Keep your game fresh. Avoid the burnout!

“Staying fresh” and “avoiding burnout” are one in the same. To avoid
burnout – an exhaustion of physical or emotional strength usually as a
result of prolonged stress or frustration – we must find and implement
different strategies that will allow us to be and remain confident and
ambitious poker players. Some of these strategies we’ll use on a daily
basis, while others may only have to be utilized when we’re going
through the most difficult situations (i.e. a particularly long and
difficult downswing, and all the stressful side effects that come with
it). Knowing exactly how and when to use them simply takes a little
effort and some experience. Hopefully this article will shed some light
on this topic, and allow everyone reading it to feel more confident
that the next time they think they just can’t take the variance
anymore, they now have some ammo of their own to fire back at the bad
beats and suckouts.

So let’s get started…

The first
thing we need to do is consider what kind of poker player we are at
this moment in time. A good sized portion of us are simply Recreational
Players (RPs) and may only need to use some of what I like to call the
“Stay Fresh Strategies” (SFSs) every once in a while – or maybe never
at all. Others may currently be RPs who are looking to get more serious
about the game and have legitimate long-term poker goals. We’ll call
these players APs, which stands for “Aspiring Players.” I advise that
these players take heed to the SFSs and really get a deep understanding
and appreciation for them, so that they are better prepared to handle
the times when poker is just plain stressful, and are also better
prepared for if/when they become the next variety of player. The final
type of players is, of course, one who is already a Professional or
Semi-Professional Player – we’ll call him or her a PP/SPPs. While there
can be a big difference between being a professional poker player or a
semi-professional player, I feel that SFSs are extremely important to
both types. So for the sake of this article, I’ll just consider them
one single category of players.

So now that we’ve classified
ourselves as recreational players (RP), aspiring players (AP), or pro
player/semi-pro players (PP/SPP), we can move on to the actual SFSs.
I’ve numbered them one through eight – not based on rank of importance,
but based on a loose chronological order that makes sense to me. Also,
I’m sure it wouldn’t take much effort to think of some other SFSs that
aren’t listed below, but I think these are the major ones and certainly
the ones that have helped me the most through my poker career up to
this point.


#1) Prepare for burnout ahead of time. This
is the most basic yet possibly most important SFS. Just think of it
this way: If you’re playing a lot, burnout is going to happen. So
naturally, if we’re ready for burnout before it rears its ugly head,
we’ll be much more likely to squash it before things get too out of
hand. Accept that it’s going to happen, and you’ll be able to move
forward much more efficiently. Also, if you’re a PP/SPP, it’s important
to realize that the potential for burnout is exponentially higher than
for someone who plays less frequently, so being prepared for this is
that much more important for you.

So, how can we prepare ahead
of time? For those who have little experience playing, I suggest that
you simply follow in the footsteps of the APs and PP/SPPs. The first
thing the APs and PP/SPPs should do is recall and diagnose problems
that they have had in the past which caused them to think of poker in a
negative light. For example, think back to the last time you went
through a tough downswing, then think about why it was so difficult,
and try to remember what changes occurred that helped you get out of
that negative situation. Of course, running well in a few tournaments
may have been the main solution to your problem. But you may have also
decided to buckle down and make concerted effort towards fixing a
couple big leaks that you had not noticed before. Or maybe that was
when you first subscribed to a poker training website. Another
possibility is that you simply put one of the other SFSs to practice,
and you just didn’t realize it at the time. Whatever the reason (or
reasons), make note of it and figure out how it might be able to help
you once again.

#2) Make a conscious effort to stay
positive AND be realistic about the game and your situation. This might
be the most difficult one to master. The trouble with staying positive
and simultaneously remain realistic is that they can be very difficult
to keep balanced. The reason for this is because they usually work
against each other. For example, when we’re going through a downswing –
which, as we’ve touched on already, can lead to burnout – it’s not easy
to stay positive. We have a hard time realizing that the high frequency
of suckouts and bad beats that we’re experiencing, while probably
higher than we’re used to, likely isn’t all that strange. It’s not easy
to think that, realistically, we’re not running any worse than lots of
other people. There are actually people who have been unluckier than we
are! So it’s when we’re running our worst that we need to stop licking
our wounds and, instead, remain positive in order to have a more
balanced psyche.

#3) Make sure our surroundings create a
positive environment. This SFS is based on practicality, experience,
and common sense, and will enable us to have a better chance at playing
poker successfully and staying fresh. The environment I’m talking about
can be the room we sit in while we play, as well as our entire present
life in general. The small environmental situations that are easy to
change are often times based on trial and error. For example, maybe we
don’t play well when we have heavy metal music blasting out of our
computer speakers. To remedy this, we might try switching to a more
mellow type of music, like soft rock or classical. These smaller
negative environmental variables are pretty straight forward, and most
people get comfortable dealing with them pretty quickly. But how about
the bigger ones? Negative occurrences like getting in a fender bender,
or having a bitter argument with a close friend, or receiving a poor
grade on an exam can obviously be pretty depressing. And whether we
realize it or not, it’s things like those that will also affect our
poker experience.

So how do we avoid letting those kinds of
things influence us when we’re playing? People deal with this
differently, but my best advice is to simply take a break, rather than
ignore them. Don’t turn to poker when negative things are on your mind,
and you’ll avoid the risk of tilting brought on by those negative
thoughts. If you wait until you’re feeling better about the situation,
then your outlook on other things in your life – including poker – will
likely take a turn for the better as well. More on this in SFS #8.

#4)
Obtain a more enriched knowledge of poker. There are lots of ways to do
this – we can talk with poker friends about various strategic topics,
read and post about similar things on forums, read any number of poker
books and online publications, purchase memberships to training sites,
etc. We’re using this SFS so that we can continue to better our game,
which will, in turn, keep us excited about playing.

Knowing
that we can keep improving everyday is pivotal if we want to avoid
losing interest in poker. And it’s a sad day when PP/SPPs feel like
they’ve hit a plateau and can’t progress anymore. But that’s a day many
of us have experienced, only to realize later on that those feelings
were ignorant and even pompous to begin with. Always have this notion
in the front of your mind: I Can Always Get Better! – it will be a lot
more difficult to feel burned out if you’re fully aware of and
intrigued by all the information you have yet to learn.

#5)
Create realistic and attainable goals for yourself. I’m sure that
everyone reading this article has set at least one poker goal for
themselves in the past, and/or are looking to create new ones in the
near future. Increase your monthly profit by 20% next month, have a
higher ROI this year than you did the last, set up prop bets with
friends – there are countless types of goals you can set for yourself,
and they’re extremely likely to help you stay motivated and happy about
playing.

#6) Help/coach another player. I think this is a
fantastic SFS that many people probably don’t think of right away.
We’re trying to keep our own game fresh, so why would we concentrate on
helping someone else, right? Well in my experience, it’s been very
humbling to help a less advanced player with his/her game. Naturally, I
had to go back over and discuss more fundamental aspects of poker –
some of which I realized I needed to improve on anyway – and we
wouldn’t have noticed had we not decided to help someone else.
Ultimately, teaching can be a very mentally stimulating endeavor for
both the student as well as the teacher, and that’s exactly what we’re
trying to accomplish. We’re trying to stay excited about the game!

#7)
Learning and/or improving on a different game. Sometimes when we get
bored of one game, the best thing to do is try another one out. After
all, variety is the spice of life! So if you’re growing sick of playing
Hold’em, give Omaha a try. If you want to play with even more cards
than that, go for one of the Stud variations. Changing games may cause
us to feel more enthusiastic about playing cards altogether, and this
enthusiasm will hopefully transfer back over to our bread and butter
game. Also, brand new strategies that we discover and learn playing
this new game may also be relevant to our main game as well. And on top
of all that, it’s never a bad thing to become a better all-around poker
player, right?

# Take a break! Everyone needs a break
from poker sometimes – Everyone! Yes, even the most skilled and
experienced PP/SPPs get sick of poker sometimes, and they’ve all taken
breaks before. But how long should we stop playing? That’s a difficult
question, and is entirely dependent on one’s own psychological and/or
financial situation. For example, one type of person (particularly RPs
and APs) may be far more affected mentally by a downswing than someone
else, and therefore may need more time to pass before they feel like
playing again. Also, while an RP might be financially able to take a
two month break from poker when he/she is particularly burned out, a
PP/SPP may only be able to take a few days off because of his/her
monetary responsibilities. Each person and every situation is
different, and we usually just have to “play it by ear” and figure it
out as we go. As with everything else, the more experience we have
going through the tough times, the better we’ll be able to plan for the
next one.

I hope this article was helpful and I encourage you
to come back to it when times get tough. There are practical ways to
get through downswings, and it’s always best to be prepared for them
ahead of time.