It is getting to the stage now where when I am all-in and my opponent flips over his rags, I say to myself (as an example) - “right NO Jack” – a jack being the only card they can hit (whether it be the 3 remaining jacks or the 2 remaining jacks in the deck) – I stare so hard at the screen and want him to miss so badly but ...., and as if by some cosmic communication via my brain through the ether, down the internet connection and into the servers of whatever site I am playing on – it finds that jack EVERY F**KING TIME!!!
Staring hard at the screen won't doa nything for you unless your goal is to upset yourself on the occasions when you are outdrawn.
Try the following.....
Once all the chips go in the middle, look at what your opponent has by all means, but then open another window that blocks your view of the remaining board cards being dealt. ASSUME your victory and check back once the next hand is being dealt. Doing this helps my game. While I don't believe for a second it changes the frequency that I'm outdrawn, it helps me stay cool and unaffected whatever the result of the hand.
It stops you feeling sorry for myself during a bad run. It also helps the negative pattern of thinking building up in your mind. The brain likes to list all the beats it's had that day to itself over and over again. It's masochistic like that, don't indulge it by giving it what it wants.
How often have we heard something similar to...
"I've had Kings 3 times today and every time, my opponent is all-in he hits an ace on the river, it was the same yesterday and the day before that"
With the aforementioned way of doing things, you won't know when the Ace hit or if the Ace hit even. You don't really need to, as all that matters is the end result.
Eventually it turns a scream of "F#@*-ing RIVER AGAIN, F#@* F#@* F@*-ing F#@* sticks" into an ambivalent shrug of "Oh well, next game perhaps"
But watching the up's and down's of the turn and river are where us reformed gamblers get our sick little adrenaline kicks. Good post tho, i might try it.
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