Elite Poker Wisdom from My Mental Game Mentor

My single favorite bit of wisdom from a mentor of mine, Tommy Angelo.

It sounds silly, but the first step to making better decisions is to give them a minute of thought!

We so often continue playing a game without thinking about whether or not we should be. By not making the decision, we ARE making the decision.

Tommy's framing reminds me to question my (non)decisions whenever possible. I hope you find it as helpful as I did.

[connorfitzmartin]

Thank you Phil for always being down to earth and providing great advice! Awesome ambassador for the game

[amazingcabbage]

Thank you Phil. I look forward to all your videos and shorts lately. You’ve been pumping out a lot of content. Thanks for that!

[kirillb]

We are trying to fade luck! This says it all, but reasoning of hourly is just slam dunk here! Thank you Phil!

[paddyholiday]

That is such a great and accurate way of thinking about this situation. Thanks for your insight Phil + Tommy!

[eun]

I love this perspective on things. And from my experience even the so-called regs do this mistake!

[dancrockett]

I’ve never thought about it like this and back in my playing days I wish I had implied this. Playing those online 20+ hour sessions trying to get unstuck only adding $40+ and hour lol. Well said 🍻

[drfunkinstein]

Thanks for this advice. I need to think more like this.

[checkthenutz]

The inverse is true as well tho because if you simply stop every time you feel this way the compounding effect from that decision over time will eat into your win rate. Everything with balance. Until it’s unbalanced. Then adjust until there’s balance again.

[steveb]

Love Tommy's wisdom. He is like a zen master lol.

[TheFluffypanda]

Holy snap… this kinda hit hard. Why push the extra hours. Rest reset dominate. 🔥

[snake]

Galfond makes some good point but he's discounting the emotional aspect of being human. You can't expect to be emotionally involved in then flip off the switch just like that. What instead of quitting, you remember the times where you won huge pots within a span of an hour and gotten unstuck. So you thinking "I did it before so I can do it again". If you play long enough that will run through your mind.

[boojay]

This video actually helped me out a lot to understand, I'm on a big downswing right now probably around 13 buyins... I only play 2/5 but I know I'm a consistent winner. But thinking about it this way where it's about consistency instead of getting lucky and winning a few big all ins.

[GTOfishh]

U forget the EV of a good nights sleep after winning a stack back.

[danielmeuler]

I have NEVER been a person who is Ok with Reaching in my Pocket and chase Lost money. 2 Buy-ins is my limit and I can't remember ever going over it. Once I'm Tilted, I'm Done. And I don't Fight it. And Im as Bullheaded as any Person you will find. Just Not when it comes to digging a Monetary Hole.

[cameronandrew]

Phil did you watch Zefa poker’s video on him playing you heads up? Pretty interesting you should check out your opponents thought process playing against you

[karanswaich]

Luck will always be a factor no matter how long you play.

[Mufasa]

Often the biggest losses come in the most action games though, so your hourly in that game could be much more than the $67.

[mrdj]

Anyone else keep cleaning their screen with the thumb

[Maximilian]

I disagree here. If you meant make 67$ EV that's a whole different story, but saying you make 67$ back seems just wrong. especially if the game is good variance often is bigger then usual. I feel like you kinda need to keep playing because the next day it might play again much smaller with less variance and making the 5000$ back is much harder. If you can efford the variance i think you should embrace it. e.g. we have one guy who plays 100% of his hands and just calls all ins for 400bb (2k @2/5). Of course he is gonna crack your big hands with T3o sometimes as he is supposed to. He leaves after he lost around 10k. But if you leave this game you leave money on the table. Even though it is very possible to have the biggest loss of the year on one of these tables. But also the biggest wins!

[ekw]

was your coach (the GOAT) Tommy Angelo?