Mental Game - The Process Model

[AAroddersAA]

Rather than improving your B and C game, why don't we just play A game all the time?  

In my opinion both are impossible :-)

Yeah I know I am being factitious the goal should be to play our A game as much of the time as possible, agreed. That being said I would not disagree with VBLUE (sorry don"t know actual name) that if we see a good game them maybe we should be jumping in even if we know we are not quite going to be playing our A game 100% of the time. This is obviously much more relevant to cash than tournaments though.

[Fatcatstu]

Being as how this is about online poker, and I am **** at that, I will leave it to you intelligent people ago know more about it than I likely ever will.

Really is something I should try and get better at I suppose.

[mporter123]

In my opinion both are impossible :-)

Out of interest, how often would you say that you play your "A" game when you play online? How do you define "A" game?

[AAroddersAA]

In my opinion both are impossible :-)

Out of interest, how often would you say that you play your "A" game when you play online? How do you define "A" game?

I don"t know but you must know what I mean, you just sort of know when you are playing it. The outdraws don"t worry you at all, you have no problem folding when you know the river card has just caused you to go behind and just happily carry on. You feel fresher and are properly focused on the game, you keep making the right plays and don"t get lazy (usually this means just calling to chase draws instead of applying pressure and raising because you can"t be bothered to work out if you should be or not when it is marginal). I will try and post something better later on this as it is a good point.

I don"t think I play my A game more than 50% of the time online or live if I am honest.

[VBlue]

Is Jared expecting me to run "Rocky like" up some steps before I start every MTT session? This pre-game preparation stuff doesn"t wash with me, we are playing online poker not conducting brain surgery. Do enough to make sure you are comfortable when you are playing is about it.

No - he is not expecting you to run up anything before you play. 

Some of the "warm-up" stuff you can do, as I have noted, is make session goals, something inspirational like listening to a piece of music or review your short-term/long-term goals, or maybe play a few hands at a lower stake to try some things out, or go back over some training notes, or hand histories you want to help improve your game.

It may not be brain-surgery.  What has that got to do with it.  Poker is an extremely challenging game in many ways and a warm-up routine is part of a successful game.  Look up The Process Model and see how many sports people use it.  Non-league footballers are not playing for millions of dollars when they go out to play but will have a warm-up routine.  I don"t get your point here at all Mark

[VBlue]

Arbitrary rules like 4 betting every time somebody 3bets you seems ridiculous and surely is just burning money. I don't know how this is going to help your game.

Rather than improving your B and C game, why don't we just play A game all the time?  

Do you play cash or MTT"s?

The 4-betting thing is to be done over a couple of sessions to experiment with how players react to 4-bets and to see how it affects your decisions when faced with a 3-bet.  It is not a fixed rule for the rest of your playing career.  I took the advice from Kevin MacPhee.  He knows a thing or two about pre-flop aggression.

To improve your overall game you have to work on your weakest elements as well as adding new skills.  Everyone has an A, B and C game.  It is called Inchworm - a very simple but effective way of describing how someone can effectively improve their overall game.

I play MTTs mainly, but some 6-max cash and speed poker.

[VBlue]

As far as poker goes, yeah The Mental Game of Poker is a book I would not mind reading and I am sure I will do at some point. It has had a lot of good feedback as has Jared Tendler. Not sure what his background as a poker player is (not sure if it matters) but as far as mental game strategy goes he is top notch.What do we think are good session goals to have?

He was close to going pro as a golfer but decided to go for his MSc in Psychology instead as he felt being a golf pro was just too tough for most and he didn"t want to take that route.  He has worked with loads of golf pros, met Dusty Schmidt "Leatherass", and drew parallels between the work he was doing with golfers and poker pros.

Good session goals (I have been focusing on pre-flop aggression) might be simple things like playing tighter OOP - only 3-betting and never flatting, flatting more in-position with medium strength-hands like AQ/AJ/KQ, or 4-betting all 3-bets (only for a session as an experiment - not a long-term set in stone play).

[VBlue]

I think Noble got the preparation bit spot on actually. We should play if we feel like playing. There are plenty of other things to do if we don"t feel like playing. I think it links with what I was saying about making sure you are awake and feeling ready before logging on. These have to be sensible parts of what I guess would be mental preparation. Sometime when I miss this out and play when I know I should not be I end up losing at the start of the session and spending the rest of it digging myself out of a hole so what you say is logical. I am guessing it differs for each of us slightly though so we have to find what works best for us.

For us recreational players this is fine, but for some pros or semi-pros volume is key and they might need to play despite how they feel.  I don"t disagree with much of it for us.  There is some stuff on playing when not at your best but I will add more later on it.

[VBlue]

I assume the 4-bet every time you are 3-bet was just a hypothetical example. A goal like that should be something like "profitably 4-bet light" as there are spots where you just can"t do it but I see where you are going with the idea of it.

It was an idea from Kevin MacPhee, advocated at a level or two below what you currently play, to see how 4-betting 3-bettors can simplify later decisions and to experiment against different opponents to see how effective it was in getting 3-bettors to fold, or being 5-bet by tight players and having an easy decision to fold your own hand (for example).

If you click it back, I forget the actual percentage, but you do not need to get folds too often for it to be a profitable play long-term.  I can add more on this later if interested?

[VBlue]

Out of interest, how often would you say that you play your "A" game when you play online? How do you define "A" game?

This is a great question Mark.  Jared was telling me how I should put some time into defining my A game from my B and C games.  So what elements of your game would you evaluate to determine how you play?

Perhaps it would be focus (which I class as taking in all the nuances of a game - position, stack size, opponent tendencies/HUD stats, ranges, etc.), concentration (avoiding distractions bascially), and then some other elements like reading the game well...I"m struggling to think more right now.  You then build a picture of your A game, B game, and C game.  Maybe a C game tendency would be playing too many pots OOP, or limping instead of 3-betting in position (for some people anyway).  You might make a common mistake that you have rectified but it slips in at times so is part of your C game still when yo forget or repeat the mistake.

I am Mark too Rodders  

[VBlue]

In my opinion both are impossible :-)

Out of interest, how often would you say that you play your "A" game when you play online? How do you define "A" game?

I don"t know but you must know what I mean, you just sort of know when you are playing it. The outdraws don"t worry you at all, you have no problem folding when you know the river card has just caused you to go behind and just happily carry on. You feel fresher and are properly focused on the game, you keep making the right plays and don"t get lazy (usually this means just calling to chase draws instead of applying pressure and raising because you can"t be bothered to work out if you should be or not when it is marginal). I will try and post something better later on this as it is a good point.

I don"t think I play my A game more than 50% of the time online or live if I am honest.

I think this is a good reply.  And honest.  I probably don"t play my A game more than 50% either, if that.

[mporter123]

I am just not sure that a "warm up" would help me. I dont see how it would change the way I play. My goals are longer term focussed. Maybe I am massively deluding myself but I think I play my A game >80% of the time.

The general point I was trying to make is that sometimes there is no need to over complicate poker. The absolute best way to learn initially is to play as much volume as possible and get yourself into lots of spots that make you think. Supplement that with some strategy, reading/videos, PHA boards and your well on your way.

[noble1]

Jared advocates that this pre-game preparation is very important and if missed can result in the early part of our session spent warming-up, instead of being warmed up ready to play from the 1st hand, which could cause us value from our session. 

I have been working on pre-flop aggression recently, so might have a goal to 4-bet every time I am 3-bet, as I am experimenting with this in my game currently.

It is important that we learn to play in different states and it can be sometimes profitable, if the game is good, to play our B game, or even our C game for a session.  Also, to improve our C game and B game we have to focus on the back-end of our skills and playing when we are not at our best can help improve us.

Is Jared expecting me to run "Rocky like" up some steps before I start every MTT session? This pre-game preparation stuff doesn"t wash with me, we are playing online poker not conducting brain surgery. Do enough to make sure you are comfortable when you are playing is about it.

Arbitrary rules like 4 betting every time somebody 3bets you seems ridiculous and surely is just burning money. I don't know how this is going to help your game.

Rather than improving your B and C game, why don't we just play A game all the time?  

Do you play cash or MTT"s?

strategy
nothing wrong in experimenting if you have some reasoning/logic behind why you are doing it and that you can learn how various players will adjust or view you...
for instance in short handed games with 100bb stacks if 3betting light puts your opponents on tilt, [and is definitely a weapon to use at the tables] but many players overuse it a bit in my opinion, then think what 4betting light will do..
light 3betting became very popular since about 2006 ish and its important to know some ways to combat this technique at 100bb eff, you can 4bet bluff but plan your range so that you call a 5bet shove with a good portion of your bluffs [cos mathematically you will be making a mistake a lot of the time if you are 4-bet/folding hands] so when you happen to 4bet for value with QQ KK AA AKs then your bluffs help cos it doesn"t give away the strength of your hand, this sort of approach is fine for when you are oop.... when we are ip facing a possible light 3bet then its a different ball game @ 100bb eff then you can call a lot more to make handreading more difficult for your opponents, and to avoid the mess of 4-bet/folding incorrectly, playing within this framework we would just call all of our opponents 3bets with our good, excellent, and sometimes speculative (for deception) hands...  this makes it difficult for our opponents to know when we have a monster and their mistakes are amplified and hopefully with good reads we minimise our mistakes
say if u played a very loose-aggressive style and u was constantly being 3bet preflop because u was opening with so many hands from all positions then go ahead and shove all in with aces, kings, and ace-rag (suited or unsuited) as long as u perceived the light 3bettor as competent and u think villain is reraising u with more than 7.8% of his hands then it will be +ev [do some maths] i mean that 7.8% could look like this  88+, ATs+, KTs+, QJs, AQo+ and if your oop only calls the 4bet shove with QQ+ AKs AKo then you"ll print money but in game we all know full well they are 3betting all sorts of crap most of which they will have to fold to a push so the shove shows an immediate positive expectation, if villain adjusts and manages a call with 99 for instance and u happen to have A5s even then pretty much you have 30% equity, this style of 4bet shoving play @ 100bb stacks is difficult to adjust to and u will get frequently absurd amounts of action [but be ready for the variance roller coaster and have a good sized bank roll ]

just note though u have to get your reads right to make/play this adjustment

[Swinebag]

Preparation - My preparation is very important. I make sure my son has been bathed and has gone to sleep. I then prepare a few snacks and a load of drinks. I then run a bath for my wife to make sure it is ready for 55 mins past the hour so I can come up and scrub her back. I then feel ready to bust some major chops on the online felt

Evaluation - I don"t write anything down but I do think through hands and try to make sure I have made the correct decisions during the session. If it is a late session and a decent score then I just think GTFIT - shiiiiip!!!!!!

Analysis - A weakness in my game. I find this too time consuming. I have a job and poker is my hobby. If it was my job and I actually played enough hands/tourneys for analysis to be effective, then I would spend a lot of time on this.

[pables]

Preparation - My preparation is very important. I make sure my son has been bathed and has gone to sleep. I then prepare a few snacks and a load of drinks. I then run a bath for my wife to make sure it is ready for 55 mins past the hour so I can come up and scrub her back. I then feel ready to bust some major chops on the online felt

Evaluation - I don"t write anything down but I do think through hands and try to make sure I have made the correct decisions during the session. If it is a late session and a decent score then I just think GTFIT - shiiiiip!!!!!!

Analysis - A weakness in my game. I find this too time consuming. I have a job and poker is my hobby. If it was my job and I actually played enough hands/tourneys for analysis to be effective, then I would spend a lot of time on this.

Probably the best post I"ve read for a long while