few questions will help you to adjust.

Adjust to a Specific Player

• How should you adjust? Should you avoid him? Try to isolate him? Become tighter? Looser? More or less aggressive? Bluff or check-raise or lead into him more or less frequently? What else should you do differently?
• Why?

Adjust to the Overall Game

• Should you change your general strategy? How and why?
• Should you change your seat? Where should you sit? Why?
• Should you quit or change tables? Why?

Develop Yourself

• If you can’t remember details of specific hands, plan to work on your observation and note-taking skills.
• If you’re playing poorly, how can you avoid repeating today’s mistakes?
• If you’re playing well, how can you repeat today’s good play?

Final Remarks

Taking these steps will improve your results and provide a little mental and physical exercise that will help to delay aging. But, of course, there’s a price to pay: You’ll probably feel uncomfortable.

So what?

Discomfort is an inescapable element of self-improvement. If you stay in your comfort zone, doing the same old things day after day, you won’t develop yourself, nor will you slow down aging. If you want to play better and stay younger, you must pay the discomfort price.

Don’t think about taking breaks. Take them! ♠

Do you often wonder, “Why are my results so disappointing?” Ask Dr. Al, [email protected]. He’s David Sklansky’s co-author for DUCY? and the sole author of five poker psychology books.