Poker Articles

Focus

by Tommy Angelo

This article is an excerpt from my book: "Elements of Poker."

 

140. Focus

Playing limit hold'em, three players are in the pot and I'm in the middle. The board on the turn is A-9-8, Q. I have AK of clubs, giving me top-pair top-kicker, with no flush draw and no straight draw. Joe is first to act. He bets. Joe has been playing aggressively and loudly. The range of hands I put him on is everything from the nuts down. He could have a flush, a straight, a set, two pair, one pair, a flush draw, or a straight draw. As he bets, Joe says something to me intended to agitate me, and it does. Meanwhile, Moe, on my left, inadvertently and prematurely reaches back to grab a stack of chips to raise with. I've seen him do this before and it is not an act. Another thing about Moe - he is ever-worried that someone has a monster. He would not raise the turn into a board like that in a situation like this without a made hand. Most likely he has a flush, or maybe a straight with JT, both of which beat the best hand I could make. So I'm drawing dead. I should fold.

Just one problem. I missed it. I didn't see Moe reach for the trigger. While Moe was revealing his intentions, my sensors were pointing at noisy Joe. Interesting that the correctness of folding versus not folding on this hand depends entirely on which way I look when Joe bets the turn. If I look right, I should stay in. If I look left, I should get out.

Even at our best, it's hard to focus on the right thing at the right time all the time. Throw in some fatigue, stuckness, television, and mind noise, and it's impossible. But wouldn't it be amazing if we could? What would that feel like? What would it look like? What would need to change? Is it unrealistic to think that we could be maximally focused all the time? Of course it is. Is it unrealistic to think that we could do better than we do now? Of course it isn't.

Think weight-lifting. If you lift weights, you will increase the strength and stamina of your muscles. It's not a matter of if, it's only a matter of how much. And the results will be proportional to the effort. And you have options. You can do many repetitions with light weights, or you can do few reps with heavy weights, or you can do any combo in between. It all works. The key to doing it is just doing it.

It's the same way with strengthening your mind.

To lift weights mentally, what you do is focus on something.

Focus is when you direct your sense organs and your mind at the same thing at the same time. The best thing to use as an object of focus is your breathing. You could also use a marking on the wall, or the sounds around you. When you are walking somewhere, you could fix your vision on something up ahead and keep looking at it until you get there. Or you could walk nowhere, at home, and concentrate on walking super slowly. When you are driving, and you are stopped at a red light, you could gaze unbudgingly at the light until it changes, and while that is going on, notice that you are breathing. When you are eating, you could focus on the details of the goings on inside your mouth. When you are standing, you could focus on standing still.

The only requirement of the thing you focus on is that it be current. If it is made of matter, it needs to be something you can see or touch or taste or smell now. If it is made of sound, it has to be something you can hear now. If it is made of pain, it has to hurt now. If you focus on a person, they must be with you now. If you focus on some part of you, then it is automatically now.

You focus, and then at some point, as expected, you start thinking about something that's not now. You go out of focus. But because you had so recently been outside your thinking, you can now see your thinking as just thinking, and you say hello thinking, I am going to softly set you aside now and return to my focusing task.

That was one rep.

Like doing a bench press or a curl.

Then the thinking starts up again, as it always will. And that's fine. Again you stop, and you drive another wedge of awareness into your mind, and you say "not now" to your thinking. You tell your thoughts, "I appreciate that you are accustomed to having my mind to yourself, but right now I am going to ask you to move out of the way for a moment because I am doing some focusing training." Then you return to your chosen object of focus. That was rep number two.

I didn't understand how concentration exercises worked until right after I started doing them. One thing that happens when you start doing mind reps is you come to realize that your thoughts are whizzing by out of your control virtually every waking moment of your life. What you do during focusing training is sublimely simple. You stop the thinking. That's it.

Cautionary note: Thinking about thinking still counts as thinking.

If you go for years without doing any weight training, and then you start working out every day, you will get noticeably stronger every day at first, then your rate of strengthening will slow. You might plateau, in which case your workouts would be more about maintaining strength than increasing it. You can get to a higher level with more exertion, more effort. If you stop working out, you will gradually lose strength. Up and down and back and forth it goes, depending on the quantity and quality of today's training. It's the same way with mind training. There's muscle build-up, muscle maintenance, and muscle atrophy. And no amount of understanding and good intentions is a substitute for one committed moment of hard work.

By doing mental workouts, you gain discipline. Discipline is not something you accomplish or acquire. It is something you apply. Discipline is a tool that you forge when you are alone. Then you bring it with you to the poker game and use it.

The big difference between weight training and mind training is that in order to do weight training, you have to be where the equipment is. With mind training, you can do it anywhere, even while you are playing poker. All the equipment you need is right there with you at the table. You have your mind, your body, and your breathing.

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About the Author:

Tommy Angelo has written a book called "Elements of Poker" in which he shares hundreds of his very best ideas in a manner intended to amuse, inform, inspire, and enlighten. You can read many excerpts from EOP at Tommy's website: www.tommyangelo.com. And you can order personally inscribed copies there. Elements of Poker is also available at amazon.com.