In a competitive world like tournament poker, it can be rather easy to take losses personally, get down on yourself and lose a grip on your normal, everyday poker face.
Some players think that a poker face has to be neutral. Not the case at all. It just has to be natural and unchanging, not giving anything away based on changing circumstances and situations. If a person is naturally happy, smiling and outgoing, as long as they don’t get overly serious, sad and introverted when something changes or “bad” happens, they’re fine. The challenge for any player is when they experience a downturn, their normal face starts to slip and display pain.
When our poker face starts to slip, this is a sign that losses are starting to effect us and if not managed, will effect our attitude. A player can then fall into a losing cycle that’s tougher to come out of because it tends to perpetuate itself.
Maintaining a professional and workmanlike attitude amidst these dramatic swings of the game is a challenge to say the least. In this article I’d like to offer a few tips and reminders on how to maintain your poker face while facing adversity.
Keep it all in perspective!
One must have distance to have perspective. When we get emotionally upset, whether it be anger, frustration or sadness, we lose objectivity and our poker technique tends to suffer. This happens when we lose the overall picture of the game and tend to focus on a specific result or event instead of keeping the big picture in view.
When you feel this happening, just take a step back. You can practically do this by pulling up your last three months of results and focusing on some of the wins and good fortune you’ve had along the way. The times when things went our way, but we’ve quickly forgotten about our good fortune. I call it, “taking a drink of goodness.”
If you have nothing “good” to look at in the last three months, then perhaps it’s not a challenge you’re facing, but a serious problem you have yet to confront. In which case, you’ll have to get with your coach or someone that can offer an objective view of your situation. The game has a way of forcing us into looking at things that compel us to adapt and grow or ignore and die. Meaning the death of that particular game in which the player folds up their tent and quits.
Realize quitting is never an option!
Quitting is a great path to despair. You should only leave a game by choice, not because you’ve been “forced out,” by poor performance or apathetic despair. “It’s really hard,” so what! “I don’t like losing,” nobody does. “I just can’t win,” not with that attitude. Stop letting your excuses and rationalizations become the reasons for your failure. Own up to it and do what’s necessary to succeed. Get coaching, develop your skills and technique, and keep going back at it with passion, like a dog going after the marrow in a bone.
Don’t give up, don’t ever give up! Cry, face your fears, get angry at your current results and let that anger drive you into getting interested in what needs to be confronted to get you back on top of your game!
Set up realistic expectations!
I realize most tournaments I compete in that it’s a 100-1 shot to win it. I also realize that the best only cash about 20% of the time. Do I let the practicality of the math slow me down or stop me? No way! If it was easy, everyone would do it. It just makes the wins that much sweeter when they do come.
Relatively low-risk, high-reward situations, are always a gamble. But long term if you’ve trained properly and have good technique with a long term vision, you’ll be fine. You have to know that, believe and embrace it and trust it.
Adopt a winning Attitude!
A winning attitude is one that is professional and workmanlike. When you show up to play your tournament, be on time. Put your focus and attention on what you’re doing and don’t allow outside distractions to come into your office – the poker table. Get about going to work and focusing on those things you can control, not on what’s out of your control. We can’t control which cards come off the deck, but we can learn to control how we respond to them. When we learn to manage our responses, we win the game within the game of poker. And that’s the real win, because you are more important than any particular game you play.
When you’re getting dressed to go out and play today, as you put on your shirt also dress with the proper attitude. As you walk out the door, make sure you take your B.A.G. with you! This is an acronym for Blessings, Accomplishments, and Goals. Verbally declare something you’ve been blessed with this day, something you’ve accomplished recently that you feel good about, and a goal you’ve set for yourself in the day ahead.
If you’re successful, you’ll have turned that frown upside down! Now go out and win today!
Got a B.A.G. from this post. Thanks Coach