Five Mistakes: Online Poker Sessions

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‘Five Mistakes’ is an article series where we identify common and reversible leaks in specific areas of the typical poker player’s game. In this article, we’ll tackle mistakes players tend to make in approaching a session of online play.

Poker players tend to focus their energy on correcting what happens during a session – a call they shouldn’t have made, a three bet they should have, and so on. That, however, is a bit of a myopic approach that ignores a simple fact: a lot of mistakes that happen during a session occur because of how you approach a session. Here are five simple errors frequently made by online poker players in how they think about a session.

ESTABLISH A PRE-SESSION ROUTINE
While your mind isn’t technically a muscle from a physiological point of view, it shares enough characteristics with a muscle that the metaphor is still useful. Just like a bicep or quad, your mind prefers a little preview of the activity its about to engage in before the activity actually begins.

I’m not suggesting you play some practice hands before you sit down for an online session. Rather, I’m suggesting you establish some sort of simple routine that you engage in before your session begins. It can involves anything – exercising, making some food, meditating, whatever works for you – but it should be consistent and it should be done before every session to get yourself into the proper frame of mind, to tell your brain that whatever it was focusing on before is finished, and now its time to focus on poker.

DEFINE THE SESSION BEFORE IT BEGINS
Before you start to play, you should establish a clear time frame for the session. For cash players, you can set a certain length or win / loss goal, or frustration point, or whatever. For tournament players, a frustration point or a clear cutoff for registering works.

However you do it, the idea is the same: before you begin a session is when you’re best equipped to make quality decisions with an eye toward long-term profitability. Once a session begins, it’s way too easy to get caught up in the drama of the moment and make some really tilty decisions, especially if you’re losing. Having an exit plan before you enter is a great tactic for getting out as healthy as possible when things go wrong.

SCHEDULE YOUR DISTRACTIONS
During a long session, especially if you’re a tournament player, you’re going to get bored. That’s just a fact. There may be a few people who can manage to stay 100% focused during a ten hour session without the aid of a prescription stimulant, but chance are you aren’t one of them. That’s ok, as long as you recognize that fact and deal with it before hand.

Know what you’re going to do when you get bored before you get bored and you’ll save yourself a lot of frustration. Maybe there’s a web game you enjoy or an episode of The Office you’ve been meaning to catch. Make a plan beforehand and you will avoid searching for something to do while you’re playing poker and having to settle for something that doesn’t actually distract and recharge you while you’re playing. Don’t kid yourself about mental breaks – you need them, and planning them ahead of time is good for your game.

HAVE A TOOL FOR MEASURING YOUR FRUSTRATION
Sessions are odd things. They’re hermetic little worlds in which you can really lose sight of yourself in a hurry, especially if things don’t go your way. Maybe you’re a cool customer who can remain level-headed amidst the flurry of beats online poker delivers.

Chance are, you aren’t. That’s fine, as long as you can remain aware of how frustrated you’ve become, as that level will inevitably impact how you play. Everyone has a different system, so play around with a few until you find a good way to accurately track how pissed you are at any given moment, and how you should adjust your game.

ESTABLISH SOME META-GOALS
While we all wish it wasn’t so, not every session can result in a profit – especially if you’re a tournament player. That inevitable loss can really grind on some people, especially if you’re an inherently competitive individual. So, what can you do?

Find some ways to win even when you lose. Specifically, establish some goals for your session that have nothing to do with profit or loss. Maybe it’s to not make any hero calls for the session. Maybe it’s to force yourself to open more in late position. Whatever it is, pick something you want to improve about your game and focus on it, so that even if you have a losing session, you still have a way to eek out a win.

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