Why Have a Poker Journal?
Poker is a long-term game. It's really not that different from investing, except you can't have somebody else do it for you. You've to really make the money yourself. However, you wouldn't invest with no an agenda, keeping records, tracking results, analyzing new opportunities, and exploring new options. Right? The same will additionally apply to poker. Bad players (fish) never record anything. They never track anything. They don't make decisions today predicated on historic realities. They don't know the difference between playing the site they're on (or the table) and another sites in the poker world. They only sit down, blind in, and start playing. Fish don't play poker for the long-term. They play for the Right Now! This hand! This moment! This session! When they win they're thrilled. When they lose they're depressed. They are... in a word... VICTIMS!
You strive to be more than that, obviously. However, many players who strive to be more lose out on the Most Powerful Tool poker has to offer - HISTORICAL REALITY. Historical the reality is what HAPPENED. How it happened. Why it happened. Because, guess what... It'll happen again!
If you don't keep records then you can't learn as quickly as you should from your mistakes. Perhaps you won't learn from them at all. Maybe you'll learn for a time and then forget about it again. Your poker journal is the way you tap the most powerful poker tool that exists.
If you don't keep records then you lose out on the Most Powerful Tool poker has to offer - YOUR BRAINPOWER. Your brainpower is what is going to take you into the future. It's what's going to create the path for the future success or failure. Because... As a man thinketh... so is he! The Bible: Proverbs
You spend hours staring at a screen, playing hands, making reads, learning lessons (good and bad). You read articles and books, speak to other poker players, and observe others who are more skilled than you. Where does all these records go? It can't just go in your head. Your mind is a horrible record keeper. It's manipulated by emotions, it's a great deal of non-poker work to accomplish, and it has a tendency to fail you at the worst times in poker. So, as opposed to counting on your face, rely in your poker journal. A poker journal never forgets. You ought to review it often. And the fact you have recorded things, will prompt you to expand them and consider them more.poker88 slot
The how's and why's of keeping a poker journal.
Hopefully I've convinced you a poker journal will really add value and leads to your poker game. Essentially the HOW is simple. Just start doing it! But, here are some things I've prepared for years with my poker journal. Hopefully you need to use a number of them.
As you can keep a poker journal electronically on your computer, I don't recommend it. And while any old spiral notebook is going to do, I'd encourage you to get something more substantial. Your following time out, have a shopping trip for a journal. About electronic journals, consider it in this way; just how many computer files can you find from 3 years back? Not many. Just how many pictures are you experiencing from your childhood? Probably a significant few. Physical things are permanent, electronic files are often lost, forgotten or damaged. So choose the physical thing.
I work with a refillable leather journal cover I bought at Barnes and Noble. Here's why. Leather is good! It offers your thoughts importance and heft. Leather is permanent and comforting. Whenever you write in this journal it draws you to become better. It's also refillable and it includes a place to help keep a couple pens. All of this is essential for me because I want my journal to be all set to go and hold up to my lifestyle. I go through about 1 refill every 9 months approximately and I obviously keep consitently the old journals for reference. I carry my journal with me almost all the time, and I make notes inside it often.
So, what do you write in your journal?
Take note of whatever involves mind. I take advantage of my journal for private notes and goals along with poker goals - to me they're one in exactly the same; because, poker makes many aspects of my life possible and my life affects my poker. I start every journal with my life goals and concepts that help me succeed at whatever I'm doing. This way I am aware exactly where to visit get my mind right if I start to waver.
After that I recently write whatever I do believe is important since it involves mind. These include things such as:
- Starting Hand Charts
- Poker Session, SnG, and MTT notes
- Poker ideas I read in books, magazines and online
- Summaries of what I do believe helps me accomplish my poker and life goals
- Personal Improvement concepts and notes
- Repetitive Sentences - That one is important.
Poker includes a great power to tie us up in knots whenever we have bad sessions or make mistakes. The best way to sort out the negative energy that gets accumulated in times like that is to publish a phrase 50-100 times. That helps me workout the negative emotions and refocus my efforts. Randomly opening my journal I visit a couple pages of "I'll follow my rules 100% when I play." That's from several sessions of breaking my own personal good advice and playing such as for instance a fool.
So those are some ideas of what you could keep. I've notes about what poker articles I must write, time management actions, and even questions I take advantage of to approach life in an optimistic way. It's all good!! Because the act of writing focuses the mind, it makes permanent many items that you would lose in the event that you tried to keep in mind them in your face; it clarifies; and it offers you something to look back on and see your achievements.
If you're enthusiastic about seeing inside my journal, here's a sample. A number of these things don't seem poker related, nevertheless they set the foundations for my poker success.
LIFE GOALS:
1. Time, Flexibility, Independence - I'm an unbiased individual who has 100% control of my time and actions without financial restrictions or pressures.
2. Discipline, Desire, Control - I've the discipline and desire to manage my own personal time and activities in ways that brings well-rounded fullness for me personally and for my family.
3. A Transforming Force - I'm an optimistic force to transform those around me for a better and happier life.
4. Kaizen - I'll improve and grow in large or small meaningful and positive ways in some aspect of my life every day until the day I die.
"We're what we think. All that individuals are arises with this thoughts. With our thoughts we make our world" The Buddha
"Things do not change. We change." Henry David Thoreau
Problem Solving Questions: (from Anthony Robbins)
1. What is great about this problem?
2. What is not perfect yet?
3. What am I ready to DO to make it the way I want it?
4. What am I ready to no longer do to make it the way I want it?
5. How can I love the method WHILE I actually do what's necessary to make it the way I want it?
Those are just some snippets from my poker journal. Those don't say "poker", but also for me they're crucial to continued poker success. Many of my journal entries are the basis for chapters in this book, because they've converted into full articles on the topic in question.
Conclusion
I am hoping you're convinced a poker journal will infuse power, focus, and long-term vision into your poker life. Any fish can post a blind and play a hand. Many players have longer term results without a journal. But giving your ideas, thoughts, frustrations, and observations a DESTINATION will create a completely new degree of calm and balance for the game.
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