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Setting your goal

We have started the whole book with the question "What is your aim with poker?"

You need to start with determining what you want to achieve by playing poker, and you need to stick to this throughout your poker career.

You should always have a monthly achievement aim, which you derive from your ultimate goal. But keep in mind: your monthly aim should be measurable.

Examples
Bad aim: I will play more hands, and watch more videos.
Right aim: I will play at least 20k hands and watch the 'x' video series this month.

Pay attention to only set out goals that you can achieve by yourself, without depending on the circumstances. To have goals like "I will try to win 'x' BI-s is not good not only because it does not depend solely on you, but it will also get you frustrated if you don't succeed.

Do you have envy in you?

"How on Earth does this come in the picture?" you could ask.

Well, this is truly a very important question. Many people live behind the shades of envy throughout their whole lives. Envy and egoism rooting from a minority complex will only hinder you in your progress. Every person in the world has a tendency to envy the ones that are more successful, but it is a much more mature and beneficial step to recognize this and try to rise above it.

The next step is to understand that envy is one of the biggest obstacle of our progress. Think it through: it makes you have a negative attitude towards something you would otherwise try to reach. If you are conscious about this, you will see that by this you force your ego to solve something that cannot be solved. This conflict will make you frustrated, but not help you in your progress.

The conclusion, as always, is that we are the main cause of our own suffering. This bad news is also good at the same time; if we are the cause, we are the ones that can trigger change.

Is any of the following statements true for you, or do you consider these true statements?

• I think I deserve more from life that I have gotten so far

• Most of the successful people get successful because of being in the right place at the right time.

• Whenever I see a young guy in a nice car, my first thought is that daddy bought his dear son an expensive vehicle, while I work day and night to make ends meet.

• XY poker player got lucky in a big tournament and won a hell of a lot of money. The bastard! Why can't I win a big event? I would so DESERVE it!

If any of the above questions made you have negative feelings or made you recognize yourself, you definitely have room for improvement in this field, if you don't want these bad feelings to hinder you in your task.

When you a through the first step (recognition, which is not easy at all), then comes the next one. This will already be a  bit easier: you have to accept that all these things simply  DO NOT MATTER. Whatever happened with somebody else will have absolutely no effect on what you are able to achieve.

Only care about always moving forward, and don't keep cnmparing your results with what other people are capable of. With this, you can dismiss your negative feelings from the concept of success, and remove that invisible barrier.

After this comes the third step, when you change from a neutral attitude to a positive one, and try to associate the concept of success with positive feelings. Here comes the key question: Are you capable of  being HONESTLY happy for the success of others? This needs some practice, but is once again achievable.

If you have gotten this far, you will not put your poor ego out to a lifelong damnation of being frustrated, and you will be surprised how easily you can reach your goals.

Don't keep telling stories of bad beats!

Don't be obsessed with bad beats. With caring too much about bad beats, you will only deepen your relation with tilt, and keep the 'downswing moral' strong. Practically, you program a negative mental state into yourself. You become a victim of constant fear, and there is nothing worse than sitting down to play with fear and bad feelings inside you. Your game will be too weak, especially in borderline, but +EV situations. You will cease to cbet, just to 'stop further losses', and so on.

Instead, read a few hand reviews, some poker strategy articles from the ones we have previously recommended. At least, you can make use of those. Pondering on bad beats, however, will have absolutely no positive effect and believe it or not, most people couldn't care less about your bad beats, so really: don't bother telling them.


Poker and your relationship

Sooner or later, your hobby will become a cardinal question from the relationship perspective. In this matter, too much of communication with your partner is much better than too little.

Tell your partner how big pressure poker means for your soul when, for example, going through a downswing, or what your partner could expect when you are in an upswing. They should always know what state you are in at the moment, and you should always honestly share your thoughts with them. It can also help you to get through harder times and it is essential for your partner to accept your "obsession".

If you are looking for more tips, we can recommend you Bobby Crosby's  +EV poker comics, which is a story of the everydays of a poker couple.

To be continued...