Well over the past 4-5 days, the poker world feels like it has been turned upside down. With the events in the US where the DOJ and the FBI putting a stop to online poker to US citizens, this has seemed to send a ripple affect to all poker players around the world. I have had numerous clients and poker players asking about whether or not they will ever be able to play online poker again, when it is available to them right now. Their minds have begun playing tricks on them and making them think about situations that are not relevant to them at the moment, obviously for US citizens, playing online is not an option, but to most other parts of the world it is.
I have 3 words of advise for every poker player around the world, to help them deal with this current situation regarding online poker.
1. STOP!
Stop your mind from wondering into the past or the future, as thinking about the future will only create fear and doubt about your future as a poker player. Thinking about the past, will most likely get your mind focused on the things that you should have done differently to put yourself in a better position right now. Neither thought pattern is going to help you in anyway, shape or form at the moment.
So stop your mind from racing into the past or future, once you have been able to slow your mind down and place it in the present, you will then be in a better situation to be able to focus on the next step.
2. THINK!
Begin to think about your current situation. Can you play online at all and can you successfully withdraw funds.Obviosuly if you cannot successfully withdraw funds, then putting in large volume online wouldnt be a smart move. If you can withdraw successfully, then the only thing that has changed is the games have gotten softer, and most likely you have already withdrawn a high % of your BR. If this is the case, play some smaller games to help minimize the risk. If online poker isnt an option for you, where are you going to play? How are you going to create an income until this issue gets fixed?
Think about how you can make your current situation work for you, just like you do when you are invovled in a session. This situation is similar to figuring out an opponent's tendencies and how to exploit their weaknesses until you get the better of them.
In this situation, your the opponent!!
Think about how you are handling this situation and if it is having a positive impact on you, if not-CHANGE IT!!!
3. ACT!!
The time to ACT is right now. Those players that are wollowing in self pity, or are letting their mind become programmed with fear and doubt, will get eaten up by this situation. The sooner you can ACT and implement the necessary changes to help you make it through this period in the best way possible, the healthier both your bank roll and emotional state will be when this problem goes away. Now is the time for you to focus completely on what you have 100% control over, that thing is YOU!!
There will be many opinion's out there over the next few weeks about what to do, what will happen etc etc. Try and keep your mind as focused on the present as you can, as this will help you to adapt to all the possible changes that may occur on a daily basis, and let other people's opinion's stay where they belong, in their own head!!
When you think about these new skills you are going to have to employ, they really are exactly the same skills you have created as a poker player, the only difference is you NOW have to adapt these skills to your life!
Something a lot of poker players havent trained very well!
An opportunity has presented itself- ARE YOU GOING TO TAKE IT????
Good Luck All:)
JG
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