Our new resident psychologist Dr Paul Seager is here to improve your mental powers
Poker is more than just a game of cards. A successful player needs to be able to analyse situations, assess players and keep focus on play for hours at a time. One of the biggest problems poker players face, from beginners to pros (unless you’re Allen Cunningham!), is keeping a high level of concentration.
As poker players we’re bombarded with so much information from so many sources, that it’s not always possible to take in the information we should be paying attention to (i.e what your opponents are doing). If you find this hard to believe, next time you play stop yourself at a random point in the game and write down as much information as possible that you’ve gleaned about your opponents. Who’s the rock or maniac of the table? How often has the button raised your big blind? How often has the small blind limped in? What kind of starting hands do they play based on the showdowns you’ve seen? Chances are your information isn’t as complete as it should be.
Psychological studies suggest that humans can concentrate fully for only about 30 to 60 minutes at a time, though it may vary slightly from person to person. This has the potential to hamper your ability to go deep in tournaments, or to come out winning from a long cash session.
The length of time you can concentrate can be shortened considerably, by at least four different factors:
1. Boredom. When you’re bored, your attention drifts more quickly than usual. If you’re getting a bad run of cards or you’re playing tight due to the number of maniacs at your table, you won’t be playing many hands, and very soon you may not be paying as close attention to your opponents as you should be.
2. Environment. Distractions in your poker-playing environment pull your attention away from the task at hand. These can include kids, email and the internet when playing online, or noise, passers-by or even a mouthy opponent in a cardroom.
3. Physical state. If you eat a big meal before playing, your digestive system will divert resources away from your brain to aid digestion. Not sleeping well, feeling ill, or not being as physically fit as you should be, may also contribute to a deficit in your concentration levels.
4. Mental state. Make sure you’re in the right frame of mind to play. If you’re not mentally focused, lacking the motivation to play, or not feeling good about yourself, then it’s probably best not to play. All these factors can lead to low self-esteem and low self-confidence, and this in turn is likely to lead to poor concentration.
Regular exercise
The good news is that it’s possible to improve your powers of concentration, and this is precisely what the professional players have done. But be warned, your concentration is like a muscle – it needs to be exercised to build strength, and this will take time and effort. Here are four effective ways to do this:
• Make notes. This is a sure way to stay focused on the task in hand and it’s easy to do on the internet where most major sites have note-taking facilities. Make a record of things like your opponents’ starting hands and where they play them from; whether they limp in a lot or always come in with a raise and, if so, the size of the raise. This will stop you being distracted by emails and the internet, as one activity is incompatible with the other.
• Narrow your focus of attention. It’s difficult when you’re starting out to focus on all of your opponents at the table – such information ”Your concentration is like a muscle – it needs to be exercised to build strength” overload will probably leave your head in a spin, and be more likely to lessen your concentration skills. Instead, reduce the number of things you focus on. Start off by concentrating on two players: the person who’s on the button to your big blind, and the person who will be the big blind when you’re on the button. Do they always raise you, or do they vigorously defend their blind?
Once this becomes an automatic process, add another factor to your focus of attention – but not until then. It will take time to achieve this, but if you work at it your concentration will improve and you’ll eventually be able to process enough information about all of your opponents to make you a winning poker player.
• Self-talk. Silently talk to yourself after every hand. Analyse the hand you’ve just seen or played. Tell yourself what was good and bad about it. Mentally reward yourself when you’ve done something good (like spotting a ‘tell’). The principles of behavioural psychology tell us that a reward is the surest way to get someone (yourself) to repeat a behaviour – you want to get into the habit of doing good things at the poker table.
If you take all this on board, you’ll soon be rivalling Allen Cunningham in the concentration stakes!
