Keep Your Emotions Under Control
Hey everyone, I am back again writing another article for Pocketfives. After getting some really exciting feedback from my first article, I wanted to write another one, and hopefully this will give you a little more guidance to this ulcer-giving game of poker.
Since my last article, I am back to playing the 5-10 NL and 10-20 NL games on Bodog. Recently, I have not been able to lose. I have been playing my game and letting no one affect that, even though Bodog is filled with young kids like myself, who love running their mouths at the tables. Playing these higher staked games, I have realized that your emotions play a more significant role while playing than your actual poker skills.
Till the other day, I could not even remember the last time I had a losing session. Everything just seemed to be going right for me. My reads were flawless, I was smashing flops, and I was a force to reckon with at the tables.
The other day, however, I was getting my big hands smashed. I would be flopping 2nd nut flushes to someone else’s nut flush. I was flopping mid sets to other people’s top sets. I was getting AA and KK cracked like I had never seen before. In all honesty, it was one of the most disgusting things I have seen in awhile. I lost about 4 to 5 buyins worth and just shut my computer down and thought how I just went through such an extreme amount of money.
I began talking to a buddy of mine, killain, and he was nice enough to sit through a berating session of mine, where I informed, him how bad people play and how stupid people are. When my venting was dying down he asked me a really good question. “Are you done yet?” I responded nicely, “Jesus man you just have no idea.”
He then began berating me and told me that he definitely understood. I realized after he talked to me that I was getting my emotions set way too high for poker. For the past 40-50 sessions, I never really lost, and then I had the biggest losing session of my life and I could not handle myself. I needed to stand back from what just happened and ask myself, “What can I do to become a better poker player?” As my poker mentor Beanie told me once, “You learn more from failing than succeeding.” Sadly I can not make fun of him for this, because he could not be any more correct.
So instead of getting back on and trying to win it all back, like a lot of people would try to do, I decided to take the week off. I am in Vegas now (July 5th-July 11th and then July 16th -August 11th) for the WSOP, and if there’s any time I need my emotions under control, it’s now.
One’s emotions play such a huge part in their success. Any good poker player knows that if you are playing on tilt or if you are playing while you are upset about something, your reads and your play will suffer greatly. My buddy Merriam-Webster explains emotions as a psychic and physical reaction (as anger or fear), subjectively experienced as strong feeling and physiologically involving changes that prepare the body for immediate vigorous action. So once you feel this taking over your body, do what I did… Shut down the computer, blow off some steam to your buddy, realize that life is pretty damn good, and take a break! Do not let emotions take over you, or your poker game will suffer!
Can I get a WSOP champion that is a Pocketfiver one time PLEASE?!? Good Luck everyone, and I hope to see you down there. LatestLines2 and Jsup have informed me that Zambuka shots are on them all trip, so if you want to throw up, hang up with us.
