Each year poker becomes more and more competitive, the base level of technical knowledge improves and it’s becoming harder to a generate consistent profit. It’s now the mental game that provides the greatest opportunity for a professional to gain an edge. If you can play longer hours without tilting your advantage over your opponents grows exponentially.
The reason the tilt is so damaging to a poker player is that once emotional control is lost your game and confidence suffers this then becomes a spiral where the more you tilt the more you lose which causes you to tilt even more and obviously lose even more. Once this cycle has started the player will worry about how long it will take them to regain control, and a once mentally strong player may become worried about even turning on his pc or starting a sessions due to the anxiety this creates. By working on your mental game you can turn tilt to your advantage and use it to exploit players with a weaker mindset than yourself.
So how can Hypnosis help?
Hypnosis is an exceptional tool for stress reduction and tilt for whatever reason it is caused is effectively a stress response. Whether it’s driven by anger, anxiety, entitlement or even revenge.
The best way to describe hypnosis to someone who hasn’t experienced it previously is guided meditation, at the beginning of sessions I you through a series of relaxation exercises until your mind is in a relaxed/meditative state and then suggestions are made to improve your game.
The two most utilized forms of hypnosis for sports performance are suggestion and analysis.
Suggestion
Suggestion hypnotherapy is what most people picture when they think of hypnosis. You reach a “trance” state and listen to and accept beneficial suggestions from the hypnotherapist.
By using a hypnosis Mp3 as your pre-game warm up it is possible to clear the mind and create a more focused mindset in which to start your session. The relaxation helps to remove the fears and anxieties of tilt and the suggestions encourage your mind to remain focused throughout the session, benefiting your ability to read opponents, have the patience to play effectively and a confident mindset to allow you to dominate the table.
The Mp3 starts with an induction and a deepener. These are hypnotic scripts designed to relax your body and mind, helping you into a trance/hypnotic state. Once in this state your mind is open to suggestions that will improve your life. The conscious critical faculty is no longer rejecting positive affirmations this allows the suggestion section of the Mp3 to generate motivation, reduce tilt and create triggers to encourage focus, stamina and other improvements to your game. Users have noted feelings of tilt disappearing, increased focus and stamina at the table and improved awareness when reading their opponents.
Analysis
The only problem with suggestion in hypnosis is that its effects only last a short period of time, generally between 5 -10 days after each listen. This is why I encourage players to use the Mp3 as their pre-game warm up, and as frequently as possible. This ensures maximum benefit from the hypnosis when you play. Unfortunately, after this time neurosis developed in the past start to creep back and focus and tilt issues will return to their normal state.
To create long term change at the table we must deal with the issues behind our emotional problems and resolve them internally. Obviously the Mp3′s are limited to communication only from the hypnotherapist, where as in an analysis session it is common for the client to be speaking for the majority of the time. While in the hypnotic state, the mind is far more focused and memories of significant events in the past can be explored in detail, and in some cases re-lived.
Exploring and facing events that caused us our current issues can allow us to release the emotion and relieve the symptoms that we face in our everyday lives. In hypnosis these memories can be very vivid and in some cases traumatic. There are physical effects when someone is reliving a past event, these could include, crying, shaking, becoming flushed or very stressed, we describe this as an abreaction. This is a physical manifestation of emotional energy being released. Hypnotherapists aim to bring their clients to this point, the release of these stored emotions can create huge positive change in clients lives.
Once the abreaction has passed clients begin to feel the benefits of the therapy, emotional weight that they may have been carrying since childhood has been released and in may cases they can then take much greater control over their emotions and lives.
Examples of this in poker clients could be a player who struggles with being 3bet having unresolved issues of being bullied at school. A player who self sabotages late in a tournament may have issues with confidence linked to unsupportive parents or teachers. A player struggling to study may have breezed through school and college and hasn’t accepted for success in poker new study habits have to be learnt and acted upon. There are infinite possible root causes but all emotional issues on and off the table have been learnt at some point and can therefore be unlearnt.
I’m sure many reading this are highly skeptical that hypnotherapy is a useful tool at the table and that’s why I’ve allowed Redchip poker to offer one of my MP3s free of charge (this one is usually $15). Have a listen and see if you notice any of the benefits.
If you want even more, check out Elliot’s Cash Game Poker Mindset MP3 series.
More information regarding sessions can be found at www.pokermindcoach.com
Good luck at the tables
Elliot
