This is probably one of the most important lessons I've
learned at poker, and it took me a lot of years to actually learn this lesson. This
article is about your mind, relaxing your mind.
Included are my two very favorite tips for making poker a lot easier. Tip #1: Relax your mind. Tip #2: Breathe.
You know, as a poker player or as a coach, I discovered that there's a tendency to focus really hard on poker while other people are in the room. The biggest problem with beginners or people who don't play poker well is that they have never learned to relax their mind. They think "This is tough, so I'm going to make it sound like it's really hard, so people will be impressed by me." But really, if you're trying to impress people by how hard it sounds, people are going to be like "Well, this guy's struggling with this, so he's not that good." But if you make it look easy, that will actually make you look better.
I'm going to tell you a couple of things that will help you do this. First, before starting a session, you want to sit down, close your eyes, and take a couple of deep breaths. Now, you can just picture something that you like. Something beautiful, like a sunset or grass or beach, whatever you like, and whatever puts you at peace. The second thing you want to be doing, over and over in your mind while you're playing, is telling yourself "play this easy, do this easy, shrug it off." Think, what can I do to make this easier? Just keep thinking "Play it easy" and your body will actually start to relax and it won't be as hard anymore.
If you want to prove it to yourself, go spend five minutes before your next session thinking about how hard it is to read hands, and how good your opponents are, and how unlucky you are going to get. See if that doesn't affect your play. Then stop, take a break for ten minutes, and start again, this time thinking about how easy the game is. Try to relax and just play poker.
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