Remaining Sane

While it is well known that poker is a difficult game for countless reasons, most players shoot themselves in the foot by losing their minds when things go poorly. If you play any reasonable amount of volume, you should expect things to go quite poorly from time to time through no fault of your own. If you know and accept you will experience loss, you should not be shocked when it happens.

I have recently been playing a lot more online poker and it really puts the standard swings of the game in perspective, especially compared to live poker. On any given Sunday, I typically bust around 40 tournaments before ever making a somewhat deep run. This is because it is easy to bust a tournament quickly but somewhat difficult to make a deep run, plus, it takes around eight hours before you actually get deep in an event. Losing 40 tournaments will usually put most players in a poor mood but if they want to play their remaining few deep runs with a sound mind, they must not worry about the quick bust outs.

Cash games online also present swings in a much more brutal manner than live poker because the players are better and you play many more hands per hour. When I used to play $10-$20 no-limit hold’em at Bellagio on a regular basis, there would usually be one or two large hands per day that determined if I had a winning or losing session, which would usually be plus or minus two buy-ins. When I play online, it is not uncommon to be up or down 10 buy-ins at some point.

Once you become adjusted to the typical swings of online poker, the swings in live poker feel almost nonexistent as you can only lose one or two tournament buy-ins per day and you will rarely have a 10 buy-in cash-game loss. However, when you do run truly bad in live poker, it will take quite a long time to dig yourself out of the hole. When you are down a significant amount, you simply must remain calm and play your best possible poker.

One of the main times each year I notice professional poker players lose their minds is during the WSOP. It is mentally taxing to play every day only to receive poor outcomes. I have had two entire WSOPs where I failed to cash in any event. While I felt like I played fine and simply lost all my all-ins, I am sure I was not living a life that was conducive to winning at poker. I would go out partying a bit, gamble on games besides poker, and eat poorly. I realized these flaws two years ago and have since put together two very nice WSOPs. I now make a point to eat right, bet only on poker, and work out often. I firmly believe maintaining a life filled with good, productive decisions will lead to me playing good poker.

It is worth noting that my last two good years at the WSOP could have easily been ruined by normal variance, which would probably make me not feel so great about the changes I have implemented in my life. For example, if instead of cashing for $250,000 in a tournament, I lost a flip on day 2 and busted for $0, I would have experienced significantly worse results. By the same note, perhaps if I changed nothing over the last few years, I would have run equally hot and won the same amount, if not more. While it is tough to say exactly how much the changes I have made in my life altered my results, I am confident that doing things to better yourself as both a poker player and person will lead to better results in the long run.

Here are some things I have currently been working on to improve both my poker and my life:

I work out frequently, but not to the point of hurting myself.
I eat healthily, although not to the point of totally depriving myself of foods I love.
I have stopped drinking alcohol a few days before and during a poker tournament series.
I have stopped gambling on anything besides poker.
I study poker frequently, mainly in the form of watching poker videos, reading books, and discussing hands and concepts with excellent poker players.
I have been taking time to help people when they are clearly in need.

While this list is a bit short, I have found that implementing these simple changes in my life have greatly improved my mindset when it is actually time to play poker. For me, if I am happy away from the table, I tend to be happy at the table. By being out of shape, dealing with other gambling losses, or being hung over, I set myself up for failure before I ever sat down at the poker table. By cutting these things from my life, I give myself a much better shot at success. ♠

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.