The Hope/Despair Cycle in Poker — Transcript

Full transcript

1. 0:00The hope and despair cycle in poker is
2. 0:02what happens when you equate things that
3. 0:05feel good to progress and things that
4. 0:07feel bad to regression. You play on
5. 0:09Wednesday, you have a great day. You're
6. 0:11hitting sets left, right, and center;
7. 0:13straights; flushes. You're check-raising
8. 0:14the flop; people are paying you off;
9. 0:15your bluffs are getting through. You
10. 0:17feel like an end boss; everything is
11. 0:18tying together logically. You have a
12. 0:20reason for a play, you make the play,
13. 0:21you get the result you hoped you would
14. 0:22get, and you say, "I did X, I had a good
15. 0:25reason for X, X worked, therefore I am
16. 0:27good." You make that argument, not
17. 0:29explicitly, but subconsciously in your
18. 0:31head you make that argument. Trust me,
19. 0:32we all do this. And then the next day
20. 0:34things start not going well. You
21. 0:36three-bet a hand you three-bet the day
22. 0:37before and the guy four-bets you. You
23. 0:39try a bluff on the river that was
24. 0:40working yesterday; you get snap-called
25. 0:41by a hand you didn't expect; then you
26. 0:43run kings into aces; then you get set
27. 0:44over set; and then another bluff doesn't
28. 0:46work, and you're down four and a half
29. 0:48buy-ins, and you're thinking, "What on
30. 0:50earth is going on?" I can't think."The
31. 0:51cards are coming at you fast and
32. 0:53furiously, and you can't cope with it
33. 0:55and. You're drowning and floundering and
34. 0:56making loads of mistakes until the point
35. 0:58where you either combust and go on some
36. 1:00massive tear where you play dreadfully
37. 1:02and lose a bunch of buy-ins, or you quit
38. 1:05your session and you stop playing poker
39. 1:06for 4 days, or a week, or maybe just 24
40. 1:09hours. It comes down to what kind of
41. 1:11poker player you are and how you handle
42. 1:13the despair part of this inevitable
43. 1:15cycle that all of us find ourselves in.
44. 1:17And when your self-worth and confidence
45. 1:20are built on a graph going in the right
46. 1:21direction over a period of time of a
47. 1:24day, or a week, or even a month, or even
48. 1:263 months, or even 25,000 hands it all
49. 1:29comes crashing down inevitably when
50. 1:31variance does what it always does and
51. 1:33smacks you in the face. Let me tell you
52. 1:35a story about me so you can see that
53. 1:37you're not alone in being a victim of
54. 1:40this cycle. It's something that plagues
55. 1:42all of us. It's not just you that's
56. 1:43going through it. When I was 21 years
57. 1:45old, I didn't have the internet in my
58. 1:47flat. We were too lazy to get it put in.
59. 1:49We were wasters, man. We were drinking
60. 1:51and doing other stuff all the time, and
61. 1:52I was working night shift in a casino as
62. 1:54a dealer, and I was basically doing
63. 1:56nothing good for myself. But I loved
64. 1:58poker and I would get excited about it I
65. 1:59get butterflies in my chest thinking
66. 2:01about the game. And before work I would
67. 2:03go across the road to the internet cafe
68. 2:05at maybe like 2:00 p.m. when I rolled
69. 2:07out of bed. I'd be working at 8:00 that
70. 2:08night and I would just pay for some time
71. 2:10in the internet cafe and I would sit on
72. 2:12PartyPoker with the weird like
73. 2:13mannequin-like people and I would just
74. 2:15grind all afternoon and I remember one
75. 2:18day
76. 2:19I went in full of hope, I'd been on a
77. 2:21good run, I'd planned out I'd written
78. 2:23down on a bit of paper, right? Cuz back
79. 2:24then that's what you did, you wrote on
80. 2:26stuff with
81. 2:27pens and that's what we used to do then.
82. 2:29And I wrote out this plan that was like
83. 2:31I'm going to have 20 buy-ins for 100 NL,
84. 2:33then 200, then 500, then 1K, then 2K and
85. 2:37I'm going to be like a high stakes rich
86. 2:39baller next year, like early next year
87. 2:42or something. This is like I don't know,
88. 2:43June or something like that, let's say.
89. 2:45And that afternoon I went to the
90. 2:46internet cafe, I played on PartyPoker
91. 2:48with the mannequins and I got absolutely
92. 2:51wrecked.
93. 2:52Everything I did didn't work. I remember
94. 2:54a hand actually where I had ace-jack on
95. 2:57the flop and I tilted and I shoved when
96. 3:00it went like bet and raise. I was a
97. 3:01horrible poker player back then. This is
98. 3:02start of me even playing poker. It went
99. 3:04like bet and raise and like a single
100. 3:07raise pot on the flop and I shoved 100
101. 3:08big blinds with ace-jack. I had top
102. 3:10pair, top kicker and I ran into the nut
103. 3:13flush draw and pocket kings
104. 3:16and I won.
105. 3:17I hit like a jack on the turn and then
106. 3:19it bricked out.
107. 3:20And I won two buy-ins and I remember the
108. 3:22guy is posting like the you're a fish
109. 3:25and I don't know if there were even
110. 3:25emojis back then or if they just typed
111. 3:27you suck at poker. They wouldn't have
112. 3:29said bro back then cuz no one said that.
113. 3:30They probably said man in those days.
114. 3:32Man was probably the thing. And then I
115. 3:34went on another downswing and started
116. 3:36losing more pots and I was really
117. 3:37tilted. I was playing horrendously. And
118. 3:40then I opened up the blackjack and
119. 3:43roulette. Lost a few hands of blackjack,
120. 3:46clicked the roulette button that was on
121. 3:47PartyPoker in those days. Absolutely
122. 3:49like button on the table like such
123. 3:55predatory [ __ ] And I clicked the
124. 3:56roulette button and I put [ __ ] tons of
125. 3:58money on the layout cuz I was a dealer
126. 4:00at the casino. I wouldn't just bet red
127. 4:01or black, right? I would like bet a
128. 4:03section of the wheel and I plastered a
129. 4:04bunch of the remaining money in my
130. 4:06account in a tilted frenzy
131. 4:09like gambling problem type stuff here
132. 4:12all over that virtual layout and I hit
133. 4:14big. I hit like my prime number right in
134. 4:16the middle of it, boom. And I watched my
135. 4:18balance go from I think I was down to
136. 4:19like
137. 4:21What did I have like 2K in my account? I
138. 4:23was playing with like a 20 buying roll
139. 4:25and I must have lost like I don't know,
140. 4:27seven buys or something like that day.
141. 4:29And I plastered like several hundred
142. 4:31dollars onto this like roulette spread
143. 4:33and I must have won like 15 $1600 on the
144. 4:37spin.
145. 4:38Something like that. And then I was back
146. 4:40over 2K almost 3K and I walked out of
147. 4:43the internet cafe
148. 4:44to work and I was like, yeah, my plan is
149. 4:46still concrete. It worked. I'm going to
150. 4:48be a pro. It's so delusional. I know
151. 4:50that is like the pinnacle of delusion,
152. 4:52all right? Being a kid with some
153. 4:53borderline gambling issue and like a
154. 4:55dream and and somehow here I am talking
155. 4:58about cards 20 years later or whatever,
156. 5:00right? But
157. 5:01that aside for now.
158. 5:03That's an extreme version of that, but
159. 5:04my theory to you is hope you enjoyed
160. 5:06that story, but my theory to you is that
161. 5:09you're just the same as that but on a
162. 5:10lesser scale, right? Like you're a 25 NL
163. 5:12player, you're sitting there in a
164. 5:14laptop, family around you, kids are just
165. 5:16out of the bed, wife is watching
166. 5:17something on Netflix. This is all very
167. 5:19cliche, right? And you fire up 25 NL,
168. 5:21you're grinding four tables. The night
169. 5:22before you felt like an absolute in
170. 5:24boss, everything was working and that
171. 5:25night you just get silently wrecked and
172. 5:27you're just sitting there shriveling up
173. 5:28into yourself like this
174. 5:31piece of fruit that's been left out in
175. 5:32the sun just becoming like this
176. 5:35shriveled, quiet, wrinkled slob of
177. 5:37despair. Just hating everything. You go
178. 5:40to bed questioning everything, doubting
179. 5:42yourself. You wake up the next day and
180. 5:44you just play again and you leave it up
181. 5:45to variance how you feel about your
182. 5:47poker
183. 5:48life, your what career you can have out
184. 5:50of the game, what stakes you're going to
185. 5:51be playing one day. All of this is just
186. 5:53forever contingent on how you're running
187. 5:55that day, that week, that month. And you
188. 5:56kind of know this consciously. If you
189. 5:58ever stopped to think about it, you
190. 5:59would realize it.
191. 6:01But you don't.
192. 6:02You just keep going in this this cycle.
193. 6:04So what do we do about this? Like if
194. 6:05that sounds like you and you're
195. 6:06thinking, yes, this is me. I'm just
196. 6:08constantly bouncing between optimism,
197. 6:10pessimism, hope and despair. What do I
198. 6:12do about it? Let me tell you what you do
199. 6:14about it. You stop making it about you.
200. 6:15You've got to take yourself out of the
201. 6:16equation. It's not actually about you.
202. 6:18If you were reading a good book, you
203. 6:19wouldn't actually care about you. This
204. 6:21is why reading is so therapeutic. It
205. 6:23takes us away from that main character
206. 6:25syndrome. And poker is the opposite of
207. 6:27reading. Poker puts you right at the
208. 6:29fray. It's like, this is about you.
209. 6:31You're the protagonist. You're basically
210. 6:32in the novel now rather than reading it.
211. 6:34There's a reason we sleep better when
212. 6:35we've been watching TV or reading or
213. 6:37something like that. It's because we
214. 6:39become observers. Counting sheep are
215. 6:41observers, right? We're watching them
216. 6:42jump over the fences. As soon as we are
217. 6:45involved and it's about us and we're
218. 6:46plotting and planning and figuring out
219. 6:48how to make the next day better. How am
220. 6:50I going to get around the fact I've not
221. 6:52handed in that assignment at work? I
222. 6:53could tell my boss this and this and
223. 6:54this. Maybe they'd believe me. I could
224. 6:55get that colleague. And that's how you
225. 6:57end up staying up all night, right? Just
226. 6:59achieving nothing but going round in a a
227. 7:01horrible cycle of just ideas that don't
228. 7:04solve problems. And you wake up at 5:00
229. 7:05in the morning and you can't get back to
230. 7:07sleep. And
231. 7:09what you need to do in your poker life
232. 7:11is you need to put the protagonist to
233. 7:13sleep. And you need to make yourself an
234. 7:15observer, a learner, a student. It needs
235. 7:18to be about the game, the curiosity, the
236. 7:21marvel of the whole thing, the strategic
237. 7:23element. And you can't just be a
238. 7:25fair-weather strategist. You can't just
239. 7:27be someone that likes the strategy of
240. 7:28the game if and only if you're running
241. 7:30good. Oh, this is so curious and
242. 7:32interesting that hand where I stacked
243. 7:33villain. You get this in the Discord all
244. 7:35the time. What do you think of my call
245. 7:37on the river? My thinking was blah blah
246. 7:39blah. The guy is making some punt call
247. 7:40and just happened to stack someone that
248. 7:42time. He just happened to run into a
249. 7:44bluff in a completely under bluff spot.
250. 7:46And like, there'll be this inevitable
251. 7:47back and forth where like the sensei or
252. 7:49coach or whatever will be like, this is
253. 7:50a really bad call because blah blah
254. 7:51blah. The guy will push back and fight.
255. 7:53And that is just that's not unusual at
256. 7:55all. And there are extreme versions of
257. 7:57that like I've spoken about today. And
258. 7:59there are just the everyday humdrum
259. 8:01version of that, which is just feeling
260. 8:03like a genius when something goes your
261. 8:04way and feeling like an idiot when it
262. 8:06doesn't. And as I've said, to get away
263. 8:08from that, you have to start reading the
264. 8:10book of poker, so to speak. There aren't
265. 8:13actually any good poker books anymore.
266. 8:15That's why we have a training site.
267. 8:16Carrot Corner Bronze is the first
268. 8:17course, by the way. It's only £99. You
269. 8:20get 15 very serious videos, plus you're
270. 8:23going to get 40 trainer questions,
271. 8:27hand-chosen by me at the end of the
272. 8:28month. They'll just be dropped into your
273. 8:31training page on Bronze, if you have
274. 8:32that tier. And it's not just a GTO
275. 8:34trainer, it does have GTO also. It has
276. 8:35my feedback. I'm really looking forward
277. 8:36to that launching. But But this is the
278. 8:39This is the very point, right? You have
279. 8:40to become that observer, that student,
280. 8:43that curious scientist, that that
281. 8:46someone who's exploring, right? Rather
282. 8:48than someone who's experiencing. Because
283. 8:51when you're experiencing in poker, you
284. 8:52can't help but try to survive. Because
285. 8:55when you're the subject, you go into
286. 8:57survival mode. And when you're watching
287. 8:59something else, you go into inquisitive,
288. 9:01subconscious, flow state very easily,
289. 9:05right? When you're in a You're watching
290. 9:06a film, you're in a flow state. It's a
291. 9:08less engaged flow state, but you're like
292. 9:10completely zoned in. You're like in the
293. 9:12moment with those characters, watching
294. 9:14that unfolding. It feels really good
295. 9:16because it takes you out of that main
296. 9:18character syndrome, protagonist
297. 9:20[ __ ]
298. 9:21So when you find yourself, the poker
299. 9:23player,
300. 9:24obsessed about how you're doing, and
301. 9:25it's all about you, that's why you're
302. 9:28stuck in a hope and despair cycle.
303. 9:29Because you accidentally made yourself
304. 9:31the subject of your poker career, and
305. 9:33you're not. You're the object of your
306. 9:35poker career. Things happen to you.
307. 9:38Variance happens to you. Winning and
308. 9:41losing sessions are dished out to you at
309. 9:43random.
310. 9:44They are not anything you can control.
311. 9:45Even as a winning player, you may have a
312. 9:4744%chance of having a losing session
313. 9:50that day. That is how real variance is.
314. 9:53In Bronze, we have a a video called
315. 9:55Volume and Variance that really tries to
316. 9:56spell that out for you.
317. 9:58But yeah, you really do have to make it
318. 10:00about the game. Poker
319. 10:03is the subject of your poker career,
320. 10:06and you are just riding that wave. And
321. 10:08you want to study You want to study
322. 10:10poker. How does it work? How do you get
323. 10:13good results out of it long-term? Like
324. 10:15it's this really complicated machine and
325. 10:18all you're doing is putting stuff into
326. 10:21it to see what comes out long-term and
327. 10:23what comes out in the short-term does
328. 10:25not matter. You want to get fascinated
329. 10:27with that machine like an engineer would
330. 10:29be fascinated with a boiler. Mine's
331. 10:31broken right now. It's on the center of
332. 10:33my mind. It's pretty annoying. I've got
333. 10:35an electric heater behind me.
334. 10:37But yeah, you get the point. If you
335. 10:39suffer from this hope and despair cycle,
336. 10:40I'll talk about it at greater length. I
337. 10:43wanted to bring this up today. I wanted
338. 10:44to keep this short and sweet and
339. 10:46succinct. So let me know how you feel
340. 10:48about it. Happy to discuss with you guys
341. 10:50in the comments. If you like these kind
342. 10:52of mental game poker career performance
343. 10:55based videos, I will make more. Just say
344. 10:57down below and smash the like button.
345. 10:58It'll really help me out and check out
346. 11:00Carrot Corner everything that we do to
347. 11:02make poker the protagonist, to make you
348. 11:06the learner who's curious and fascinated
349. 11:08and absorbed and in flow state so you
350. 11:11don't have room
351. 11:12to be the victim of the hope despair
352. 11:15cycle. See you next time.