Go ahead and post obligatory sex jokes before reading the rest.

Was reading more of Steenbarger's psychology articles (http://www.brettsteenbarger.com/articles.htm). In observing over 100 traders, he determined that performance anxiety was the #1 deterrent to making profits in the markets. Performance anxiety in our context is any emotional, physical, or mental reaction that hinders the front brain's ability to perform logical and analytic thinking. This manifests itself usually in worrying about results, but that's not the only cause.

Some poker examples would be

- Worrying about protecting a winning session
- Getting unstuck
- Getting money back from fish who stacked you
- Worrying about being exploited (Yes. If you are worried about being outplayed that hinders objective thought).
- Worrying about being bluffed too much.
- Running bad
- Having a bluff called and worrying about our image

The result is that it's near impossible to think through a hand objectively. It seems like a lot of what we think of as tilt/bad play is performance anxiety. Steenbarger recommends 7 things to minimize performance anxiety.

1) Set process oriented goals - $ goals in poker are probably a bad idea. Even hand goals may not go far enough. I'm finding it helpful to break down my goals into individual sessions. Things like play 1k hands solid and re-evaluate my mood and quality of play. I think it could be helpful to break down poker into the process of doing. Like each day study for this block of time, think about your mental state/mediate (I'm getting into meditation, will write more in future), play quality hands. Focus your goals on the process, and results should come right?

2) Gradual controlled risk taking - In poker, common good advice is don't move up too fast. Perhaps our brains have to gradually get acclimated to higher stakes/higher swings. Same goes for game selection (esp HU). Don't play a super aggro monkey when taking a shot, even though the edge is there. You can find better edges and maintain an steady/confident mental state.

3) and 4) Prepare and Mentally rehearse threatening situations - In poker, this means hand reviews. However, instead of simply reviewing a tough spot, mentally put yourself in the state during the hand. The key is to spot flaws/misjudgments in your thought process and correct it. Visualization can help here. For example, think of a hand when villain did something unexpected (like c/r the river). It probably shook you up. That's an example of a threatening situation. Now picture yourself in the same situation, but this time you are calm and composed. Imagine thinking through the hand, and making a better/more clear decision next time.

5) Take a step back - It's very hard to objectively judge how well we're playing. It's easy to fool ourselves and keep playing a C game. What I've started doing is getting up from my chair, walk 10 feet away, and imagine myself still playing. It's stepping outside ourselves to make an objective judgment. It's a bit weird, but try it sometime!

6) Mental checklist - Haven't thought about this much yet. But one idea I have is taking a quick quiz of your emotional state before a session. For each emotion, rate yourself. Happy, alert, nervous, tired, excited, discouraged, optimistic.

7) Get a life - There is of course more to life than poker. Sometimes I find it really hard to step away from a good game when running bad. The usual story is I play bad, dig a bigger hole, and feel like a retard for the rest of the day.