Planning in poker
If you want to be a profitable poker player in the long run, you must act in long-range terms. The adequate method for doing is to apply continuity. Let’s say you have a bad session and lose more than usual. If you responding by chasing the loss for several hours or, even worse, change to a table with higher stakes you don’t act with continuity – you act with desperation.
Instead, the right thing to do is to never play too long and only change to higher stakes when you have won an amount of money that justify it. This doesn’t mean that you must immediately stop playing every time you have lost some. Just don’t change your usual habits because you are having a bad day.
You should try to find a way of playing that works for you and when hold on to it even when things go bad. Otherwise, it's a risk that you play when you’re tired and maybe frustrated.
One of the most important things in poker is being able to play your best game as often as you can and stop playing as soon as possible then you are playing bad. It’s all depends on your ability to stay disciplined and follow your plan.
Goals
A goal to aim for can simplify matters. A goal, or part of a goal can set you on the right track in terms of the long perspective. Without a distant goal, you may not know then you’re satisfied in a poker session. You just keep on playing in a restless manner and maybe get tired and lose some of the money you had won.
Setting up a goal can also help you to stop playing in time and motivate you to chase after more. In some cases, you can feel satisfied with a relative small win since it’s corresponds with the goal you have in front of you, and in other cases your goal make you play on and perhaps making a better result then you otherwise had.
Don’t focus on the daily result
Poker should always be played from a long-term perspective, like a marathon, and one day or session doesn’t matter much. It is, however, hard to not focus on the daily result. After all, you live day by day and you are experience what happening for the moment.
To you should try to avoid focus on the result from a ongoing session to much. Neither should you stop playing when you going well to “protect your winnings”, nor should you keep on playing to win back when you are going bad.
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