October Month Review & November Goals.

Poker Stars & Full Tilt

Days played: 25

Cash game hands played: 15,342

Hours Played: 36.00

Winning days: 17
Losing days: 8
Most profitable day: +$68.72

Least profitable day: -$69.58

Amount Won: +$380.14

Bonuses Earned: +$197.20

Total Monthly Profit: +$577.34

Goal Evaluation:

October Goals:

- Play 25K+ hands - FAILED (15,342/25,000)
- Achieve Gold Star VIP level on stars - FAILED (1466.38/3000 VPPs)
- Make $500+ in monthly profits - ACHIEVED (+$577.34/$500.00)

November Goals:

- Play 25%+ of my volume at 50NL.

- Play 20K+ hands

- $600+ in monthly profit

- Achieve Gold Star VIP level

Reflection:

I did not put in the volume I hoped to have this month and I need to find the motivation to do so next month. I'm glad I was able to take a shot at 50NL and I'd love to be able to make the transition up to playing there regularly sometime during this month.

October Week 4 Review.

October 25th - October 29th

Poker Stars

Days played: 5

Cash game hands played: 2,996

Hours Played: 8.73

Limits Played: 25NL, 50NL

Winning days: 3
Losing days: 2
Most profitable day: +$62.67

Least profitable day: -$-69.58

Amount Won: +$30.88

Bonuses Earned: +$20.00 Deposit Bonus($130/$600)

Goal Results:

Total for Above Period: $50.88

Total/Month: +$577.34

Total Profit: +$937.09

Amount remaining to reach goal: $4,062.91

I'm writing this now as it is Halloween weekend and my girlfriend is up so I will not be getting any volume in this weekend most likely. I'm happy with this months results and happy to have felt so comfortable at 25NL to be able to take shots at 50NL. I hope to take much more in the future and hopefully make the transition to being a regular player there in the next couple of weeks.

Interesting Article on Tilt.

So Zen, poker and tilt, how does it all fit?

It all fits because unless you are extremely well balanced (mentally) or are an emotional zombie, you willgo on tilt at some time playing poker. For beginning players especially, when you are learning correct poker only to have people beat you with incorrect poker, tilt can be a major factor in your game.

Zen comes in, because learning to deal with tilt, or rather, the cause of tilt is an exercise in self-control coupled with mental understanding of the situation. You can either learn to control your tilt or learn to stop tilt at the root - which is where Zen comes into play.

Tilt: Is it in you?

One misconception people have is that tilt is turning into the Hulk and smashing things to itty bitty pieces when you get angry:

"HULK RIVERED? HULK AAAAANGRY!! HULK SMAAAAASH!!!" (as the tilt-o-wheel goes off)

But the thing about tilt is that even if you don't show anything on the outside, you can still be suffering on tilt from the inside. What this means is that even if you're not acting like the hulk, if you feel like you want to be smashing things, you still have major tilt issues - but just don't show it.

The problem with tilt of course is that it distracts you from optimal play - which most of players are NOT doing even when they aren't on tilt. Even when players are fully aware of what they are doing, they'll call down a hand when they know they are beat - but they just can't bear to laydown their hand.

What tilt does is amplify your hasty decision making and put you in a "I want to get him back", "**** it, I don't care" or "I'm going to push my way around" attitude. So, even if you're not smashing things on the table, you're pushing yourself to make wrong plays in crucial situations. You don't have to be a pot splashing maniac to be on tilt - because if you make any play that costs you a bet that you could have saved, that's good enough to be on tilt.

Identify the cause of tilt?

Here is where Zen comes in. When I ask you to identify the cause of tilt, what is your response?

* 1. Losing a lot of money on a big hand
* 2. Being rivered by a fish
* 3. Losing a hand where I was the winner
* 4. Playing correctly and still losing

All of these are reasons for going on tilt, but only #4 really addresses the issue of the cause of tilt. The reason you go on tilt is because even though you played to the best of your abilities and played what you thought was correct poker, someone else managed to beat you. Of course, that's quite unfair when you think about it, right? Which in turn, makes you angry. "He was a 7:1 underdog and he should have known by the way you were betting, but called anyways!" you tell yourself. But if you re-think through your point, you'll realize that: Yes, your opponent had no idea he was the underdog, otherwise he wouldn't have made the call!

Zen Lesson #1: Understand your opponent instead of blaming him

Let's say ou were a History major and asked your friend what year Columbus founded America, you wouldn't smack him in the head if he replied "Uh... 1812" would you? No you wouldn't! Why? Because he's not a history major and doesn't have the foggiest on the correct answer. This very simple concept in empathy (looking at things through the eyes of someone else) should help you understand why you shouldn't get angry at your opponent.
Golf and Tilt

To hit the point home again, imagine if YOU are doing something that you enjoy only as a hobby - let's say golf. You're swinging away on the greens and make a lucky hole in one. You're really happy, but a pro-golfer comes by and tells you that your swing was awful, your clubs are second rate and that you don't deserve to be playing golf. You'd get pissed in a hurry and tell them to go shove it - and for good reason, you're just here to have fun! You don't give a rats ass about good form, because dropping $20 for a weekend of golf is your idea of a good time.

So, before berating other players at a table, stop and remember that almost everyone at the table is just looking to have fun. You're one of the few serious ones or aspiring pros. So, act like a professional and realize that it's completely pointless to blame people for mistakes they A) don't realize and B) don't care about. They are here to have fun and it's not your right to spoil it.

Zen Lesson #2: There is no revenge in poker, just karma

Most of the advice you will get about tilt is to remember that it's a long term game. If you read in between the lines, what the advice is really saying is either: that bastard will bust out eventually or you will win eventually. What's wrong about both of these modes of thinking is that it still implies feeling sorry over the fact that you had a bad beat.

The problem however, is that line of thinking (however logical) is flawed in terms of controlling tilt. As long as you keep thinking that you should be sorry for yourself after every bad beat - you'll still be tilting. You don't want to be feeling sorry for yourself period if you want to get off tilt.

To illustrate, if you just had your car stolen and the policeman told you "Oh don't worry, he'll eventually be caught down the road." That doesn't make you feel better, does it? No it doesn't, because you still want to catch that punk and give him some five-fingered medicine. But the fact is, you can't.

You just simply have to man up to the fact that your car is gone and no line of wishy-washy "oh but he'll pay in the future!" thinking is going to make you feel better, even if it is true. You need to face it now and get over it. Man up. You lost. Suck it up and move on.

Zen Lesson #3: Give up control

Before you watch Rounders for the ump teeth time and convince yourself that poker is a skill only game, remember that it wouldn't be gambling if there wasn't luck involved. World Series of Poker champions have been made by the river, so don't think that you're special when it comes to getting a bad beat. You lost $20, $50, $100 big ones? Boo hoo. Try losing $400,000 and a bracelet. It's still a game that is dictated by luck - and don't you forget it.

Try to think of poker in this way: Luck is a mountain, poker is a big boulder and you are skill, running along the boulder trying to move it to avoid smashing into trees as it rolls down the mountain. No matter how hard you try, you can only adjust the boulder so much to avoid hitting trees. Sometimes the trees are just ahead and there's nothing you can do, while other times you can barely avoid a hit if you try with all your might.

If you finally mastered this boulder game, you would eventually realize that there is only so much you can do, while the rest is up to fate. It's futile to try and control that which you can't. All you can do is position yourself in the best spot possible and hope for the best. Accept it. Really.

Just. Let. Go.

Zen Lesson #4: Using Zen to find your source of anger
Brain and Zen

This is the most important lesson. When you try to get over tilt, you are basically forcing your left brain (logic) to tell your right brain (emotion) why it shouldn't be pissed off. But no matter how much you mentally fight yourself, you're trying to suppress emotions instead of addressing them. What you really need to be doing is stopping your emotions at the source.

Your emotional center acts up as a response to a need. If someone punches you in the face for example, your reaction goes along the line of:

1. Physical: Flinch, close your eyes
2. Subconscious: Recognize a threat
3. Mental: Analyze how to respond to threat
4. Emotional: Become angry or fearful
5. Biological: Adrenaline rush, get ready to fight or run

The way this applies to tilting is poker, is by understanding the order in which tilt takes place. By taking time to examine your own thoughts (thinking about how you think), you can use Zen principles to break down exactly what you are going through during tilt:

1. Mental: Observe opponent rivering you
2. Mental: Realize you had a better hand than your opponent before the river
3. Mental: Realize you played correctly, while your opponent played incorrectly
4. Subconscious: You are accustomed to being rewarded when you do things correctly
5. Subconscious: You were not rewarded
6. Subconscious: This is not normal
7. Subconscious: This is not 'fair'
8. Subconscious: Unfairness is resolved through conflict
9. Emotional: You need to prepare for conflict
10. Emotional: You need to become aggressive
11. Biological: Increase heart rate, release adrenaline, tense up the body
12. Mental: TILT
13. Mental: Recognize that you are getting angry
14. Mental: Realize that you need to stop getting angry
15. Mental: Fight against emotion and subconscious for control

We can see by this deconstruction that tilt comes up because of how an your subconscious reacts to an 'unfair' situation. This reaction is literally ingrained in most of us, as our biology, society and economy is based on reward conditioning. Every time you are rewarded, our brain maps out a path on how to receive that reward, so it's really inescapable. So, when you don't get rewarded when you expect to, the brain sees this as an uncertain situation or situation that appears to violate the mental rules you have in place. Thus, the brain sees this uncertainty as confusion, which leads to a reaction of anger or fear.

To make yet another analogy, if your work suddenly decided to dock your pay for no reason, you would be up in arms because it's obviously uncalled for (unfair). Unless you are a weak or timid person, your body will react in the appropriate way to deal with the situation. Just like most guys need a beer or two before hitting on a hottie at the bar, you need to get a bit riled up before you go mouthing off at your boss.

So, they key point here is that by analyzing your own mental train of thought and subconscious train of thought, you will realize that your body is reacting in a way that it is designed to. What you need to do, is intercept your thought processes at #4 and realize that you will not be rewarded in the same way in poker as other activities in your life. By reworking your thought processes at steps #4 and #6, you will stop the progression toward tilt and keep the game solely mental, instead of emotional.

To deal with #4 - you need to toss out the window your expectations of being rewarded in poker. You need to realize that there is no guarantee of being rewarded when you do things correctly in poker. Lose that mental hump you have where you are actually expecting something for doing things the right way. It doesn't happen in poker. So dig deep... and go back to that inner child in you where you were rewarded a cookie by your teacher for reciting the entire alphabet in front of the class. Now replace that cookie with a solid smack to the head. That's poker. Get it?

Zen Lesson #5: Learn from your defeats

On another note, many players will find themselves blaming their opponent for their own bad plays and go on tilt as a result. I see this often on the forums, with people blasting other players for outdrawing them when their opponent had the pot odds to do so. So some things you should ask yourself about each 'bad beat' you have should be:

* Did I completely count how many outs my opponent had?
* Did I make it incorrect pot odds for him to call?
* Did I try to bluff out a calling station?
* Was this really a bad beat?

In any game, you will find that the best players get angry just like everyone else from time to time. The thing that is different from the elite players however, is that they will always analyze their own play over and over, asking themselves "What did I do wrong?" or "How do I prevent that from happening again?". It's a different mentality than the average player, because the top players always put the blame to themselves first, rather than their opponent. The reason they do this is because you can't improve on yourself if you're not willing to admit fault first.

In many cases, you will find that you did play correctly of course. But in those times where you played incorrectly, if you cannot figure out that the problem lies with you, then you will never be able to mature as a poker player (or in any other of life's endeavors) for that matter. Self-reflection is one of the key principles to Zen.

Conclusion and Summary

So to summarize:

1. Do not blame your opponents for things they do not know - that is wrong
2. Accept your bad beats straight up and don't mull over them
3. Give up control and let fate run it's course
4. There are no cookies in poker
5. Learn from your mistakes to make yourself a better player

Lastly, if you liked this article, then you should read more about Zen or meditation sometime. You can solve a lot of your own problems just by using this same process of internal dialogue; which comes naturally through meditation. Accessing your subconscious allows you to see what is really brewing under the surface of your brain. You'd be surprised at what you'll find there.

I came across this article on 2+2 and thought it was a good read and hopefully will help me deal with tilt in the future.

October Week 3 Review.

October 18th - October 24th

Poker Stars & Full Tilt

Days played: 7

Cash game hands played: 4,486

Hours Played: 10.93

Winning days: 5
Losing days: 2
Most profitable day: +$57.26

Least profitable day: -$13.12

Amount Won: +$126.50

Bonuses Earned: +$20.00 Deposit Bonus($110/$600) , $50 Fast 50 Bonus (missed from September), $25 Take 2 Bonus.

Goal Results:

Total for Above Period: $221.50

Total/Month: +$526.46

Total Profit: +$886.21

Amount remaining to reach goal: $4,113.79

I won't be getting much volume in this week. I have a crucial math test Wednesday night and a big program due next Tuesday morning and with this weekend being Halloween I'm not going to have the time to work on the project then. I'm hoping to get 2-3 sessions in before next Tuesday as I put in the bare minimum over the weekend.

Mid Week Update.

Poker Stars & Full Tilt

Days played: 4

Cash game hands played: 3,768

Hours Played: 8.87

Winning days: 2
Losing days: 2
Most profitable day: +$57.26
Least profitable day: -$13.12

Amount Won: +$85.44

Bonuses Earned: +$10.00 Deposit Bonus($100/$600) & $50 Fast 50 Bonus (Started September 4th and completed on September 24th, just realized I never put this into my profits)

Goal Results:

Total for Above Period: $95.44

Total/Month: +$400.40

Missed Bonus from Past: $50.00

Total Profit: +$810.15

Amount remaining to reach goal: $4,189.85

Overall I'm very happy with my results in the challenge thus far. I've progressed so much as a player in this short time since summer ended and I'm always excited to play. I've found a new way of being positive about my game and my life and it is affecting the outcome of my sessions and overall quality of life. I've learned that no matter how bad you do and how much you lose one day that the next day you need to step up and grind as if that day never even happened. No matter what life hands you, don't let it affect your future and make the best of it. I've applied this to my outlook on life and school and it is helping me progress further in all aspects of life. Poker has taught me many different things and taken a significant role in my life the last 5+ months even though I may not have the best results to show for it and most importantly it leaves me excited for the future.

P.S. I've got a busy week/end of the month coming up so grinding is coming second to school and my girlfriend. I'm going to do my best to manage my time well enough to fit in as much grinding as possible.

October Week 2 Review

October 12th - October 17th

Poker Stars & Full Tilt

Days played: 6

Cash game hands played: 4,946

Hours Played: 9.87

Winning days: 5
Losing days: 1
Most profitable day: +$64.41
Least profitable day: -$56.30

Amount Won: +$112.83

Bonuses Earned: +$20.00 Deposit Bonus($90/$600) & $10 Stellar Reward

Goal Results:

Total for Above Period: $142.83

Total/Month: +$304.96

Total Profit: +$664.71

Amount remaining to reach goal: $4,335.29

Volume Rant.

I'm extremely disappointed in my volume since I've gone back to UMass. I find myself putting in around a quarter of the amount of time at the tables that I'm striving for. My mindset is just not in the right place most of the time. I find myself browsing 2+2 or surfing the web too much rather than putting in the time playing. I guess I have just been stressed with school and my relationship and have put poker behind most of my priorities. I know that's the way it should be, but if I was just better at managing my time to fit in everything I think I could be much more successful in all aspects of my life. My time management skills really need some sharpening and I hope I can achieve this as its crucial in order to be able to juggle poker, school, a relationship, and a social life. I have a busy week ahead of me including a big project and test so once again I won't be getting a large volume in poker wise until at least friday. I hope to make up for it the rest of the month and still hoping to hit as many of my monthly goals as I can.

Updated Week 1 Review.

October 1st - October 11th

Poker Stars

Days played: 8

Cash game hands played: 4,622

Hours Played: 9.67

Winning days: 6
Losing days: 2
Most profitable day: +$68.72
Least profitable day: -$36.57

Amount Won: +$134.13

Bonuses Earned: +$30.00 (Deposit Bonus)

Total for Above Period: $164.13

Total/Month: +$164.13

Goal Results:

Total Profit: +$521.88

Amount remaining to reach goal: $4,478.12

October Week 1 Review

Lifetime 25NL graph (stars + ft)

25nl Stars Graph
This Month's Results

I'm writing this review early since I will be going home for the weekend and will be grinding it out on my laptop. This weekend was very swingy and I hit some major variance. I ran well the last couple of days so I'm happy with the end result. I also as you might have noticed purchased HEM. I was on my last straw with PT3 and have had several problems that support has been unable to help me with. If anyone reads this and is deciding between the two HEM is definitely the way to go.

Poker Stars

Days played: 5

Cash game hands played: 3,312

Hours Played: 6.60

Winning days: 3
Losing days: 2
Most profitable day: +$50.57
Least profitable day: -$36.57

Amount Won: +$41.30

Bonuses Earned: +$20.00 (Deposit Bonus)

Total for Week: $61.30

Total/Month: +$61.30

Goal Results:

Total Profit: +$419.05

Amount remaining to reach goal: $4,580.95

October Poker Goals

Here are my poker goals for the month of October:

- Play 25K+ hands

- Achieve Gold Star VIP level on stars

- Make $500+ in monthly profits

According to my calculations for this year's goals. I'll need to make around $23 a day in order to hit my goal of 5K. If I can finish grinding out my deposit bonus and then start taking shots/moving up I don't find this unachievable in any way. I just need to keep progressing in a forward motion as I had trouble with this over the summer. I'd like to be a solid multi-tabling 50nl reg by Christmas.

September Results Wrap-up

Poker Stars

Days played: 4

Sessions Played: 97
Cash game hands played: 3,831

Hours Played: 8.47

Winning days: 3
Losing days: 1
Most profitable day: +$44.04
Least profitable day: -$22.85

Amount Won: +$65.23

Bonuses Earned: +$20.00 (Deposit Bonus) & + $10.00 (Stellar Reward)

Today for Week: $95.23

Total/Month: +$202.95

Goal Results:

Total Profit: +$357.75

Amount remaining to reach goal: $4,642.25