H.A.L.T. Before You Play Online Poker

I have been playing Online Poker for a number of years now, and I just thought I would share the basic rule of poker that I created for myself. Not only do I self analyze while I play, but more importantly BEFORE I sit down and play a poker session.

What if I try and play poker while I am :

Hungry

Angry

Lonely

Tired

--------------------------------------

Poker players can be Hungry for three things. Food, Money, or Blood

Food- Pretty basic stuff here kids!! I have a big breakfast before I play now. No more hunger pains while I play. I don't skip lunch so that I can play seven hours straight. I learned my lessons the hard way. I don't eat, I get unfocused and cranky.

Money- Just lost 14 buy ins yesterday and now your geared up to get it all back ?? Forget about it!! I try and reset every single session that I play. Up or down, it never matters, I trust my play and over time it will work out. Basic rule of poker but it works!!

Blood- Cardcruncher87 Got you on the river 6 times yesterday and NOW he is playing again !! Forget about him and do not rush it !! Sure I loosen up my play with him but I am no hurry to f'''ck this kid up, believe me. The other side of this coin is when I try and outplay the good players I have stats on. There are enough bad players around , and I do much better when I don't carry vendettas against the good ones.

Angry

The wife just called you a F***ing loser and you spent 10 minutes yelling at her.Sounds like a good time to play poker?? Think again!! Pretty obvious that I am setting myself up to fail when I break this basic rule of poker. Take a break, kiss and make up , and then let the cards fly!!

Lonely

Took me a really long time to grasp this one. I use to put some really long days in on the poker tables, and then I would quit from shear exhaustion. Time to relax right ?? Nope. I would try but I would get bored because I had no dam social life, and within an hour or so be right back on the tables tilting all of my won money away. If your bored and you have nothing else to do, but KNOW you have played enough poker for one day, just force yourself to enjoy some real life things.

Tired

I now get my full 8 hours of sleep each night, and never play poker before 1 hour of waking up. When I get up at 3 am in the morning to take a piss I am no longer tempted to squeeze in a quick poker session before going back to bed. I make these basic rules of poker and I stick to them. But MOST important rule of all is I only play for 2 hour sessions at the very most!!


Since I have implemented the above rules into my poker strategy, life and poker have gotten much better for me. My hourly rate has increased substantially. So just H.A.L.T before you play!! Good luck all

Really funny, I liked it a lot! Some of the things you said sounds like the book "The Zurich Axioms", which is about business and stock market, but it also can teach you a lot of poker if you do have some imagination! Mainly the parts about being hungry for revenge etc.

Thanks for your input

My friend was deep into the stock market for while, and I talk to him about grinding it out on the poker tables and he told me its all very similar.

I will look for "The Zurich Axioms" .. might be worth a read !!

[arjonius]

Solid common sense advice. What's rather ironic is that in many cases, the people who should heed it most are actually less likely to do so. It's a lot easier to tell yourself you're not tired or upset enough for it to affect your game than it is to step away and not play, or even to drop down to a level where your B game is still competitive.

[mortas]

you missed out on never play on any of the merge bull shit sites

Wow . Hats-Off mate. These "circumstantial" "bodily" effects are lol funny. Well , atleast somebody mentioned it . ! Cool! Gud work ! Cheers!

[Dori113]

I would never be able to play if I had to have all of that stuff sorted lol. To be totally honest if I had all of that stuff sorted the shock of that alone would drop me dead on the spot & there would be no more poker.



Good advice though for a person who lives a bit differently than myself and the majority of my friends

Lol , this thread reminds me of gearing up for some great Boxing -Match , you know , one of the biggies .. World Championship ? haha .. really .. but have any of you'll actually suffered because of this ? It seems wierd to me . Its never happened to me before .. i wont play bad poker if i'm "Angry" or .. hehe .. "Hungry".. but neverthless its a good post! Well done.
Cheers

[kokokopo]

good one
definitely been there

[kmax11]

thats cool man i eat while im play some chicken and sticky fingers.. lol.. i do aight in cards just sometime i run lucky then there time i jsut am card dead