Champion of Poker

There is always a tendency with many novice online poker players to look at events in a vacuum. This could mean that the bad beat that you just experienced is somehow exaggerated in your own mind. Usually it is the ability to absorb losses that will ultimately be your biggest asset as a poker player. This can be looked at in all sorts of different ways.

Firstly if you suffer a bad beat and you stop playing poker then this means that you are no longer earning money. So your inability to absorb a beat or an outdraw is costing you an awful lot of money. I have known players whose mindset was so poor that they could not mentally accept just one single bad beat in their poker sessions. This people have almost no chance to make substantial money from poker because they can never find the time to play poker put the hours in.

There is some very sound advice that says that if you are about to tilt then you should stop playing immediately. This is good advice but it does prevent a player from optimising their earning potential. I find that the optimal way to combat tilt is to accept it before it happens. I have often been criticised for this outlook in the past but if you accept that bad things are going to happen then it helps you to accept them when they do.

This isn’t the best way for many people but it worked for me personally and I can only relate that to other people. If you are really going to take your poker to the next level in terms of earnings then you are going to have to stop looking at short term results in a more exaggerated way. This is where many players could really start to excel with their poker. There are finite ways to improve your poker on a technical level but yet there are many more ways to improve your poker in terms of the mental side and what that can do for your earnings.

If you stay playing solid poker all the time then really there is nothing that can touch you at the lower levels of poker up to and including NL200. These are the levels that good solid poker can do well at. But yet novice and even intermediate level players build themselves mental prisons that they can never ever break free from. This is where positive thoughts can and do have a huge impact on your poker game. I have often heard how the power of positive thinking can have a huge impact on your poker game.

Many people rubbish these claims and their thoughts are that no amount of positive attitude can make up for a poor poker game.

This is true but what if your poker game is good enough but a poor mental attitude is holding you back? I have known many strong poker players who have this flaw and they never utilise their potential.