Lessons for TheWakko - Jan 2021

TheWakko

Create a plan for fixing your leaks (spot, fix, prepare)

In an earlier newsletter we talked about how we should always be gathering information. For example, about ourselves, tendencies that come up when we haven’t played for a while or when we play our C or B-game. Also, gather information on things that trigger tilt or, for example, over aggressive or passive behavior. Now I wanted to quickly talk about what to do next. You want to find the root of your mistake, is this a lack of technical knowledge? Or is this something that you know off-game but fail to implement while in-game?

The second case becomes interesting, you feel something is off but weren't able to get to the right answer while playing. This usually means that the knowledge is not consumed yet to the level of unconscious competence, meaning that you will only have access to it in moments you are on your A-game. If you are playing your B-game you might get it wrong. We should analyze how we thought in-game, compared to how we think off-game and see which variables we have over- or underrated or may have put in the wrong order. How did we think about the hand in-game? And what is a better way to think about this situation in the future? The answer to that will be your intention for your upcoming sessions.

To create an even better reminder for yourself, you want to mark hands that shows this concept and go over them before your start playing. Preferably this is a hand that you played well and shows the right way of approaching this situation instead of a mistake, since its usually better to focus on wanting more of what is right than less of what is wrong. Once you stop getting this spot wrong, remove the hands and the intention and move on to the next spot. This is a never-ending process.

Stop trying to trap the fun player

The people who watched my twitch stream(s) or the YouTube highlight(s) saw that in a couple of these pre-session hands I was trying to trap a fun player with a hand that was strong enough to go for value itself. I wanted to highlight again that we should always ask ourselves “Where does our EV come from?”. In those hands, EV had to come from getting called by worse (that would otherwise x back), and not from getting bluffed by worse. So, I had that intention, saw the hands to remind me of my intention, and a little bit into the session we made a straight with 56o on a J3467 board, and instead of checking I decided to bet close to pot and he called me with AJ, a hand that he would most likely have checked behind. Yes, we miss value from a bluff like KT, but with our hand, that’s not where its value has to come from. This is a great example of a tendency I’ve spotted, fixed, and prepared for to change in action.

Seeing problems as opportunities

Now that Poker Ambition is shifting into second gear (soon to be third and fourth), and I’m starting to pick up my own poker career again, there is a lot of stuff on my plate. In general, I am not your most organized guy and usually I find it hard to focus on something, let alone multiple things.

So, instead of letting this stop me and not starting at all, or giving up and falling in a fixed mindset, or limiting beliefs that “This is how I am; this is how I’ve always been, I can’t do this” I want to break out of this and prove to myself that I can do this. In my younger years I was diagnosed with ADD multiple times and that created a belief that I couldn’t concentrate, and that I couldn’t read books for example. I went from being able to play 1-hour sessions max to managing my concentration for 8 hour sessions. Moreover, I went from not reading books to reading various books about mindset, performance, the brain etc.

We should stop looking at the problems that come with our weaknesses and start to see challenges where our weaknesses are exposed. We need to start seeing them as an opportunity to grow and expand our skill set. We grow when we are confronted with something that is outside of what we currently know or are capable off. So, if we limit our activities to our current skill set, we don’t grow. Wish me luck!
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