One reason that poor players are prone to making mistakes at the poker table is that many decisions in poker require assumptions or thought processes that are vastly different to those we require in our everyday life. In fact, many of the attitudes required to play good poker actually go against our instincts.

Ian Taylor & Matthew Hilger – in The poker mindset

 

I think emotional control is a very common hinderance to poker players, it really amazes me how often otherwise great players allow themselves to lose far more than they should because they have a desire to keep playing to get unstuck.

Brian Hastings – 12/2009 – in CardRunners Blog

If you keep whining about your bad luck, you will play like a weak, scared, passive victim. You will lose, and deserve to lose. If you realize that you’re about as lucky as everyone else, you can play like a confident, decisive winner.

Alan Schoonmaker – 12/2009 – in CardPlayer

Convince yourself that you are neither lucky or unlucky. Luck is a label that can only be applied in the past tense, never in the future. The odds of any random event occurring are precisely those dictated be the laws of probablility. If you miss ten flush draws in a row, then the odds of hitting the next one are exactly the same as the odds of hitting the first one, or indeed any of the other nine. If you are considering how well you are running when you make a decision, then you are on tilt.

Ian Taylor & Matthew Hilger in The poker mindset

A lot of people think that poker is about the cards. Poker is not about the cards, it is about the mind.

Joe Hachem – 11/2009 – Interview in MadeInPoker