In my last post (Get more DRIVE from your poker goals) I talked about developing a strong idea of what we want to achieve in poker and why.
Now that we have a clear vision of where we want to be and an idea of how much money we need to make… what’s the best way to get there?
I’m going to start with the assumption that the games are good right now and I’m very +EV in them when playing my best. I’ll give myself the best possible chance of hitting my long term goals if I play a lot of Volume, while also playing my A-Game. This should be obvious, but we need to be focussed on descending our goals from both of these things.
Outcome based goals
An example of an outcome based goal in poker is “I want to make $500 this month”. Most of us know that this isn’t very good, a bunch of factors (predominantly variance) limit our control over achieving our goal. However there’s nothing wrong with having a long term vision for the amount of money we’re aiming to make.
Volume based goals
We gain greater control of achieving our goal if set a target of hands to play for the month. Even better, create a realistic schedule for our grind.
There are a few problems here. What often happens is that it goes great for the 1st week, probably the 2nd week too… then something happens and our schedule gets messed up or we get behind on hand count. At that point things often go out of the window. Our goal no longer becomes realistic so we lose motivation to achieve it.
However most importantly, a volume goal doesn’t address the quality of our play. Logging a bunch of -EV hands just to hit our volume target could be very detrimental to our actual long term goal of making money. Some days we’re correct to not play, regardless of our schedule.
Performance based goals
This is when we set goals for each of the areas that contribute to the outcome. To do this we need to break down Volume and A-Game…
The key areas that influence A-Game are focus, self control, confidence and fitness. We can take each of these areas and break them down again to look at the relevant skills within our control. For focus that’s making sure I have no distractions and developing presence. I can then take each skill and explore how good my habits for it are, looking to break bad habits and set goals to develop good habits to develop these skills.
We don’t have to tackle everything at once. Just like leak-fixing in our poker game we want to zone in on the areas where our biggest leaks are. I’m a HUGE routine fish, most of my goals for this month involve making sure that my day-to-day routine balances well with poker to keep me happy – and that I stick to my daily plans. For different people I’m sure different areas require the attention.
With performance goal setting we’re working directly on the skills required to achieve our long term goals.
Give it a go this month! If you’d like your goals checked over just drop them in the comment below.
12 Comments
Well stranger, how’s things?
Very inspiring blog post btw. I have actually just made your diagram above my new desktop picture (hope u don’t mind). It’s the first time in over 2 years my desktop has not been a pic of my daughter, or a closeup of a sexy pair of girls eyes. Now if u know how much I love both of the above then you’ll realise how much of an impact your diagram had!
Hope all is well mate and GL on the tables.
Wayne
Thanks, that’s good to hear! Cool idea making it a background – awesome to keep focussed on those things.
Things are going great, just back from a holiday getting focussed for the next few months to nail all of the things I’d like to achieve! Life is good.
Hope all is going awesome dude!
Baz
Another excellent post. Very inspirational.
Raz
gd post m8
Nice diagram. Copyright of Baz Clark?
Haha, yea. A lot of my images have been getting hit from google images searches recently, so thought I’d drop a link in there!
Great stuff boss.
Interesting to see fitness wedged in there as an integral part of linking A-Game and Volume.
Perhaps you could post up your fitness regime, diet etc. What helps you achieve your best state for achieving maxiumum A-game volume?
And should I have a curry tonight and still grind?
Hey Doggy,
I’m actually finishing up reading a few books on fitness/nutrition stuff right now, it’s one of the big areas I’m working on at the moment. I’ll do some proper posts on that in future once I’ve actually achieved some things and seen how it works rather than a “stuff i’m gonna do” post
Planning your poker sessions around the times that you’re alert/awake is a skill and there’s edge to be had there. As well as increasing the amount of times when you’re alert/awake so that you can play more volume. Really a lot of it is gonna come down to experimenting, common sense and scheduling things well. Working out before sessions is epic for me, as well getting good sleep and eating more smaller meals.
And I think it was Angelo that said, there’s even reciprocality in what you decide to eat before you play a session! So if you’ve eaten a heavy curry and villains have eaten some light meals, they’re gonna be more awake!
Very good post sir. I used to set myself monetary goals and then volume goals in the past and they always ended in relative disaster. I guess although I don’t set performance goals like in your example, I do try to make sure I have a tiltless session or other mental aspects of the game
Great post baz…A lot of players do not realize all of the components that go into being a successful poker player and I think you do a great job of hitting the nail on the head!
ryan
Poker Lessons
are you alive?
Haha, yes! I should update with a few wee things soon.