Learned helplessness and confidence boosting

[TaoTe]

Currently experiencing a -125BB downswing. I'm doing what I normally do. Playing less, reading more, dropping to a lower limit, but there's a problem. Even dropping to lower limits, when I sit in a game I'm expecting to lose, which destroys my confindence, which makes me play worse, which increases the low morale and the wheel keeps spinning. I've been trying to figure out ways to help boost confidence and remove this learned helplessness that I've been feeling whenever I play. I'd greatly appreciate any suggestions or techniques that could help instill a winner's frame of mind, or at least not a, "I'm going to lose my shirt because I'm no good," mindset.

ty,

Tao

[Neil Stevens]

I'd take a bit of time away. Thanks to your fears, you're probably not playing well right now making your fears come true.

It certainly doesn't sound like you're enjoying yourself playing poker at the moment, that's for sure.

I've actually been in that kind of situation. Not with poker, but in go. I'd play, and expect to fall behind early and have to claw out life in some invasions, and well, because I was afraid of falling behind, I'd end up making some invasions that had to claw out for life.

A couple of weeks off did the trick.

[Dirk1963]

I think, i liked this article <font color="blue"> here </font> (http://www.thepokerforum.com/killpr32.htm) about the right mind. Hope it helps.

[parappa]

[ QUOTE ]
Currently experiencing a -125BB downswing. I'm doing what I normally do. Playing less, reading more, dropping to a lower limit, but there's a problem. Even dropping to lower limits, when I sit in a game I'm expecting to lose, which destroys my confindence, which makes me play worse, which increases the low morale and the wheel keeps spinning. I've been trying to figure out ways to help boost confidence and remove this learned helplessness that I've been feeling whenever I play. I'd greatly appreciate any suggestions or techniques that could help instill a winner's frame of mind, or at least not a, "I'm going to lose my shirt because I'm no good," mindset.

ty,

Tao

[/ QUOTE ]

This can be a really tough nut to crack, but I can offer four suggestions.

The first is the obvious "concentrate on making correct plays." This might entail a certain amount of study; you're making and losing most of your money on marginal hands, almost by definition, and it takes a lot of effort to learn and understand what plays are correct, when, and why. I am willing to wager that you get much more frustrated and your confidence tested much more when you get check-raised on the turn than when your aces get cracked. The point is that you have to increase your knowledge so that you are certain about how to play more of the marginal situations you are confronted with. Knowing that you played it right, rather than winning money, is where you get your confidence from.

The rest are tricks that have helped me avoid results-oriented thinking.

Second, set a time period, a day, a week, whatever, to spend an hour going over your results. Then commit to paying no attention whatsoever to your results when it's not that hour. Stupid trick, perhaps, but maybe it'll work. What it comes down to is that you have to train yourself to be very ruthless about ignoring your results while you're playing.

Third, if you're playing limit poker, buy in for plenty and stick a post-it note over your stack size. Do anything you can to forget about the results. Simply put, you are going to have to learn to ignore your results if you're going to play the way you need to and keep your sanity.

Last, think about whether you really want to be using this money for poker or whether you have other uses for it. I put up a post a few weeks ago about being timid when moving up to higher limits than I was comfortable with. What worked for me was to commit a certain amount of money to what I was doing, train myself to think of that money as already gone, just as if it were money that I had already put into a pot, and just concentrate on making good decisions.

Concentrating on results during a session (or, in my case, even a series of sessions) will help neither your game nor your sanity. It is a bad habit and you have to teach yourself not to do it.

I'm not sure if any of these will work for you, but these and similar parlour tricks have helped me get my mind off results for a while. Hope some of that helped. /images/graemlins/smile.gif

[vexvelour]

I used to feel like this often, and still get this every now and then.

What really helps me is to re-read an important poker chapter. It really depends on how I think I need to improve my game at the moment, go to that book and re-read a few chapters. It really only takes about 15, 20 minutes and more likely than not, I'll feel like playing poker right then, when I can feel my poker neutrons firing. The information is fresh in your mind and you know what you're doing and suddenly you're confident.

Also, you might consider taking some time off. This always helps and is my default when I'm generally not doing well.

Taking at least 10 days off should remove enough of your residual tilt for your other techniques to have an effect.

Another technique may include playing a specific number of hands per session. Play 50 hands and play your best for those 50 hands. Then stop and wait 24 hours before repeating.