Folding Pocket Aces

One thing that I will start implementing before playing a session is to have a session warm up. All professional athletes have a warm up before competing; this usually consists of static, dynamic, ballistic stretching and drills. Most e-athletes have a warm up session either by playing against someone else for one or two games before or if in a team settings, going 2 vs 2 on the selected maps.

For poker there are some steps that I plan to take to get myself ready to play.

1. HH review.
   Going over hands from the previous session is a good way to get your poker mind warmed up. This will bring up items which you want to work on about your games, either playing OOP or playing in 3B pots. This is a good time to add subsequent notes on players.
2. Notes review (Goals & Blog).
   If you have a blog and you post your weekly and/or monthly goals or if you post problematic hands/situations, reviewing those will help bring forward the areas of your game you wish to work on and keep them in your mind for the session you’re about to start.
3. Watching videos.
   Watching an entire video might be complicated, but if you’ve taken notes on the videos you watched, going over parts which talk about parts of your game you want to work on will definitely help you correct those parts for the session and if done often enough, in your game.
4. Visualization
   This one is more of a 2 part process. First you need to focus your mind (become mindfull) on the session at hand. This can be done using the breathing techniques that can be found in the series Eightfold Path to Poker Enlightenment. While becoming mindfull of the session you are about to start, envision yourself properly applying your goals which you’ve defined in steps 1, 2 and 3.

One this is done I will be ready to load up some tables and play. One seated at the tables I will have 2 more tasks to do.

1. Go over the players on the table. If you have stats on these players go over them and define what your general strategy for playing will be.
2. Go over your notes for the players you have on the table. Keep in mind any weaknesses that you might have found against your opponents and define a strategy for exploiting those.

I think after doing all of these steps at the beginning of each session, I will have done everything possible up to that point to play at my best. To play my ‘A’ game. Because the only thing I have complete control over at the table is me.