Friday, May 17, 2019

"It doesn't matter"

The past few weeks have been up and down. I've went trough one of my (emotionally) worst tilting days in a long time, as well as found a place within myself where it felt, and I know this might sound strange, as if I was actually playing inside of the long term.

This has led me to name two states on oposite ends of the spectrum. The first state I call "I have to do something". It's nagging sense of unease, like there's something that I have to do to set things in order. It can be that I feel I need to move around, close the window in my room, get more coffee or to raise a hand soon (if for example I have been folding a lot in a heads up situation) or try to not get exploited.

The second is a very different state of mind, one that I have come to call "It doesn't matter". That's the feeling when I get here, a zen like state in which I can clearly see that an individual hand is all I can pay attention to, and yet, that hand in the grand scheme, the result of that hand doesn't matter. All I can do is put all my effort into playing the the hand to the best of my current ability, and then let go of the result. This can sometimes be easier said than done, but when done, is a blissful place to be. It also helps to remember that poker is a hard game, and that it's not about playing perfect, just about being less bad than your opponents.

I've also read "Deep work" by Cal Newport. In it he talks about how all things that have value come from people going deep into focus, spending time alone and digging deep to reach breakthrough insights. I'm very excited to implement the things he brings up in the book, as I think it has a lot of correlations to poker. I've been way to distracted recently, happy to have a youtube clip playing while grinding, or even distracting music.


Results this far for accountability:






Hope all is well with you, whoever and wherever your are!