| Eightful Path To Poker Enlightment by Mariuslol, February 07
It will make most sense if it's all put together, the amazing Tommy Angelo spent close to a year making this series and it's probably the best series any poker player can watch through.
Took me around 10+ hours writing the notes about the most important stuff, because when I write notes I do it with a pen while I'm studying, and I write really ugly lol. Here is the whole journey.
Enjoy =]
The Eight Paths To Poker Enlightment
Right View
+ Show Spoiler +
Right view: (Anything that isn't wrong view)
- Seeing things as they are, having no delusions.
- Example of wrong view: When we are result orientated (When we base an alayzis of a decision on how things turn out, rather than basing it on the decision itself.) Happens when we analyze a betting decision, quitting decision etc.
- Right view: Not being results orientated (result orientated just an example)
Tilt
- "Tilt is any non A-game performance." (Tired, under bankrolled, emotional unstable, etc.)
- Anything that changes your good decisions, to making bad decisions, is tilt.
Being results orientated effects our evaluation
Example: We make a play, it didn't work out, and we think we made a horrible play, and can easily put ourself on tilt, even if the play might have been pretty good.
The professional:
- The little Angel/voice on your shoulder
- What if there was a guy, who had to make money of poker, or die
*All of his decisions will be based on his poker, what he eats, when he sleeps, what he thinks, anything in his controle, it's all metagame for this fictional character*
- What if all "my" decisions were based on maximizing my poker profits?
* Will influence on how I will behave (wouldn't badmouth the casino, want people to be happy, and come there, want players to come there and play. So last thing would be, say something bad about the Casino).
- What if all my decisions including what I say, were based on profit, what would I say, what would I do (How you can use "The professional" as a guide).
More examples of wrong view
- The whole idea by being bugged all day by a hand is something you want to let go
- Any time you think "I finally got a hand, I finally won a pot etc" let it go
- "There was this total fish at the table" (There's no fish/donk/at the table, wrong view) let it go (Look at them as trees instead lol)
- Having a big pair, waiting for an Ace to come (terrible view)
- Hating anything a fish(tree) /regular does is wrong view
Look at things for what it is, there's no room for fear
The gray area
That part of poker strategy evaluation, when you just don't know what the right play is or was, and you never will. And it's built in the nature of the game.
"The decisions that bother us the most matter the least."
(Decisions where your EV was 50% wether you would have bet or folded).
In our mind we're latched to take one side or another
- You don't want anything in/around the grey area to cloud/bother you mind. Don't get stuck in the quagmire of the grey area. All it does it bring us down
Belive and accept that a lot of decisions are very close, and neither would make a diffrence
- Suggestion: Recognize when you've come upon one of those, analyze them, and think what you should have done, then move on. FAST!
(Usually these decisions who get loooong threads on the forum, with a myriads of opinions who's right and wrong, and people fight to the death about it. When you find these, move along).
Interessting fact: 75% of all poker players think they play better than the other 75%.
The grey area is so huge, allows any of us to over evaluate our own play.
More on right view
- A good poker player wants to put himself in +EV spots, by evaluating profitable situations
- A guy who finds a table which looks really juicy, might say: Wow, a table full of fishes(trees) who sucks ass, I'm better than all of these isn't evaluating, he's juding
Judge versus evaluate
Judging is when you bring in type of words which move towards wrong thinking. When you attatch to those words, it detracts from your ability to evaluate.
Improving from the top up and the bottom up
A diffrent approach to how you spend the energy that you put toward improving your score.
- Improve not only your A game, but your C game aswell
- Conciously spend 50% of your energy improving your C game, so when you're losing/playing bad, you don't lose that much, and can get faster back to your A game.
Example of C game:
- You get stuck, and you start playing looser, chasing your losses
(A lot has to do with awareness)
Be honest with yourself, say to yourself (When Im stuck i play to loose, i need to keep tight).
- Bad beats
- When you play bad (compounding tilt)
(When I play bad, I'm very harsh on myself, and go on tilt)
- When too tired, when drunk, berating the fish, so on so on.
(Monster leak to critizise other players.)
Ungracious, un generous way to treat another human being. If your motive is purely profit, there's a much higher road to take.
Summary of Right View
Myself:
- To look at yourself with no delustions, no distortions. It means to be able to step out of ourself and observe ourself in a situation, and be able to objectively evaluate what we are doing without emotional entanglement. This is the rightest view of all, that can help us at the poker table, and anywhere we are. Especially if we find ourself struggling with strong emotions we wish we didn't have.
Example:
Driving, it's one of the most irritating thing we do. People who might be calm and compassionate, lose their cool when driving.
(Right view does not say, you should be good all the time, you should improve yourself. Right view is just the act of being able to view yourself, and being able to say "I am angry now" Without saying "there's something wrong with me for being angry"
- Better off if you can label your emotions
My opponents:
- They're an obstacle, in the way (Look at them as just tree on a golf course). And not hold them accountable, or be emotionally evolved with them. And will let you properly evaluate things.
My play:
- Be constantly aware that you have different levels of preformance. A B C game. What right view does, doesn't pretend your in ur A game all the time, opens your eyes when you're in their C game. Everyone has them.
- Being aware of the diffrent level you preform at, and being aware of which ones your in.
- Knowing your actual weaknesses and strengths within the betting strategy. (Calling big bet to bluff, not being comfortable being the one who bluff etc)
- With no delusions or distortions, step outside yourself to give a good evaluation
End thought
What makes something right view, is the lack of wrong view. (The lack of judgment, the lack of emotional attachment.) The thing added on to a "story". Just tell it honestly.
Right Thinking]
+ Show Spoiler +
[b]Right Thinking
position
anticipation
door A door B
reciprocality
the rake
the rules
lopping off the C game
(play when ur most awake, most energtic, don't eat a big meal so on).
"Losing less is a form of winning."
Examples of C game: Playing too many hands
(Become aware that ur in C game, ignore all D rank hands.)
Find out where your bars are, and remember them when you feel on ur c game. And never go below.
door A door B (applies to any betting decisions).
Always have 2 options, betting or checking, not saying one is better, but you always wanna be looking, which one is better.
- Have the concept of seeing everything as a choice. (You have an option)
- Look for every little bit of edges you can find (site, table selection, rake deals so forth).
Position
- "There's really only two positions. There's last, and non-last."
(Like,4 way multiway, 2nd to last isn't in position).
- Whoever is last has huge advantage, not 2nd to laste.
- It doesn't matter if you don't understand position, it's so fundementally profitable to be last, comparing to be non last.
"Acting last is like taking a drink of water. We don't have to understand why it's so good for us to know tht it is. And the benefits are unaffected by our understanding of them".
- Adjust ur betting strategy, in a way that results in you being last more then them.
Positions crushes dominaces hard (AT vs AK blabla osv). Dominance is overrated.
Example: if one guy in last pos has KJ, early pos has KQ, chances of a K actually hitting the flop is same as a set. And when it does happen, the late position guy will lose a lot less than he would if he was oop, and win a lot more when he hits.
Anticipation
- The only thing you need to anticipate is a bet or a raise.
- In theory, if you're good at anticipating, you'l Never ever ever ever ever.... be surprsied.
- If your oponents check, you bet, and he check raises you, if you right then and there have to make a decision, didn't see it coming. You should have already decided.
A) It will make your bet better (When you already considderd he might raise).
(Or if you told yourself, if he check raises, I'll fold)
It's easier to let go, but if you get surprised It's really easy to get sucked in or make a mistake.
"Plan the street."
Ps, It's really really hard to not get surprised (omg omg now what)
- Takes a lot of training, it's a big emotional spike, and by anticipating it, you're ready, and more focused. Repetition, focusing on that task.
* Makes your mechanics eerly scripted
anticipation = better betting and less tilt
The Rake
"Separate the rake as a business expense."
- The rake is huuuuuge
Rules
"Don't think of any rule as being good or bad, or right or wrong."
- When we have resistance to our rules somewhere else, it throws us of. "Mind noise" and that can have only one effect on us.
- Don't wanna sit at a casino thinking "ffs, that is a dumb rule"
* Be in complete acceptance. Adapt to new rules (buy ins, bettings, blind structure, so forth). (Avoid creating a negative state in your mind).
- Righting thinking is, avcourse there is gonna be new rules here and there. The rules is the rules.
Goals and Targets
- People have a tendency to not want easy goals, because goals should be hard to obtain. So people then tend to set goals which are unobtainable, because then it won't matter if you don't make them, because it's so far fetched. (I wanna play perfect poker, I want to never tilt.)
- People want to avoid hard goals they could in theory be able to reach, but don't want to feel like a failure when they don't reach them within the given timelimit.
"Just because you don't hit a target doesn't mean you're a failure."
Methaphor: If you throw a log in the ocean, then like to throw rocks at it, sometimes you'll get close to your target, sometimes you'll miss and sometimes you'll hit
Success or failure is detrimental to a poker player.
- Much better to think of whatever sort of projections of things you hope to happen in the future, of targets, you aim, sometimes you make it, sometimes you miss it. (You pick up another stone and go at it again).
Goals have an inherent time frame that takes you into the future (We don't want to be in the future). We wanna play our A game NOW!!.
Targets: "Playing this next hand well, or saying the right things" Targets can be in the moment.
" A target can be a constant stream of present tense attempts."
- The word targets leans us to right thinking, and goal takes us to all the places we don't want to be.
The four noble truths of C game
- C game exists (I you're gonna be a poker player, you're gonna have a c game. No way around it)
- the cause of C game. Desire, attachment. Exactly the same cause of all suffering, and rears it ugly head in poker and causes C game.
"Only when we truly understand the cause of C game, can we move to the third noble truth. Which is how to end it."
- The cessation of C game: How to end it, how to be unattached, how to be not full of craving.
- The instruction. (The eightfold path). The instructions which digs right to the heart of undoing the cause of C game, which then will undo the C game.
Mindfulness
+ Show Spoiler +
Mindfulness
- Mindfulness is the oposite of mindlessness. Unfortunatly how most of us go about living our lives, puppets on a string, doing anything people want us to do.
- One of the most common misconception about the buda stuff is "you want to empty ur mind, get rid of the feeling" But it's the oposite, you observe your thoughts, you observe your feelings. Witnessing them.
- None of us are ever rarely a good witness.
"Mindlessness is our normal state of mind." (Our default operating system.)
"Mindfulness is intentional awareness."
"Mindfulness melts away anger" (If you get really angry, and you become aware, you tell yourself I am angry now, then it will go away.)
- Mindfulness is a tool which directly relate to how you play poker, will tilt less. And carries on into your regular life. (See it as a tilt reduction tool.)
Breathing
- This is the best tool there is for practicing mindfulness. The reason is, it's always with us, we're always breathing.
- The act of being mindful, is putting ur effort and ur mind to something which is happening right now. Mindfulwalking, standing, sitting, looking, listen, so forth.
(All ways you can look at mindfulness, but the one that trumphs them all, is breathing.)
To practice minful breathing, there is 2 main ways
* Counting you breath
1 in, 2 out, 3 in, 4 out, 5 in, 6 out...... (count to 10, then start again.)
* Following your breath
" Breathing in, I am aware that I am breathing in.
Breathing out, I am aware that I am breathing out."
- The only practice you'll ever need, if you want to train yourself to be mindful of your thoughts and your actions, and what's going on around you."
Benefits: Forcing your mind away from it's own wrenching, ongoing thinking.
- In the moment you gain the benefit of not being consumed by your thoughts
- And when you do do it, you can't help but notice, that you are consumed by ur thoughts
- Take the training wheels off, and count when you breath out, in then out and two on the second exhale.
"And when you lose count, that's fine. It's like, the whole point. That we can't hold the count is a symptom of an affliction that counting cures.
Breath > Body calms mind > Mind calms body
(Like a circle of effects.)
"The breath is the link between the mind and the body."
- If you can do this at peak agitation, there's tremendous benefits
"The moments when you're most agitated are exactly those moments when you're most lost in your thoughts."
- The more practice you do, the better you get at it. Increase the % of mindful breaths in your life.
* The intense way of doing this is Meditation.
* The closest synonom in the English language is Concentration.
(Bringing your mind to focus, listening to stuff, great skills for poker.)
Poker is so distracting, we're constantly being dragged into the past, thinking of the future, noise, anxiety, so forth generated in your mind.
- Very smart to practice them in your life, then drag them into poker, or vice verca.
The four postures
We are always doing one of four things in life
* Laying down
* Walking
* Sitting
* Standing
What's so awesome bout this is, if our objective is to put more mindfulness in our life. All we have to do it put more of it into when we're doing one of the four things.
Something to try: Lay down on ur bed, have ur legs straight, arms on ur side, just do some breathing, a few breaths. Even if your tired, laying there in bed, the act of focusing, can wake you up, and you'll become more vitalized.
- The act of concentrating will give you more energy.
Walking: A practice to do at home, practice at going very slowly, and breath once every 2 or 3 steps, back and forth, concentrating on ur feet, on ur breathing. What happens is when ur doing other stuff, instead of ur mind going bzz, you'll do it other places, a casino, buying groceries.
(Maybe not smart doing this in public lol.)
Standing: Stand straight, mindful breathing, can do it anywhere.
Sitting (Biggest one of all, the posture we're in when we play poker):
*Will increase the winrate of ANY poker player*
- Posture, and there's breathing. Arrange your leg straight down, spine straight. Like a sphinx sitting. It's gonna be a huge improvement of not having good posture.
(Unrealistic sitting 1,5 hour in correct posture, but any amount of time is a huge improvement, just keep adding time, even if it's just 30 seconds.)
- Singletasking and online poker: Don't multi task when multi tabling, msn, phone, mail, looking at tv, so forth.
- Interessting thought: When someone calls you, and your playing poker, either stop playing take the phone, or don't answer. It's disrespectful not giving someone your whole attention.
"Play when you're playing."
Mindful listening
- When you're in a concentration, the other person starts talking, you concentrate on your breathing.
(What will happen the mind energy which would normally be thinking of, what am I gonna say next, yeah I have a story like that, yeah he's wrong. You'll be more likely to actually be hearing them, hearing what they are saying. And it's a beautiful thing when you can keep the conversation on the other person, but not be faking it, but actually interested. And that happens when your own thoughts arent stirred by what they say.)
"So easy to be consumed in your own reality all the time"
- The way to break that chain of churning thought is the tool of mindful breathing.
When to practice
- You can do it all the time
"Think of being agitated as an opportunity to practice not being agitated."
- Being bored is something that can be eliminated with mindful thinking, because your observering what's happening around you all the time, no matter what it is.
(The main thing about it, it takes time before you get the benefits.)
Shedding mental weight
- Understanding practicing will make you more thoughtful/tiltless, understanding, easier to enjoy moment to moment, you do actually have to do the work.
Reciprocality
+ Show Spoiler +
Reciprocality
It's not about what you do.
Or what they do.
It's both.
Reciprocity versus reciprocality
"You do this for me, I do this for you, the former."
Reciprocality
"In the world of reciprocality, it's not what you do that matters most, and it's not what they do. It's both."
- No thing in poker is isolated. (I bet, that was good, it's in correalation to what you opponent does.)
" Reciprocality says that when you and your opponents would do the same thing in a given situation, no money moves, and when you do something different, it does."
Information reciprocality
- It's as simple as not giving up information in situations they would.
- Each time you don't give out information, you gain.
(example, raging after bad beat, making comment, so forth, just stay quiet, muck the hand, nothing.)
"There's two sides of the information coin at all times, there's giving information and receiving information."
The Information War
- Recieve more, and send less, and you win the information war.
(Anytime you can isolate a situation, where you're able to do something diffrent than they do, which is profitable, which comes again over and over again, you're gonna make a ton of money.)
- Important to put effort into sending less information, and recieve more.
- You work on moving less, moving ur tongue less, eyes less, hands less, shoulders less, everything.
*To receive more, move less*
The cause of profit at poker
www.tommyangelo.com/articles/reciprocality.htm
- Where does the money come from ? Is it just from playing good? No. It's from playing diffrent than they do.
- Giving off little information is profitable.
- Over time, this will add up huge.
The origin of reciprocality
- From duplicate Bridge, where everyone plays the same hands.
- In poker, a good way to see if you played the hand well is, at the river, when hands are shown, imagine you had his hand, he had yours, and then play the hand out in ur head. What would have happend.
"Reciprocal Analysis"
Reciprocality
- Look for, create, and amplify profitable differences.
Life: Can look at it with life as well, for instance, you eat meatballs and spaghetti and get stuffed, the other guy eat some salad and yogurt, and you sit down and play poker.
" Mine for reciprocal gold inside any decision that impacts your poker game."
- Any sort of health asspect is major. (Correct sleep, working out, so forth.)
- If you feel good and sharp all the time, you earn a hell of a lot more money.
Reciprocal analysis
- Example: You bet the river, he calls, you reverse the street, you get his hand, he bets, you would have folded.
"You can use this tool on just one street, or a combination of streets."
Reciprocality in action: Look what people aren't doing, and do that, till they find a counter strategy, then do something else people aren't doing. (Example, when people started 3 betting light, then people started 4betting light, so forth.)
Acting Last
" You can think of there being two positions: last and non-last."
How strong is acting last? It's strong, so strong. The act of being last is monumental.
What does this mean as far as reciprocality matters?
"If you can act last more than they do, you have created an advantage."
Acting last. how to create it?
- playing the button more often than they do
- folding the blinds more than they do
- And how you decide to play in the high jack and cut-off (Play it really aggressive.)
- Multiway pot, you're middle position, first guy bets, you raise, guy behind you fold, now you're last on turn and river.
"Anytime you take action which puts you last more than they do, you made a reciprical advantage."
Bankroll reciprocality
- How you partition your money, and where it actually physicly exists, compared to your opponents money.
- Every poker player has 4 bankrolls
*Net worth
*Poker bankroll
*Pocket bankroll
*table bankroll
Tilt Reciprocality
"Anything that is not your A-game, we are defining as tilt."
"Tilt reciprocality is anytime you tilt less than your opponent would in the same situation."
Tilt reciprocality is your slippage matched up against everybody else's. Tilt reciprocality recognizes that any reduction, however small, in the frequencies, durations, and depths of your own tiltings will always have the effect of favorably widening the gap between your tilt and theirs, thereby earning immediate reciprocal advantage. To make money from tilt, you don't need to be tiltless. But you do have to tilt less.
Rolling with the reciprocality flow
"There's no absolute right or wrong way to play poker, ever. It's entirely dependent on what other people are doing."
* That's why being adaptive and flexible is critical.
- You want to have all the skills available, play extra tight when they are not, and you need to play looser when they are not.
- Preflop % Is something to always be looking for.
Reciprocality and mindfulness
- Be more mindful than your oponent in situations where it is more profitable than mindlessness.
- mindfulness can be seen as a renewable energy sources which never goes dry.
What is the diffrence that makes the biggest diffrence? The ultimate reciprocality?
As it turns out it has nothing to do with the diffrences between ourself an our opponent, and has everything to do with how we are today, and how we are tomorrow.
And that's why this practice with mindfulness is the ultimate
place to mine for recpirocal gold. Because what we are really doing when we remember to put more attention to what is happening now, than we did in the previous hour, day, week, is that we are generating profit, in ourself, in our lives. By making ourself happier people.
What this mean?
If we want to try and take the concept of reciprocality, and apply it at it's very highest level, toward the objective of reducing our suffering, the suffering around us, then all reciprocality should be thought of as being internal.
Quitting
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Quitting
" Quitting is the one poker topic that touches our regular lives the most directly and most often."
"It is the demarcation between poker and non-poker."
Toughing it out
- The difference between normal manual labour and poker is that, when you do feel out of your A game, and don't feel up for it, you can still do the work, and get a paycheck at a normal job. In poker, you will lose money.
- Everytime you feel out of your game or damaged, you shouldn't necessarily quit. If you're a professional
"This whole quitting topic is deeply complex because each person is different, and each person is changing all the time."
(Just tossing out wide area of nets)
- Each individual needs to learn to know/feel themself good when they aren't on their A game, and what might bring them close to it, or how to refocus.
From Tommy's book:
I have always had very strict policies when it comes to quitting, even when I first started playing poker. Back then I had two main quitting rules that I never broke. I would always quit if I was out of money and nobody would lend me any, and I would always quit if everybody else did.
Taking Breaks
*Very important topic*
- Possible to recharge your engine, back to your A game if it's started to detoriate.
- Usually people take breaks because they want to pee, disturbances, get food so forth
- Really smart to take breaks just to take a break, because you been sitting for too long, you're starting to become flusterd, harder to focus, so forth.
"Walking away is easy. The hard part is standing up."
If you really wanna take on quitting as a skillset, as a new challenge, body of work that you're gonna undertake. The way to do that is thinking of taking a break, as quitting practice, because everytime you're taking a break, you're going away from the table.
(Only practicing the act of walking away in the middle of the table.)
What to do on breaks
*Start thinking of your beaks in a completly different way, you're not taking a break to do anything, you do it to remove yourself from teh game, physically, and mentally, and this takes effort.*
- Doing something that takes your mind off the game
- Just concentrate on the act your doing, on yourself, concentrate on the present tense and what's going on, do the breathing.
- If you play online, It's never smart to play more than 1hour to 1hour30min, take a break, do something, do sit ups, push ups, something.
- The reason why after we've sat down, feel fresh and sharp, playing our A game, then after 1 hour, 2 hours, we just feel, deteriorated, exhausted, flusterd is because we've accumulated mental stuff.
(Like an accumilation of weights, baggage.)
- Take breaks when you feel good. (We have a tendency to take breaks when we feel like shit.) Do it before desperate time.
EVERYTIME YOU TAKE A BREAK, YOU ARE QUITTING
- Have to practice quitting when it's really difficult.
Use the "object of the game" concept to practice quitting.
Quitting "lopping off the C game"
"Lopping off the C-game has such enormous long term effects."
- On your well being, happiness, bankroll, friends, family, so forth.
- We tend not to think in long term, but saving the cash you "waste" end of long session is huge. Lopping off the C game which starts to creep in
"I see quitting as a tool to use toward this higher objective of loppinf off the C game."
"If you want to lop of C-game, you need to trim back the end of your worst sessions."
I was about to go play poker at a local casino. I hadn't slept all that well but I had showered and walked and I had convinced myself that I was good to go. I was at the door, saying goodbye to my wife, when this big yawn opened up on my face.
Wife: "Are you sure you want to go play right now?"
And I'm like, "Yes."
And she said, "Well, of course you know if you are ready or not. I'm just saying, it's never wrong to not play."
It's never wrong to not play.
It's never wrong to not play.
I let those words melt over me for a second. Then I walked to my desk and wrote them down, and stayed home.
Stack size matters
- If the only one with same stacksize is to your left, good idea to quit (Both of you 200bb.) Ideally, you want him to your right.
- If players who are better than you are deep, the worse ones have small stacks, good idea to quit as well. (If not weigh heavily to your decisions.)
Stop losses
- Completly personal, it's about knowing yourself, it's about knowing when you need one, and actually doing it.
- If you get rid of your tilt, you don't need a stop loss.
"You can't fix tilt with stop loss."
- Stop loss are only related on how big your bankroll will be in comparisontment to not stopping.
- A lot of people tilt really bad when they're stuck, stop loss is not only a good idea, it's essential, until they get their tilt under controle.
"Long range stop loss strategies are a good thing."
- Stop losses are a great idea for they who need em.
Quitting: Earn rate matters
"Good quitting requires seeing deeply into ourselves and being able to analyze our actual performance at each moment."
Quitting, pain, tilt and fear
- Quit, and relieve our suffering at poker, so we can play again. When we quit well.
- When you know you're a good quitter, gives you a level of safety and security. When you're not afraid of having those terrible sessions, because you know you'll be able to quit, that relives the fear of that pain.
"From Elements of poker"
I think of quitting as a skill set unto itself, with branching subsets of skills for each type of quitting situation. There's knowing how to quit at limit games, and there's knowing how to quit at no-limit. There's knowing how to quit when you have a curfew, and when you don't. There's being able to quit when you're ahead, and when you're stuck. There's quitting when you feel good, and for when that doesn't happen, you need to know how to quit when you feel bad.
Quitting is a skill, it's a poker skill, it's one that you can work on, it's one that very few people do work on. This isn't on how to play poker, this is how to be a poker player, quitting is becoming a poker player.
Right Speech
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Right Speech
How to define it, look at wrong speech:
- Are you out of your mind
- Nice hand
"The parts of the path are interwoven"
Right view begets right speech (Because often what we say are just reflection of what's in our mind.)
When we can control what's in our mind, we can control what comes out of our mind, and we can calm situations, calm ourselves, which also causes reduction of suffering, absorb the stuff that comes at you, which will reduce tilt as well.
Scaring the fish ?
Does it cost you money? (Will it make them quit if you harass them, make them play better?)
Wrong speech....
You're also stirring up some negative mojo inside you.
"Clear your mind of the evil that could put you on tilt."
Think of it as, purifying your mind, undoing of wrong speech (Which is the same as right speech.)
Chatting online
"Look at typing in the chat box purely from an EV standpoint."
Do you think your probability of making miss clicks is increased or decreased by typing in the chatbox?
It can't be positive EV to type in the chat box.
Reasons to keep your fingers quiet:
- You'll make fewer mistakes.
- You'll optimize information reciprocality.
If you're actively using msn/aim.
You'll divert power to making money. Any language uses up a lot of brain power.
Upside of chatting and aIM-ing while playing:
- soothing
- humor
- release
"Awareness is the most important thing."
- For people who are unsure, test, try play a few hours not using it, to see how that makes you feel.
* Extremely easy to miss out on profitable spots where you "give up" on a hand, and it goes check check on the next street as well, and you could have taken it down if you were paying attention, hugely + EV
Posting online
If we just take a minute to not be so "reactive" then we're a little more likely to say what we really want to say, in the way we want to say it.
*One of the problems with talking to people and we say things we regret, is because we immediately reacted, didn't take a split second to just pause, so we're not mindlessly reacted.*
- It's the nature of message boards that people tend to post when they disagree. So when you post something, there's a high probability that you're going to get a disagreeing reaction.
- So when someone replies to your hand "I think you played this like a moron, I hate you." React with, sitting up straight, breathe, and think before replying. Or rise completely above it.
- Your happiness, your thoughts, never need to be dependent on what someone else write/says/thinks about you, ever...
Thought is such a dangerous thing, they come out of people's mouth, they intent one thing, and gets interpreted another way, and then get's miss interpret even worse.
Rise above it
Not being thrown of what people say is an essential skill not to be put on tilt.
Online anonymity
"Don't poison your own mind."
Stillness
"You can't hear what is quieter than you."
- You need to still your mind, then you can hear what comes in at all levels.
- When you're talking, you're not going to hear people who are lower than you.
The whole idea by being still, is to CRUSH your opponents in the information world.
Theory of mum
mumpoker = Silent poker, two days of doing it:
* Don't talk/interact speak about anything poker related to anyone at the table/or in the chat box. But react to non poker stuff.
* Don't speak to anyone, remain silent no matter what at the table.
- Usually people respect people's right to remain silent.
Sixth Street / Defined
Everything that happen at the poker table after the last round of betting is done. (Can go on for a long time.)
* Don't explain anything, or make any excuses. Don't get dragged in when people shoot at you, or question you.*
Shutoff answers: Anytime anyone ask you a specific questions, no matter what it is, just say Yes. No matter the question, shuts them all of. (If that won't work, say something where you use as few words as possible, and use same answer for everything.)
Some words from his book
- Bet with your hands, not with your mouth.
- Never call for the clock on another player.
- When you are going to raise, and you are goign to state the amount you raise, do not begin to speak until you know what you are going to say.
- Do not say the word "call" unless your call is the final betting action of the entire hand. And even then, only sometimes, such as when you have the nuts or a probable winner, and you are doing a courtesy fast roll. In that case you would simultaneously turn your hand over and say "call."
- Sixth street starts when the betting stops. Sixth street is when players let their guard down, as if all of a sudden it's safe to reveal classified secrets to the enemy. It's like they don't even know the war is still going on.
Upgrades
- Right speech cures foot in mouth disease.
- Stop saying stuff you often regret right after, gossip, stop the cruel toxic language.
- Right speech is close to right view, changing views and ideas, poisonous words.
- The act of not blaming other people for thing, or yourself.
"Blame is a form of cruelty."
Ending words
Whatever you do, end things with a smile on your face. No matter if you lose or win.
Right Action
+ Show Spoiler +
Right Action
changing the object of the game
- Instead of always sitting down to "make money" you change the object of the game, can be for instance.
*Today I want to try that new seat selection ting
- A tool, ideas to implement new things to the game. And this itself is right action.
Bankroll, under the heading of Right action
net worth (Everything)
poker bankroll (What you only play poker for)
pocket bankroll (What you have available at that moment.)
table bankroll (What's right in front of you, what you have in front of you.)
Thinking of it this way, is really healthy for your bankroll. These labels can be helpful making good decisions.
The purpose of your poker bankroll
"it's like buying mental insurance"
- What you need to avoid risk of ruin, and/or so you can keep on your A game, so you're never freaking out of going out of money.
Moving up
- Usually the minimum is 300BB or 20bi (Is a bit absurd.)
- There needs to be a range, so you don't move up, post the Big blind, then you don't have enough bi, and need to move down?
- Taking shots ? smartest to do strategically. So you decide the amount of "BI/BB" you want to use in that shot. Find out exactly how much you're going to take a shot with.
Moving down
- Moving down is just part of the game. Have to accept there will be big backward streets.
(Ideally we want to get to a place where we're not ashamed of it, but playing bad is part of poker, it's about accepting reality as it is.)
"Each day that we wake up, our bankroll is what it is, and it doesn't matter how it got there."
- Ideally you want to make a decision based on the size of your bankroll. Take the ego out of it, best you can.
This of moving up as a skill set unto itself. Think about the challenges that will be common to all of your move-ups, and prepare:
* You might not survive forever at the higher level. You might need to employ one of the vital skills for moving up, which is moving down.
Bankroll tilt: If you're one of the people who like to go higher stakes when you go on tilt, might be very smart to keep smaller amounts on that site.
Selections
* Site selection
- People have their own prefrance, the skin, the rake, the traffic, the software.
* Game selection
- Nl, razz, omaha, fixed, fullring, 6max, hu, tournaments so forth, smart to stick to what ur best at and excell
* Table selection, by way of rejection
- Find good games, and leave when they go sour
* Stakes selection
- all related to bankroll, what is your comfort zone, and where you like to play to keep emotional stability. Good idea to have 3 ranges, find the softest.
* Seat selection / and rejection
- This one is huge, important decision which makes a huge difference in the long run. You want TIGHT players on your left (flop seen %.) More important than having a loose player at your right.
- You don't want a complete maniac on your left
"Make your seat selection decisions as if the object of the game is to be last to act on as many streets as possible."
Live poker crap
- Look at your cards just when you get them, so you won't get in a sticky situation by looking at them when it's your turn and everyone is looking at you.
- Be ready to often look to ur left, to try and find out if he's going to bet, raise or call, really smart.
- Fast-roll is cool and smart if you're a good guy, slow-rolling is for idiots.
- Don't act super fast when it gets to you, breath think, then do stuff.
- Some people get more comfy wearing sunglasses and hats, if you do, that's fine, even though a lot of people are going to judge you. But you don't care about that.
Firstlessness
"Any player who consciously makes a move toward more firstlessness rates to increase their score by doing so." (At least a good experiment to try.)
"Don't chase your blinds."
Miscellaneous topics
Number of tables to play
- Live, smart to play just 1.
- If you know the number of most tables you can play, smart to cut down 1-2 tables of that.
Going pro
- It's a lot harder than everybody think it is
- For the people that it's right for, it's worth the risk, it's worth the pain
- Extremely personal topic, that's why so many people hire coaches.
Judge versus Evaluate
- When you encounter ideas, or things that happen, what other people do. You don't immediately think "that's right, that's wrong" You act above the act of judging, you observe.
Summary
- The best thing any player can do, is to sit upright, breathe. Literally puts a roadblock into the stream of unconscious thoughts that binds us to ego, cravings and desire. Helps us focus, concentrate and being mindful.
Some explanation of harmlessness at the deepest level in some buddhist thing
"When we harm ourselves, we are harming others, and when we harm others, we are harming ourselves." (Because we are all one, won't make any sense to a lot of people, but that's how it is.)
* If that's too complicated, start with, do no harm to yourself, don't blame yourself, don't be so hard on yourself.
x = x
Tiltlessness
+ Show Spoiler +
Tiltlessness
"Tiltnessness has no end point."
We do that by reducing our suffering.
From Tommy's book
I was a great tilter. I knew all the different kinds. I could do steaming tilt, simmering tilt, too loose tilt, too tight tilt, too aggressive tilt, too passive tilt, playing too high tilt, playing too long tilt, playing too tired tilt, entitlement tilt, annoyed tilt, injustice tilt, frustration tilt, sloppy tilt, revenge tilt, underfunded tilt, overfunded tilt, shame tilt, distracted tilt, scared tilt, envy tilt, this-is-the-worst-pizza-I've-ever-had tilt, I-just-got-showed-a-bluff tilt, and of course, the classic: I-gotta-get-even tilt, and I-only-have-so-much-time-to-lose-this-money-tilt, also known as demolition tilt.
The actual cause of the tilt is the attachment to the thing we lost. It isn't the loss in itself.
More from Tommy's book
I'd tilt, and I'd look back on my tiltings, and I started seeing cycles, and then cycles withing cycles, and before long, I started to see my entire poker future as a ceaseless fluctuation between tight and tilt.
The grand delusion
"The grand delusion is that external things are making us unhappy, and that external things will make us happy."
*If only I had the next thing, I'll be happy, if I didn't lose that I'd be happy.*
"It's all about attachment."
- That's why poor people who have nothing is way happier than people who have tons of stuff.
- There's no amount of accumulation that is going to give us peace of mind. It simply can't happen that way. And the delusion is that we go through our whole lives, despite the evidence, still believing that if only I had that one more thing, I would be happy.
"Totally about attachment and desire."
- All fears are attached to attachment.
A big day in my career was the day I realized that tomorrow I would still be a tilter.
The grand premise
That we want to be happier than we are now, and we want to be more deeply happy, more often.
More from Tommy's book
I figured if I ever went broke at poker, it wouldn't be because my best wasn't good enough to keep me afloat. It'd be because my worst was bad enough to sink me.
bankrolls and bodies
"If only we could just live our bankroll, every single second, no matter what it was, the amount of agony we would let go of is H U G E."
Defining suffering
- If you slam your hand in the car door, that's pain, nerves sending signals to your brain causing you pain. That is not suffering.
- The stuff that gets stirred up in your head, "this is going to hurt for a week" that's suffering
* Suffering is an affliction*
Countless different kinds of suffering, here are some examples:
- Worry
- regret
- fear
- anger
- stress
- dissatisfaction
- annoyance
- conflict
- panic
- unease
- I'm to fat
- I'm to skinny
- regret
- I'm too busy
- inadequate
- nervousness
- aggravation
Ignorance, in regular language the way we use it, it means lack of knowledge, not knowing.
In the Buddhist teachings, it's a word that gets used along the lines of delusion, but not intended that way.
The root word for it is "ignore". Good to look at it as ignore - ance, not pay attention
Emptiness
Tiltnessness
Metaphors / tuning your instrument
- Look at yourself like the instrument, in the morning, take a few minuts to meditate and tune yourself, or when you take a break from a session, or just in the middle of a session, if just for a few seconds.
(The metaphor is, if you have an orchestra, they will sound like shit, traffic noise, if they don't tune themselves before they start.)
Tiltlessness
a few metaphors / water in a lake
- Think of your mind like the water in a lake, on the surface, it's sometimes smooth, sometimes it's wind, and it causes waves. Or if a big rock comes into the lack, it causes a big splash.
- But the really cool thing is, is right under the surface of the lake, it's always smooth, it's always calm. All you have to do it still yourself, calm yourself, and connect with that part of yourself.
Tiltlessness
a few metaphors / Surfing
- Another way to breathe, pretend you're surfing the breath.
Tiltlessness
a few metaphors / Tilted poker is like crooked teeth
- It's not your fault, and it can be fixed.
* What it comes from, is the entire sum of human suffering, accumulation of the non mindfulness, that is the cause of tilt*
- It will take some time, small changes, but in the end of it all, you'll smile a lot more.
More from Tommy's book
Tilt has many causes and kinds, but it has only one effect. It makes us play bad.
Best Tilt Inducers
- Running bad
- Playing bad
Probably the top two tilt inducers.
If no one is tiltless then everyone can tilt less.
How to handle bad beats
Move your awareness out a level, from your absorption with the injustice and the unfairness, and all the other thoughts.
And it's all about awareness, it's about being aware of the actual mental activity in your mind, and calling it what it is, and saying the whole reality:
The card came. I lost the pot. This is causing my mind to stir up...
Playing bad
- such a huge cause of suffering, living in the past, beating ourself up, gigantic heap of suffering we go through, and we keep coming back to, it's my fault.
The way to ease this suffering, is similar to before, keep peeling layers of the union, and accepting that reality
If you focus on doing your best, if you think doing your best involved
- Sleeping right
- Eating right
- Training right
- Sitting upright
- Whatever it might be, to ease the suffering of playing bad, practice on playing your best. This will ease your suffering, as long as you were focused, doing your best. Then you won't have regret.
Perception is reality
More from Tommy's book
Tilt is anything less than your utmost. Tilt is suboptimalness. By defining tilt from teh top down, we can draw a line for any player that cleanly divides his tilt from his non-tilt.
The Blame Game
- When you blame other people, it's causing suffering in your brain.
*The act of blaming* is the thing that causes it, not the thing that's been done. It's your fault you can't control your mind.
- If you should blame anyone, blame yourself for blaming someone else. Don't stir up the surface of your lake, it's just mental noise
You don't blame people for anything. Ever.
(Start with yourself.)
Roll all blames into one. (Just take it all on yourself if you have to.)
If you know 100% that you're unjustly accused, and you know you're not wrong. Can you not react to that ?
You suck it in, and you don't spit it back out.
This is the greatest test, you just absorb it in. This is unbelievably awesome.
The more right you are, by not saying "No it wasn't me, blabla" The stronger you get.
The Blame Game
it just never ends
it never ends, you will be suffering from the blame game, forever
Until you make a conscious effort to not blame, saying it isn't enough, you have to do the work.
Internet irritants
Lost connection:
This is the landscape you play in, this is the world you play in. Just breathe your way through it. It'd be the same as playing basketball but hate the size of the ball.
Computer wait time:
Instead of being anxious, wishing it to speed up, just transform it, sit up straight, take a breath. Make it into a positive. Calm yourself, tune yourself.
Internet helpers:
- Written reminders
- Staying busy
- Taking breaks (Sick important)
- Taking days off
- Playing drills. (Where you force yourself to play more, even if it's just 10 minutes.) (For people who wants to play more, ur not playing to earn money, just to get more play.)
- Sit up and breathe
- Finger tilt, when the big pot comes up, train yourself, to put your hand in your lap, give yourself a chance to get a little bit of space so the instant action doesn't happen.
Running bad
"Running bad is just an idea, it's just a thought."
One of the ways to overcome this huge burden, the idea that we're running bad, is letting go of the past, it's just ideas, thoughts.
The act of coming back to the present tense is the cure for running bad.
More from Tommy's book
Tilt is all about you.
If you think you should have taken the day off, or if you think you should have played at different stakes, or if you think you made a bad raise, then you tilted. Only you know when you knew better.
Last thing about running bad
When you manage to get to the point of where losing doesn't hurt, that in itself is a higher level of joy, which is just wonderful. You don't get the suffering you would normally have, + when you realize you feel like this, that will make you feel great.
Living in the moviement
When you are watching a movie, where is your mind? What is your eyes and your ears doing?
- Movies serves as suffering remedy, because they force the mind to be in the present tense. Proof, that coming in the present is pain relif.
- When you do it with drugs etc, you go below awareness, the more pure better way of doing it, is doing it yourself, without substance, without the movie.
Taming the mind
"In the same way we have arms and legs, we all have the racing mind."
* Discursive thought, out of control, cluttered, rambling*
Meditation: It's not what you think.
- If you meditate you will suffer less, just the same way as, if you're overweight, and you eat less calories, you will lose weight.
It can be easily tested, all you have to try is, do it.
"The benefit is a reduction in unhappiness that will permeate every aspect of your life."
Yoga
- In music you have two components, you have rhythm, and notes. You can make rhythm without the notes, but not the other way around.
So in Yoga, there's the stretching, and there's the breathing
Breathing is to rhythm as stretching is to notes.
If you do the stretching without the breathing, it's just stretching.
Breathing is the essential act of Yoga.
Bandaids and cures
- For all of the bad habits you have at poker, there's things you can do to fix it right now, and there's cures.
(For instance, keep telling bad beats, having to tell bad beats, but you feel bad afterward.)
- As for the cure, for stopping the telling the bad beat stories, is not having those thoughts in your mind. Taming your mind.
Simply thoughts gushing out of your mouth, but if they're not in your mind, they won't even come up.
"It always comes back to taming the mind and managing what's in there."
Compassion
- We're normally thinking of compassion as feeling sorry for someone, pity, it's hard to describe it without using those words. (Like walking past a bum on the street.)
- Our compassion seem to be tied to circumstances, like if someone rich or famous fuck up, we react totally different. like (Hey, lol, look at that fucktard, like we judge them.)
The buddhist branch of compassion kinda look like this:
- Everyone suffers, and everyone suffers from the same reasons and in the same way. And one of the effect of suffering is violence, cruelty, the list goes on. The ways we have of inflicting wounds on other.
- In the buddhist version, you see the violence, see that's wrong, the more in need and worthy they are for compassion.
From Tommy's book
We play our new game, and the bad times come, and we remember to follow our breathing. In, and out. In, and out. By doing so, we set aside our thoughts about what went wrong, and we step away from our thoughts about what might go wrong, and for that moment, when those thoughts are gone, so too is unhappiness. By eliminating the past, and eliminating the future, we give ourselves this present. We will practice this process of elimination, using our new game, and it will become for us a process of illumination. Let us play.
The wind up
The difference between ignorance and stupidity is, ignorance is when you don't know, stupidity is when you refuse to act on the knowledge you receive.
And there you have it.
The End
Or the beginning?
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two pair, Jacks and Fours
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