I was so ready to play poker Friday afternoon. The poker tournament started at 3PM today and I was ready to get started. I hadn't played poker since the big tournament almost two weeks ago. I was down on myself about how I played and I didn't show myself that I deserved to be playing in a bigger tournament yet. Three times per year I give myself the opportunity to see where I am at in my poker play. I will play at Wildhorse Casino and pay the larger fee just to see where I am at. I would do the same thing with my golf. If I wanted to see how I was doing I would play at Canyon Lakes Golf Course because that course was the size of golf courses the pros would play. You see where I am going with this already?
Every time I play like I did at Jokers Casino the next thing to do was study some more and get myself more prepared for the next time. I am competitive and this game will put me up against people that are better than me and I can't have that. I need to learn and get better.
With this game I have goals that I must meet each and every time I play. If I don't meet these goals I have to figure out what I did that did not allow myself the opportunity and fix those leaks. The three goals I have for every tournament are:
1) Make the Final table. 2) Make the money spot. 3) Win the tournament.
Now number one and two can be switched around depending on the tournament and how many people are playing. At Wildhorse those would be switched around. At Jokers they would remain as I have them listed. These are important goals and they must be reached to accomplish where I want to be in my play.
The next thing that has to be looked at are procedures. With poker you have to make plays with hands that you are given. Now I know there are other things that enter into the decision making on making plays but you do need to have procedures of how to play certain hands. I play pocket pairs differently than face cards and for straight and flush possibilities. Procedures is important in how you play. I must follow them. If you have been reading my other posts you can see a correlation with the boxes in the brain. Things for me are basically cut and dry and if you do something then the outcome should be the same.
With all of that said then how did I do in the tournament today. I came in second place today. We played for four hours and I made one play at the end that made me loose a big share of my chips. Was I tired? Why did I choose to play the hand the way I did? These are two of the questions I have to answer. So, I accomplished goal number one and two but fell short for goal number 3. I will still pat myself on the back and say good job but then have to sit down and think about what I did that made me do what I did.
The tournament started with T$10,000 in chips and I did drop down to around T$7,000 and I had to tell myself that this is my job and I needed to concentrate a little bit more and I then was able to get back up to the T$9,000 area before getting to the final table. Even though this is a game and I do enjoy this game it is also a job to me in making money to keep the dream alive. What is the dream? It is part of the goals list. You have to have that and it has to be written down and you have to read it almost on a daily basis to make it part of your life.
Having Fun.
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