Mental Game & Bankroll

intermediate

The meta-skills that decide careers: tilt control, variance mathematics, bankroll management, study systems, and sustainable performance habits.

5 modules40 lessons10h

Understanding Tilt

What tilt actually is, how to diagnose your personal version of it, and the in-session and between-session protocols that keep emotion from overriding decision quality.

What Tilt Actually IsDefines tilt precisely as emotional arousal overriding decision quality, using the Yerkes-Dodson performance/arousal curve to show why both under-arousal (boredom, autopilot) and over-arousal (anger, desperation) degrade15m The Tilt TaxonomyCatalogs the five major tilt types with the diagnostic markers of each: injustice tilt ('I run worse than anyone'), entitlement tilt ('I deserve to win because I'm better'), revenge tilt (targeting a specific villain), m15m Building Your Personal Tilt ProfileA self-diagnostic workshop: building a written trigger inventory from your own hand histories and session memories rather than from generic lists. Walks through the four-column profile template — trigger, first internal 15m In-Session Tilt DetectionTeaches catching tilt in real time through three signal channels: physical (jaw tension, faster mouse movement, leaning into the screen, shallow breathing), behavioral (opening more tables, checking cashier balance mid-s15m In-Session InterventionsThe intervention toolkit for when detection fires mid-session: a 90-second physiological reset using box breathing (4-4-4-4) to lower arousal, the logic statement technique (a pre-written one-sentence injection like 'var15m Between-Session Tilt WorkWhere tilt is actually fixed: the between-session protocol of injecting logic, structured journaling, and resolving the flawed underlying belief that powers each trigger. Teaches the mental hand history format — what hap15m Variance Acceptance as Tilt PreventionArgues that the deepest tilt fix is mathematical: internalizing variance so thoroughly that bad outcomes stop being surprising, because surprise is the spark that ignites most tilt. Covers the expectation-setting exercis15m Tilt Case StudiesFive detailed session narratives diagnosed and corrected step by step, integrating the whole module: (1) a cash reg who loses three flips early, shifts into injustice tilt, and bleeds four buy-ins via station-calling; (215m

Variance Mathematics

The statistics of poker results: winrate, standard deviation, confidence intervals, downswing probabilities, risk of ruin, and building your own variance model.

Winrate and Standard Deviation DefinedDefines winrate in bb/100 and standard deviation in bb/100, explains why typical full-ring and 6-max NLHE stddevs run roughly 80-100bb/100, and shows how to read both numbers from a tracker. Demonstrates the central poin15m Confidence Intervals on Your WinrateTeaches how many hands it takes before you actually know you are winning, using the standard error formula SE = stddev / sqrt(hands/100) and 95% confidence intervals. Worked calculations: a player at 4bb/100 observed ove15m

Bankroll Management

Rules and systems for the money: requirements by format, shot-taking, moving down, staking, and recovering when a roll goes wrong.

Why Bankroll Rules ExistEstablishes the two distinct functions of bankroll rules: mathematical ruin avoidance (keeping risk of ruin near zero so variance cannot end a winning player's career) and psychological comfort (playing stakes where no s15m Bankroll Requirements by FormatMaps bankroll requirements to format risk: 30-50 buy-ins for full-stack online cash (30 for proven winners willing to move down, 50 for thinner edges), 100-300+ buy-ins for MTTs scaled by average field size, and the inte15m

Study Systems

How winning players actually improve: hand review, database leak-finding, solver work, drills, content, coaching, and a personal curriculum that ties it together.

The Study-Play Ratio and Deliberate PracticeSeparates activity that improves skill from activity that feels productive, applying deliberate-practice principles to poker: improvement requires working at the edge of ability on specific weaknesses with feedback, whil15m Hand Review MethodologyA repeatable template for reviewing hands that matter: the three selection filters (biggest pots won and lost, recurring spot types, and moments of in-game confusion you marked live), and why reviewing only bad-beat hand15m

Performance & Sustainability

Playing your A-game on purpose and keeping it for years: preparation, focus, health, motivation, burnout, life balance, and the long career arc.

Session Preparation and the Pre-Session ProtocolBuilds the 15-minute pre-session protocol that makes A-game the default rather than an accident: environment setup (notifications off, hydration, table layout and HUD loaded, session length decided in advance), a written15m Focus and Decision StaminaTreats attention as the consumable resource it is: how decision quality decays over long sessions, why the decay is invisible from the inside, and the multi-tabling tradeoff curve — each added table cuts per-decision att15m