Play Yourself

No, I do not mean play with yourself. I just mean that game is more of a contest with yourself rather than with the cards or the opposition. Let me explain. Each of us operates within certain frames of reference. Playing with your children, making love to your sweetheart (or your neighbor’s), preparing food, driving on the road. All of these activities operate within different frames. In many activities, the frame quality determines much of success, poker included. Loser’s frame of reference most often includes greed and fear. Winner’s frame of reference includes respect for the game and calm professionalism. Your capacity for patience will depend to a large degree on your frame of reference at the table. You should be constantly aware of that. Think of it as taking your own “temperature” at the table. Notice how the frame shifts when you tilt or feel like tilting. It usually gets smaller and becomes focused on the wrong thing: you no longer think in long term and usually magnify the importance of recent loss ten-fold. Before you sit down, make sure you know what your frame. In the second article, we explored various wrong beliefs and how they affect your capacity for patience. Make sure that none of these are a part of your frame of reference. Come to the table in the context of professionalism, long-term view, and commitment to quality play rather scoring a quick buck. It will make a world of difference. Keep checking on yourself that you remain in that state. Minimize all other considerations. Create an idealized image of yourself as a professional in your mind. Then just blow it up mentally and stay with it, come what may!
Paradoxically, this is one of the few places where (healthy) pride can help a great deal. Make a commitment to stay with feeling and acting like a pro. “Anything else is beneath me,” might be a helpful affirmation when you feel like letting go and lapsing into the usual destructive patters (tilt…etc.). Your commitment to professionalism will create professionalism. Just try it. You often hear: “don’t play the cards, play your opponents”.
I think this one is better: “don’t play the cards, play yourself”.

(Re)Framing Process

But often, things are easier said than done. It is fine and dandy to read about various beliefs and how they work, but the key is how effectively they can be translated into something practical at the table. Let me state the framing process in a step-by-step fashion that you can utilize and follow:
0. Image - have a professional image of yourself as a poker player before you join a game. Understand what is involved. Picture yourself as successfully exhibiting those qualities during the game. This process is called visualization and is used by many highly successful athletes. Of course, you cannot visualize what you don’t know or understand. Make sure you have a clear winning image in your mind. Internalize it by associating it with your play.
1. Monitor – be self-conscious at all times. I do not mean that in a negative paranoid way. I am talking about monitoring your internal frame of reference. Are you needy to catch up? Neediness tends to scare away what you want the most. Do you feel uncomfortable? Chances are you won’t play your best. Are you distracted by the hot blonde serving drinks? Forget about picking on any tells. Monitor yourself in order to discern any “slips”.
2. Recognition – whoops, you just noticed your internal frame shift. Since you started off with the best frame possible, this shift will be by definition negative. Be specific as you can in identifying what changed. Then move to Step #3.
3. Reframing – reframe back to the professional image you visualized before the game. This means giving up every other idea, including that of “getting even”, “punishing them”, “proving that I am a better player”…etc. Return to Step #1 when successful.
If you cannot follow these steps and self-correct, I suggest you quit the game (i.e. quit the game you are in, not the game as a whole). Leaving a game when you are falling apart is significantly less expensive than staying with the wrong frame of reference. You can always come back when you have it all together again. Give up playing within any other frame of reference.

Conclusion

Staying patient is no secret.
Monitor.
Recognize.
Reframe.
Capacity for patience depends largely on your internal frame of reference. Sit down ready and re-adjust as needed. I hope the techniques revealed in this series will be as useful for you as they are for me.

Happy Playing!

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