Aggressive Certainty

A few days ago, I listened to stheif09's Blueprint, and @ 20:45, he talks about stopping 15 minutes into a session cause nothing's going our way.  He said just stop, declare an end to the session, take a 30 minute break, then start a new session with a clear head.  Good things will happen.

Well, it happened yesterday.  I did all my pre-game rituals, fed, motivated, primed, and then... bluff called, value owned myself, coolered, check to induce bluff and he's not bluffing, bluff called, he's slowplaying, coolered... WTF...  grrrrrr..... barely 30 minutes into what was supposed to be a 4 hr block of grinding and I SHUT IT DOWN.  I didn't want to play anymore.  I was seriously thinking of just calling it a night.  But then I remembered sthief09's talk.  Let's just try it, I thought.  

So I got a snack and listened to a a tape on golf sport psychology (awesome btw, applies pretty well to poker).  After a while, the emotion subsided, and I wasn't so anxious.  By the time I was ready to play again, I was even more psyched than before I started the previous session.  Go through all pre-game rituals again, as if I'm starting my 1st session of the night, fed, motivated, primed, and then.... Good things did happen!  

On a scale of 0 to 5, I had about a 4 session.  It was pretty surreal.  I don't remember ever playing this good after starting so bad.  I think sthief09's really onto something here.

So try it out next time you're in a similar spot.  Just press reset on that game.