Why Have a Poker Journal?
Poker is a long-term game. It's really not too different from investing, except you can't have someone else do it for you. You have to really make the money yourself. However, you wouldn't invest with no an idea, keeping records, tracking results, analyzing new opportunities, and exploring new options. Right? The exact same will additionally apply to poker. Bad players (fish) never record anything. They never track anything. They don't make decisions today centered on historic realities. They don't know the difference between playing the website they are on (or the table) and another sites in the poker world. They only sit back, 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! Should they win they are thrilled. Should they lose they are depressed. They are... in a word... VICTIMS!
You strive to be more than that, obviously. However, many players who strive to be more overlook the Most Powerful Tool poker is offering - HISTORICAL REALITY. Historical the truth is what HAPPENED. How it happened. Why it happened. Because, guess what... It'll happen again!
If you don't keep records you then can't learn as quickly as you must from your own mistakes. Maybe you won't study from them at all. Maybe you'll learn for some time and then forget about this again. Your poker journal is the method that you tap the absolute most powerful poker tool that exists.
If you don't keep records you then overlook the Most Powerful Tool poker is offering - YOUR BRAINPOWER. Your brainpower is what is going to get you to the future. It's what's going setting the path for the future success or failure. Because... As a man thinketh... so is he! The Bible: Proverbs
You may spend hours staring at a screen, playing hands, making reads, learning lessons (good and bad). You read articles and books, talk to other poker players, and observe others who are more skilled than you. Where does all these details go? It can't just go in your head. Your face is a horrible record keeper. It's manipulated by emotions, it's tons of non-poker work to do, and it tends to fail you at the worst times in poker. So, as opposed to depending on your mind, rely in your poker journal. A poker journal never forgets. You ought to review it often. And the truth that you've 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 brings about your poker game. Basically the HOW is simple. Just start doing it! But, here are a few things I've done for years with my poker journal. Hopefully you need to use a few of them.
While you can keep a poker journal electronically on your desktop, I don't recommend it. And while any old spiral notebook is going to do, I would 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 manner; exactly how many computer files can you discover from 3 years back? Not many. Just how many pictures have you got from your own childhood? Probably a serious 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 provides your thoughts importance and heft. Leather is permanent and comforting. Once you write in this journal it draws you to become better. It's also refillable and it has a place to help keep a few pens. This is essential for me because I want my journal to be all set and hold around my lifestyle. I go through about 1 refill every 9 months approximately and I obviously keep carefully the old journals for reference. I carry my journal with me almost all the time, and I make notes inside often.
So, what would you write in your journal?
Jot down whatever concerns mind. I use my journal for private notes and goals along with poker goals - in my experience they are one in the same; because, poker makes many aspects of my entire life possible and my entire life affects my poker. I start every journal with my entire life goals and concepts that help me succeed at whatever I'm doing. That way I understand wherever to go to get my mind right if I begin to waver.
Next I recently write whatever I believe is essential because it concerns mind. These include things like:
- Starting Hand Charts
- Poker Session, SnG, and MTT notes
- Poker ideas I read in books, magazines and online
- Summaries of what I believe helps me accomplish my poker and life goals
- Personal Improvement concepts and notes
- Repetitive Sentences - This one is important.
Poker has a great power to tie us up in knots whenever we have bad sessions or make mistakes. The best way to work through the negative energy that gets accumulated in times like that is to create a word 50-100 times. That helps me work out the negative emotions and refocus my efforts. Randomly opening my journal I see a couple pages of "I will follow my rules 100% when I play." That's from several sessions of breaking my own personal good advice and playing like a fool.
So those are some ideas of everything you could keep. I've notes by what poker articles I have to write, time management actions, and even questions I use to approach life in a positive way. It's all good!! Since the act of writing focuses the mind, it generates permanent many items that you'd lose in the event that you tried to keep in mind them in your mind; it clarifies; and it provides you with something to look back on and see your achievements.
If you're thinking about seeing inside my journal, here's a sample. A number of these things don't seem poker related, however they set the foundations for my poker success.
LIFE GOALS:
1. Time, Flexibility, Independence - I'm an independent person 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 control my own personal time and activities in a way that brings well-rounded fullness for me and for my family.
3. A Transforming Force - I'm a positive force to transform those around me for a much better and happier life.
4. Kaizen - I will improve and grow in large or small meaningful and positive ways in certain aspect of my entire life each and every day before the day I die.
"We are what we think. All that people are arises with this thoughts. With your thoughts we make our world" The Buddha
"Things don't change. We change." Henry David Thoreau
Problem Solving Questions: (from Anthony Robbins)
1. What's great about this issue?
2. What's not perfect yet?
3. What am I prepared to DO to make it the way I want it?
4. What am I prepared to no longer do to make it the way I want it?
5. How can I love the procedure WHILE I actually do what is necessary to make it the way I want it?
Those are just some snippets from my poker journal. Those don't say "poker", however for me they are imperative to continued poker success. Lots of my journal entries are the cornerstone 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 long term results with out a journal. But giving your ideas, thoughts, frustrations, and observations a DESTINATION can create a completely new level of calm and balance for the game.
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