Mastering the Mind Game of Poker
By: Michele Burghardt

Everyone knows that Hold’em is a combination of skill, instinct, and luck. How you rank those three is up to you. The real key to playing good poker consistently is to keep your head in the game. But how do you do it?

If one bad beat sends you into a tailspin, what are your chances of making it to the final table? Tilt, lack of concentration, and confidence are the top three psychological reasons that players bust out before they get into the money. If your hands start shaking and you can’t catch your breath, it’s pretty much a tell that you’re easy pickin’s.

Successful players learn how to control their emotions so they have more control over the outcome of the game. The brain is an intense mechanism. It can work for you or against you. The good news is that you can retrain your brain to respond differently in different situations.

Even though the subconscious part of your brain controls your automatic body functions, like breathing and blinking, you can learn to override basic responses. A simple example: you get kicked in the shin so hard it brings tears to your eyes, but you don’t want anyone to know it hurt – so you just keep walking like nothing unusual happened. If you let your natural responses take over, you’d be jumping
around holding your leg, screaming like a maniac. You don’t need total control over your body at all times, because you would have to consciously tell yourself to blink and breathe all day long. You wouldn’t have time to do anything else. But how great would it be if you could stay relaxed and focused at will? Your brain can be programmed to do just that.

There are certain NLP (neurolinguistic programming) and hypnotherapy techniques that can help you eliminate subconscious tells, keep you focused when you’re getting tired, let you move on quickly from a bad beat, and keep the panic down when you’re shortstacked. Professional athletes have been using
techniques like these for years. This is how they stay focused with 50,000 screaming fans, media everywhere, and totally hot cheerleaders shaking their pompoms. It’s all a matter of training.

Hypnosis has been around for ages. NLP is more recent and works extremely well in concert with hypnosis. It focuses on how you use language to change outcomes. Hypnosis goes in and out of fad from time to time, but there is nothing out there more effective in helping you maintain your composure in high stress situations.

NLP is a great tool that you can use to change how you process information using language. When we consistently use the same language patterns, the brain learns that pattern and directs the body to put that pattern into action. By shifting your language patterns, you can begin to shift your actions.

The brain doesn’t recognize the negative so you simply can’t not think about something. If you tell yourself not to think about a blue elephant, you already have. When you mentally think “Don’t go on tilt,” your brain doesn’t recognize the word “don’t,” and the focus is on “Go on tilt.” To restructure how you think and talk about poker, talk in terms like, “I’m totally in control of my emotions.” The more you think it and talk it, the more you train your brain to perform it. Even your language in general conversation makes a difference. It reinforces your brain’s perception of your reality.

The crazy thing is that you can tilt when you win a big hand, too. Personally, I react physically the same way to a major win as I do to a major loss. My body goes into that heartpumping, dry-mouth thing even when I win. I’m OK with that as long as I can get my head back in the game instantly and no one notices. That’s the key. I’m fortunate that my palms never sweat, because when I shake someone’s hand and it’s fishy, I know he was feeling under the gun and I file that information away for later use. If your palms do sweat and that’s something you don’t want to worry about, simply do a knuckle bang instead. Some things just aren’t worth the effort when you have more important things to focus on.

How you use hypnosis and NLP to win at poker
There are several great techniques that can be used on poker players. To keep things simple, let’s discuss this in generalities. Through hypnosis, you can establish an “anchor” – something like a switch. Let’s use light (of any type – natural sunlight, fluorescent lights, spotlights, even a lighter). You basically install a switch inside your brain so that, when you need to regain focus and energy, you will automatically notice the light in the room and bring back the same feelings of energy and focus you had at the start of the tourney. Your anchor is created to be automatic and unnoticeable. You don’t want to do anything that will be obvious to your opponents. They won’t notice you casually glancing around the room, whereas they could possibly notice you rubbing your fingers together. For one player, I used the anchor of wiggling his toes because feet are always hidden under the table.

Visualization is also used as a major tool. When you visualize, your brain doesn’t distinguish between true ability and imaginary ability. It assumes you can accomplish what’s in your imagination and sends signals to your body enabling you to accomplish the task. Repetitive visualization is the key. With practice, your performance will begin to correlate with your visualization. When you visualize yourself calm and focused at the poker table, your body will begin to respond in that way. Managing your emotions will compliment your skill and strategy experience.

Want to see this in action? Stand up and swing your arms around to the left; go as far as you can. Notice how far you were able to turn. Now close your eyes. Visualize yourself going around twice as far as you really did. Do this visualization three times. Now open your eyes and try it again. You’ll notice your arms automatically go further around than before.

A more advanced use of visualization involves mentally following someone you think has mastered the mind game. As you follow that person through the tournament, you notice how he responds to different situations. You can then, through hypnosis, begin to mimic those behaviors and attitudes. Not only can you do what he does, you can also feel how he feels: totally calm and relaxed. This is the short version of the technique, but you get the idea. You find someone who is already successful and use visualization to take on that person’s attitudes and beliefs.

Another important facet to poker hypnotherapy is confidence and desire. Simply put, do you really think you’re good enough, deserving enough, and do you want it bad enough?

Self-confidence is a problem for most of us away from the poker table. Why should we think it wouldn’t affect our level of play? What you talk about and think is what your brain directs your body to do. If you think and talk confidently, your brain will direct your body to act confidently. Remember, your brain controls your body. So whatever your brain thinks, your body will respond. Typically, when you’re in a tournament, it doesn’t take long to determine whether you’re in the zone or not. When you
use poker hypnotherapy, you can create the zone before you sit down at the table. You brain generates totally different responses for a confident person versus someone feeling weak and vulnerable.

Is poker hypnosis the be-all-and-end-all? No, of course not. You still have to know how to play. It doesn’t make you a better strategist; it doesn’t increase your skill. It can, however, make it easier to absorb what you learn. It will also allow you to play your best game possible.

With prize pools increasing, and the player field expanding, poker hypnosis can give you an edge over the competition. If 90% of golf is mental, why should we think poker is any different?

Michele Burghardt, CHT, CSH, is a certified Sports Hypnotherapist specializing in poker for Texas Hold’em players. To learn more about poker hypnotherapy visit www.CatchTheRiver.com or call 314.837.4193.