Implementing a Pre-Game Routine

One area in which I consistently see intermediate level poker players lacking is in their preparation for playing poker. As the saying goes, “to fail to prepare is to prepare to fail”, and that’s no less true in poker than it is in any other discipline. If you don’t currently have any kind of procedure in place for what you do before each poker session, there’s a specific time at which you need to implement one, and that time is right before your next poker session. Let me tell you why.

Approach Competition like an Athlete

As poker becomes more and more competitive, it’s increasingly obvious that some of the biggest edges to be gained come from what we do away from the table, rather than just on the table. It follows, therefore, that any small improvement we make in the preparation we put in place for playing poker will have an exponential impact on our results – if we play even 5% better every single time we play, that’s a massive increase in our ROI long-term.

It’s important, therefore, that we approach poker the way an athlete would approach competition. We should expect to come up against tough opponents and understand that we need to be at our best in order to defeat them – physically, and mentally. What we do to our bodies has an impact on our brains, and that impacts the way we play. We need to exercise and eat right in order to be in the right space mentally.

Would Usain Bolt go out and run the 100 metres without warming up, or having just had a McDonald’s for lunch? Absolutely not. Would Lionel Messi roll out of bed at 1 Pm the day of an important game for Barcelona? Of course not. So why do some poker players do that? Answer: because positive variance has convinced them that they don’t need to be at their absolute best in order to win.

Manage your Energy Levels

Many people find that exercising in the morning leaves them feeling more energetic throughout the day – certainly, I personally have found this to be the case. It’s also scientifically proven that a healthy diet will leave you feeling more awake and alert throughout the day, so the two go hand in hand. Once you’ve done all you can to ensure you’re not unduly tired (and that includes going to bed at a reasonable time and getting the right amount of sleep), the next step is to work out what kind of energy level produces peak performance in your game.

In this respect, everyone is different. Some players perform best when they’re at an extremely high level of energy, when they’re feeling the pressure of a big tournament and they’ve had four cups of coffee that day. These people have no anxiety issues to worry about, and instead their biggest obstacle is a lack of motivation, so they need to get themselves hyped up for the daily grind with motivational videos or music.

On the other hand, many other players (like myself) require a certain state of relaxation in order to be able to think clearly and play at their best. For these players, meditation or yoga will be helpful, along with reducing their caffeine intake by switching to drinking green tea, or simply drinking water. Integrating these things into your pre-game routine will help you get your energy level to the point where it needs to be in order to produce your best possible performance level – your ‘flow state’, where you’re playing your absolute A-game and nobody can compete with you.

Establish your Strategic Goals

While physical conditioning and managing your energy levels go a long way towards producing peak performance, you simply won’t be able to improve your performance in the long-term without an awareness of the places where your performance doesn’t necessarily reflect your understanding of the game. You can only achieve this awareness through reviewing your own performance.

Think of this like an athlete reviewing game tape – it’s a necessary part of self-improvement, designed to generate greater self-awareness and fix leaks before they emerge. Integrating it into your preparation can be tricky – sometimes reviewing hands right before you play can leave you focusing on the wrong things – but whether reviewing your hands forms part of your pre-game warmup or your post-game warm-down, it’s necessary, and setting goals for yourself on a strategic level will give you a sense of focus and a mindfulness about your game that ensures you stay in control at all times.

Find What Works for You

With all this in mind, it’s important to be flexible and find the methodologies that work for you. Some people find high energy levels and a pre-game hand review to be the best way to go, while others prefer to be relaxed and review their performance only at the end of a session. Whatever combination of preparatory exercises you choose, be sure to experiment with something new if you find it isn’t working.

Your improvement as a poker player must be underpinned by an acceptance that becoming a better poker player involves, at least on some levels, becoming a better person – it involves becoming healthier both physically and mentally, being willing to self-analyse, and developing the discipline to stick to a routine that produces peak performance on a regular basis. Poker is only going to get more and more competitive over time, so the sooner you acknowledge all these necessities, the better for your game.