It's time to play a session, so we grab the laptop, sit in our favorite chair, and turn on the television. We start registering for tournaments and selecting the channel of the show we want to watch. As we start playing, it's early in all of the MTTs, so there is plenty of time to watch television. When the table beeps to let us know it's our turn, we glance away from the television and act. The table beeps, we see what our hand is, and generally fold. When we have a decent hand, we quickly try to figure out who is in the hand, what is going on, and then make a decision.If any of this sounds familiar, I am here to tell you that you can do better and you can give more. I know several players may play on a desktop instead of a laptop, and several might play in an office instead of the living room, but if you can relate to any of the things I mentioned, you can do better.
The first few years I played online, I had bad playing habits. I would often play on my laptop in front of the television. I actually did this almost every time I played online from 2005 to 2010. And, oddly enough, I used to wonder why I would win live, but lose online.
Obviously, I still felt that I could focus when necessary, but I believe I was missing way too much important information. I would usually end up acting after I heard the beep alerting me it was my turn. To help with my focus, I eventually moved to the dining room table to remove some of the distractions from the equation.
Now, I play all my sessions at the table with the television in the other room. When playing a poker session, we need to be at our best and focus distraction-free. I doubt relaxing in a recliner and watching television while we play could possibly be considered our best or distraction-free.
All poker players should try to have a good environment to grind. Some things to think about when building a good environment are minimal distractions, proper lighting, a comfortable chair, the right equipment, and the right software.As I began to take poker more seriously in 2010, I started trying to improve everything. I was trying to improve my poker game, my software, my equipment, my chair, the lighting, and anything poker- or session-related. In my opinion, the best thing to do if you're thinking about improving any of these things is talk to experienced players to get their advice.
The first thing I did when I wanted to improve was organize a poker chat group. Once the group was going, I was informed that I should join a training site, so I did. As I started to watch training videos, I instantly realized and said to myself, "I am not as good as I think I am." Discovering that we are not as good as we think we are is a painful but eye-opening experience. As soon as we get an idea of how we truly play, we can begin to move forward and improve.
As a poker player, if we think we are better than we are, we will not try to work on the right things or possibly not try to improve at all. Thinking we are better than we are can be one of surest ways to slow our growth and stall our improvement.
I'll be honest and say that before 2010, I thought I was way better than I was. I was sure that I could hold my own with anyone at a poker table and felt I could comfortably play Hold'em, Stud, and Omaha. But, the truth of the matter is I had never worked on my game, never watched a training video, and hardly ever talked any poker with anyone.
The only reason I thought I was good is because at every poker table I had ever been at, I felt there were always a couple of players that I had an edge on. I also had several winning sessions playing live poker. I guess I failed to realize that it takes more than beating some weak competition to be a good player. I got caught up in the fact that I had some minor success and never gave a thought to trying to improve. Looking back, it amazes me that I was so naive.
In 2010 when I started taking all of the necessary steps to improve, I was amazed at how much information was out there. Watching training videos was an eye-opening experience. When the pros started talking about their plan for every stack left in the hand, my mouth dropped. It was at that exact moment that I knew I had been slacking.
It was around this time that I finally had an idea of how I played and began to improve a lot. I would watch training videos, grind, and talk lots of poker in the chat and in the forums. It wasn't long before I felt I was taking big strides and improving quickly. I kept watching videos, grinding, and talking poker for a few months and then decided to take some lessons. The lessons were very helpful and to put it simply, I believe there are things in poker that are hard to learn until we are taught.
As you can imagine, between the training site, poker chat, and lessons, I just kept improving. I was playing a lot, improving daily, and had just moved up to high-stakes games when Black Friday hit.
At that point, I was devastated and just gave up on online poker. I started grinding live every day and traveling to all of the MTT series in my area. I felt good and was confident at every table I played at. I knew I had been working hard on my game, but as time went on, all I did was play. I was grinding live daily, but that was it. There was no live training site and I couldn't review live hand histories.I think I got complacent, slowly picked up a bad habit or two, and my game suffered. I wasn't able to truly realize this until I started playing online poker again in May 2012. Once I started playing online again, watching training videos, and talking poker, I was able to quickly notice that I had picked up some bad habits and started fixing them.
The last two months, I have been talking more poker than ever, and the more poker I talk, the better I get. I truly believe we will get back out of poker what we put into it, so I plan on giving it my all. I hope you enjoyed this article about session habits and knowing how we play. Look for my poker strategy articles right here at PocketFives.
This article was written by John cracker9ball Reynolds, who hails from Tulsa, Oklahoma. If you are interested in taking poker lessons or would like any information, contact him at variance101@gmail.com and/or visit Variance101.com.
