Three Psychological Skills for Online Poker

What are important psychological skills for online poker?

Poker and online poker are psychological games. Some people think that poker should be considered a sport, and you are probably smiling. But there are many similarities with sports, and controlling your inner self is crucial.

Motivation

It is very difficult to make money at poker. Many people have tried, and only a few have succeeded. It can be said than less than 1% of all players become consistent winners.

So what is so tough about online poker?

One problem is that it is a bumpy road, a little like a boxing match to continue the analogy with sports. In boxing, you take a lot of hits, and you give a lot of hits. And you win if you give more hits than you receive hits. Same in poker.

You must be able to withstand the periods when nothing seems to work, when you take bad beat after bad beat, when you bankroll keeps on decreasing, and when you start to question if online poker is for you.

These times always come. Think about the famous online poker player durrrr. In the first half of 2009, he is reported to have lost about $3 million. Even though he is one of the best poker players around, he is certainly struggling mentally to withstand these losses.

So the number one psychological skill in online poker is motivation. Without it, you will not sustain the periods of hardship.

When you start playing online poker, ask yourself what your motivation is. Are you just playing for the fun or do you take it like a competitive endeavor. Set a goal such as a win rate to achieve or a bankroll level to reach. This is a great way to stay motivated.

Will Power

Motivation is not sufficient to become a successful online poker player. You must be able to execute your plan with an iron will.

Will power is the second most important psychological skills at online poker.

Why is that?

Because there will be so many temptations along the way to make you break your rules. Likes the sirens trying to seduce Ulysses.

For example you play in a big pot, and you have a straight flush draw. You have 7♣6♣, the board is A♦8♣5♣2♠ and your opponent's hand is A♣K♣.

The pot is already big and your opponent shoves at the turn. You have 18% chance to win and only get 2:1 odds ratio, so you should fold. But you have a draw to the strongest type of hand, and the other player had kept on bullying you. Would it not give him a good lesson if you hit that draw?

This is the voice of the siren calling you. In order to be able to not listen, you need as much will power as you can find. And always try to improve your will power.

Another typical case is tilting. Make controlling tilt through will power your number one priority and your online poker result will improve immediately.

Positive Thinking

Finally the third most important quality is positive thinking.

Positive thinking is focusing on what you want instant of focusing on what you do not want.

For example, if you put your focus and energy thinking about all the recent bad beats that hit you while playing online poker, this is negative thinking. It will not help you improve your game, and on the contrary it may impair it by inducing the wrong type of focus.

This is where the three psychological skills come together. You need the will power to reject all the bad thoughts that come to you regarding bad beats and other atrocious events that hit you along the way.

Thinking about your bad beats may lead to tilting, so this is another reason why you want to avoid doing that.

Say for example, you lose a big stack because you play rockets against a calling station who had A-rag, but hit a runner-runner trip on the river.

The negative thinking way of looking at it is to think (or to say) "how could this #$!%# have called my shove with this crappy hand. What a *&%$##*&%$%$". But this makes you more upset and will induce losing your temper and more of your money.

The positive thinking way of looking at it is the following. You made the right +EV play, but statistically there was a small chance to lose. This is a lost battle, but not a lost war.

By Using and honing the three psychological skills, you will gain a poker edge. And your win rate will move up immediately.