Positive Poker

The following is an excerpt from my new book with Dr. Patricia Cardner, Positive Poker, A Modern Psychological Approach to Mastering Your Mental Game:

Those who know me well know that I have generally struggled with not being confident enough for most of my life. Even though I have worked hard to become more confident, I still falter. I recognize my problem is that I compare myself to perfection. I realize I tend to be very good at everything I put my mind to, yet, at the same time, I know I am not the best in the world. I clearly need to convince myself that it is acceptable to not be perfect.

At the poker table, I tend to be quite confident unless I am playing against someone I perceive to be “good.” At this point, depending on my exact opponent, my confidence will vary a wide degree, from a tiny bit to a lot. I remember an experience where I was playing in a $10,000 buy-in event and things were going well. I was at a great table and generally getting away with whatever I wanted. Then Phil Ivey took the seat to my left with a mountain of chips. On the first hand, I got A-A against him and turned quads. Even though I had the nuts, I was still nervous in the hand. To this day I have no clue why I even get nervous when playing with Phil because we have played around 15 times over the last seven years and, probably due to variance, I have generally gotten the best of him.

On the flip side of the coin, there are numerous “live pros” who are well known by the general public who I know are not actually good at poker. Against them, I don’t get nervous at all. At least for me, the way I view an opponent’s skill level compared to mine drastically affects my confidence at the table. This rational evaluation of each player’s skill set is likely what has allowed me to do so well on the tournament circuit. I recognize who is worse than me and try to get their chips while staying out of the way of the other highly skilled players. It should be noted that even when my confidence gets shaky, I still play my best poker. I never lose my mind and blow my stack simply because an excellent situation turned into a worse one. I always remind myself that I am an excellent poker player and even if someone is better than me, I will do my best to reduce their advantage by reverting to a game theory optimal strategy.
If you are fully prepared to go to battle at the poker table, armed with more knowledge about the game than your opponents, a large bankroll, and a clear mind, you have every reason to be confident at the poker table. If you show up totally unprepared, you should have a total lack of confidence, which should hopefully lead you to not play the game.

This issue comes up frequently for me when playing cash games. If there is an open seat at a tough game, where I know I may be a small winner at best, I will never take the seat. On the other hand, if there is a seat at a table full of guys trying to give their money away, even if the stakes are huge, I am more than happy to play. Playing against opponents who you know play less well than you do is an easy way to boost confidence.
One way I tend to build confidence right before playing a tournament is to look at the trophy for an event and imagine it on my mantle. I also try to imagine myself making it to the final table, then winning the tournament. I think about how it will feel to win a few nice pots and have control over the table. While imagining will not make you win the tournament, it will certainly help you get in the right mindset, assuming you are skilled enough to be a winner in the game you are playing.

In the past, I was my own worst enemy. My dad would always tell me this and I thought he didn’t know what he was talking about. It turns out he was right! Over the last ten years, I have worked hard to eradicate negative thoughts from my mind. Occasionally, when I lose a large hand and am left with a short stack in a tournament, I will think “Well, you are short stacked, so you are certainly going to lose.” I quickly force that thought out by confirming to myself that I am one of the best short-stack players in the world. I generally have a problem lying to myself, as some people do regularly, but I know for a fact that I play the short stack better than almost anyone. Since I am totally prepared, in this case by studying short-stack poker for numerous years as a sit-n-go player, I remain fully confident.

Quite often at the poker table, I will see a player make a careless mistake only to lose all self-confidence and then all their money. When you make an error at the poker table, realize you made a mistake, vow not to do it again, and move on. There is no reason to obsess over a blunder while trying to focus on the next hand. You must maintain a clear mind in order to play a profitable game. When you go home, relive your mistake and vow not to let it happen again. If you learn from your failures, they aren’t failures.

When you go on a large downswing, it is mandatory you stay confident in your game. Sometimes moving down to smaller limits or taking some time off is enough to get the job done. I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but eventually, if you play enough poker, you will run worse than you could ever imagine. I was fortunate enough to run fairly bad during my first year of playing high-stakes live tournaments. This gave me a clear perception of how variance works in poker. Every year, a few people burst onto the poker scene, cashing for huge amounts of money, only to blow it all when they eventually run poorly. When things are going well, it is important to save money, and when things are going bad it is important to take it easy and work hard on your game. As long as you are constantly studying the game and playing games you are certain to be profitable in, you have nothing to fear.

Paperback available from all poker book retailers, ebook available from Kindle, iBookstore, Nook, Kobo and from www.dandbpoker.com
Audio version available from D&B Poker ♠

Jonathan Little, 2-time World Poker Tour champion has won more than $6 million in tournaments since 2006. He is sponsored by 3bet.com, Instapoker and BlueSharkOptics and teaches poker at FloatTheTurn.com and www.JonathanLittleSecrets.com. Follow him on Twitter @ JonathanLittle.