Poker Articles

By CardRunners.com | Published Oct 17 2007, 01:27 PM
This article was written by Andrew Wiggins, AKA "Muddywater," an instructor for CardRunners.com.

Poker players obsess over questions about how to play poker but often ignore questions about whether or not they should play poker. If you've been around the game for more than a couple weeks, you've heard dozens of stories about bankrolls built slowly and lost quickly. Those should teach you that every minute you spend playing badly affects your poker success far more than every minute you spend playing well. Keeping yourself from playing sessions when you aren't at your best should therefore be a high priority.
 
My preferred approach to this problem seems paradoxical: play your best poker by limiting the effect of poker on your life. When you're playing too much, it's easy to lose your concentration and get into a rut. This is because "keeping your concentration" means something different here than it does when we're talking about, say, driving a car. There you just have to maintain basic competence in one activity. Poker concentration is not only high function in specific kind of decision-making but also a thoroughgoing control over your psychology. Think about how you're tempted to gamble in close spots and to avoid embarrassment by folding when you should call. Then realize that it's not just anger and fear: practically any emotion can, in the right poker situation, cost you money. It's deceptive that we call this phenomenon tilt, as if it were just one thing, when in fact it refers to almost every possible human mental state.
 
It's not just extreme steam-out-the-ears tilt that hurts you. Because marginal spots are so important to your winrate, anything that affects your ability to make those close decisions can cripple you--and remember, almost any aberrant feeling will impair your performance in at least a few marginal situations. That's another reason to review your hands after a session: it both improves your game and helps you realize when you're suffering from the sneakier, subtler kinds of tilt.

It's good to be able to identify when you're playing badly, but it's better not to have slipped in the first place. As I said, I've found that the key is to keep poker in its place. Too much poker makes burnout inevitable. You'll enjoy the game less, and you'll play worse. It's always worthwhile, for example, to make sure you're getting exercise. It's both prevention and cure: physical fitness greatly affects your ability to play long sessions, and it also gives you a non-tilting outlet for your emotions. More simply: exercise will make you feel better, and that will make you play better.
 
Also, reinvest some of your poker winnings in your life. Many people think so much about how to invest their resources in poker that they forget that poker should, in turn, be a positive thing in their lives. You'll generally want to keep what you win for your bankroll, but spend some of it, too. The money you make will seem more real, and that will help motivate you. It will also enhance the time you spend away from the tables: one of my favorite poker-to-life investments is tickets to sporting events. It's social, it's exciting, and it's an effective way to enhance your life with your poker.
 
Poker is addictive, time-consuming, and thrilling. It's hard to keep your results in perspective, and it's hard to know exactly what you do and don't want poker to be in your life. Everyone I've ever met who has said that it's easy was either lying, or terrible at the game. Which all means that it's not only OK, but absolutely necessary, to spend time thinking about when and what you play, and about how you want your life to affect your poker and vice versa. Energy you spend regulating yourself and staying healthy will more than repay itself, both at the tables and throughout your life.