There is a famous book called “The Power of Positive Thinking”. In it the author (Norman Vincent Peale) suggests that your attitude affects reality around you. Reality does not happen in a vacuum. You actually create reality. In my life experiences, I have come to believe that this is true. And nowhere is it more true than at the poker table.
I get asked for poker advice all the time, and usually the questions start with “I had Ace-King and my opponent had…” or “Did I have the odds to draw to a flush…” In fact most poker training material is written in this way; addressing specific situations such as “How to play big pairs” or “How to calculate the odds”. No one seems to think much about “poker attitude”, but it’s the first thing I work on with my students.
What about you? Do you spend time thinking about what attitude you are taking with you to the poker table, and how that affects whether you leave the table a winner or a loser? I can tell you one thing for sure – if you sit down with the attitude of, “I’m out of my league here, these guys are going to own me,” what sort of chance do you think you have of leaving that table a winner?
One of the best things you can do is, as you get ready for your next poker session, go through a list in your head of all the reasons why you SHOULD win. That list might include:
• I’ve played more poker than these guys
• I’ve studied harder than them
• I’m smarter than them
• No-Limit Holdem is my best game
• Half of them are drunk
• Face it, I’m just all around better than them
Just repeating these out loud starts to create that reality. And you know what? You aren’t lying to yourself; these statements are probably true. Just the fact that you’ve come to this site for poker training probably means you’ve studied more than them (most people never put any time into improving their poker skills away from the poker table).
Don’t feel stupid standing in front of a mirror saying these things out loud. Write some of your own. Professional athletes do this. Top salesman do it before sales calls. So should you.
