Execution
There are lots of ways to improve your poker game. You can buy a trainer and spend some time in the lab. You can run sims or maybe hire a coach to help plug your leaks. You can watch strategy videos of read strategy articles and books. Whatever you decide to do, the ultimate objective should be getting to grips with important concepts, sharpening your pattern recognition and improving your ability to divine heuristics from solver output. There is, however, another key aspect to poker, one that is sometimes overlooked by students of the game.
focus, a healthy outlook, mental resilience and the other psychological aspects of the game
For over a decade, Elliot Roe has been working as a high-performance coach. A trained hypnotherapist, he has worked with professional athletes, Hollywood actors, C-Suite executives, and Wall Street traders. He has tried to get the best out of them by working on the mental game aspects of their jobs. He has also worked extensively with poker players, exploring the ways in which they can unlock their full potential, emphasizing the importance of focus, a healthy outlook, mental resilience and the other psychological aspects of the game. Over the years, he has worked with top players like Fedor Holz, Jason Koon, and Phil Galfond, helping them to best execute their games under pressure.
Roe is also an author, podcaster, and the co-creator of the primed mind immersive mindset coaching app. He is the creator of “The A-game Poker Masterclass” available on the “Run It Once” training site and on the same subject, he has just released a new book titled A-Game Poker: Master The Mental Game, Create A Winning Mindset, & Dominate The Modern Poker Game.
A-Game
In the 2007 book Elements of Poker, Tommy Angelo acknowledged how poker is a psychologically stressful and physically tough activity and said that nobody can play their A-game all the time. As such, he focused on the ways that a player can avoid playing their C-game, figuring that doing so makes a bigger long term impact to their win rate.
In the 2011 book The Mental Game of Poker, Jared Tendler and Barry Carter framed the same conversation in terms of tilt, concentrating on techniques that help a player handle variance, improve their emotional control, and better understand the ways that confidence, fear, and motivation relate to performance.
addressing the root causes of behavior that stops them from seizing the day
In A-Game Poker, Roe wants the player to master their motivation, tapping into the deepest levels of what makes them tick, figuring out and addressing the root causes of behavior that stops them from seizing the day. The idea is that through better knowing themself, they will better trust themself and that in turn leads to more consistent execution.
Mindset and performance
There is a big difference between knowing what the correct thing to do is and actually doing it under pressure. The penalty kick least likely to be scored is the one that must be scored to keep a team in the shootout. Training will only take you so far and that extends to poker. Can you pull the trigger on a huge bluff late in the tournament? Can you make the hero call on the livestream feature table? Can you play your A-game when there is life-changing money on the line?
overcome the negative thought patterns
Roe claims that “as technical edges shrink, the importance of mindset and performance grows.” He says that in order for a player to become the best version of themself, they must eradicate the mental roadblocks and overcome the negative thought patterns that are harmful to them maximizing their time in the pursuit of their goals and objectives.
Most poker players are pretty good at executing when the wind is at their back, when they are winning their flips, when their light 3-bets have been getting through, and when the deck is hitting them in the face. But what about the times when the chips are down, when they have been getting coolered or when they are in a protracted downswing? This is where a mental game coach or the knowledge contained within a book like A-Game Poker can help.
A-Game Poker by Elliot Roe is available now on Amazon.
