Why Have a Poker Journal?
Poker is just a long-term game. It's really not too different from investing, except you can't have someone else get it done for you. You have to make the money yourself. However, you wouldn't invest without having a plan, keeping records, tracking results, analyzing new opportunities, and exploring new options. Right? Exactly the same will additionally apply to poker. Bad players (fish) never record anything. They never track anything. They don't make decisions today based on historic realities. They don't know the difference between playing your website they're on (or the table) and another sites in the poker world. They just take a seat, 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! If they win they're thrilled. If they lose they're depressed. They are... in a word... VICTIMS!
You strive to become more than that, obviously. However, many players who strive to become more miss out on 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 then you definitely can't learn as quickly as you must from your mistakes. Maybe you won't study from them at all. Maybe you'll learn for a while and then forget about any of it again. Your poker journal is the way you tap the absolute most powerful poker tool that exists.
If you don't keep records then you definitely miss out on the Most Powerful Tool poker is offering - YOUR BRAINPOWER. Your brainpower is what will take you into the future. It's what's going to set the road for your future success or failure. Because... As a person thinketh... so is he! The Bible: Proverbs
Spent hours staring at a computer screen, playing hands, making reads, learning lessons (good and bad). You read articles and books, keep in touch with other poker players, and observe others who're more skilled than you. Where does all this information go? It can't just go in your head. Your head is just a horrible record keeper. It's manipulated by emotions, it's a great deal of non-poker work to complete, and it will fail you at the worst times in poker. So, rather than depending on your head, rely on your poker journal. A poker journal never forgets. You need to review it often. And the truth that you have recorded things, will prompt one to expand them and think of them more.poker88 slot
The how's and why's of keeping a poker journal.
Hopefully I've convinced you that a poker journal will really add value and leads to your poker game. Basically the HOW is simple. Just start carrying it out! But, below are a few things I've done for years with my poker journal. Hopefully you should 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 would encourage you to obtain something more substantial. Your following time out, take a shopping trip for a journal. About electronic journals, consider it this way; just how many computer files can you find from 3 years back? Not many. Just how many pictures do you have from your childhood? Probably a serious few. Physical things are permanent, electronic files are often lost, forgotten or damaged. So choose the physical thing.
I use 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. Whenever you write in this journal it draws one to become better. It's also refillable and it includes a place to help keep a couple pens. All this is very important to me because I want my journal to be ready to go and hold around my lifestyle. I proceed 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 constantly, and I make notes inside often.
So, what do you write in your journal?
Jot down whatever concerns mind. I use my journal for personal notes and goals in addition to poker goals - in my experience they're one in the same; because, poker makes many areas 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. This way I know exactly where to go to get my mind right if I start to waver.
After that I recently write whatever I believe is very important because it concerns mind. These generally include such things as:
- 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 1 is important.
Poker includes a great ability to tie us up in knots whenever we have bad sessions or make mistakes. The simplest way to work out the negative energy that gets built up in times like this really is to write a word 50-100 times. That helps me work-out the negative emotions and refocus my efforts. Randomly opening my journal I view 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 have notes in what poker articles I need to write, time management actions, and even questions I use to approach life in an optimistic way. It's all good!! As the act of writing focuses your head, it creates permanent many issues that you would lose in the event that you tried to keep in mind them in your head; it clarifies; and it gives you something to appear 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, but they set the foundations for my poker success.
LIFE GOALS:
1. Time, Flexibility, Independence - I am an unbiased human being who has 100% control of my time and actions without financial restrictions or pressures.
2. Discipline, Desire, Control - I have the discipline and desire to regulate my own personal time and activities in ways that brings well-rounded fullness for me and for my family.
3. A Transforming Force - I am 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 facet of my entire life each day until the day I die.
"We are what we think. All that people are arises with our 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 is great about this problem?
2. What is not perfect yet?
3. What am I willing to DO to make it the way in which I want it?
4. What am I willing to no further do to make it the way in which I want it?
5. How do I like the process WHILE I do what is necessary to make it the way in which I want it?
Those are a few snippets from my poker journal. Those don't say "poker", but for me they're crucial to continued poker success. Lots 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 really hope you're convinced that 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 without a journal. But giving your ideas, thoughts, frustrations, and observations a DESTINATION can create an entirely new degree of calm and balance for your game.
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