Building pyramids

I remember some years ago I read a poker article and for the life of me I cannot remember who wrote it but the author mentioned about “building pyramids”. This has nothing whatsoever to do with actual building but what the author was trying to say was to do with giving yourself little short term goals in your poker sessions.

The value of this cannot be under estimated as if you are going to play poker for any considerable length of time then mental fatigue or mental disintegration is a serious problem. I think that the reality of online poker makes it even worse because the act of staring at a computer screen is mentally fatiguing in its own right and this is something that is rarely understood by players unless they try to play beyond certain periods of time.

I have heard comments from the very best in the world who speak about the same thing so it is clearly a very common problem. So I decided to try this “pyramid” experiment last year and it worked very well. My own variation on the theme was to build pyramids of solid poker play where I tried to play solid poker in five minute intervals and build a solid session in that way. I would then aware myself a “block” to start building my pyramid at that end of that five minute period.

This little mental mind trick helps a player to keep their head in the game. It can have tremendous consequences as well for your long term earnings from poker. If you are only playing 20 hours a week before you mentally start to flounder and spew money then it has to be in your interests to be able to increase your productivity effectively. I know for a fact that the levels that I play at now can be beaten by good solid ABC style poker with a good rakeback deal and bonuses.

My main problem was that I did not have the discipline to play so low after having played and wanting to play far higher levels. But the far higher levels are getting very difficult to beat these days online and if you can mass table the lower limits then this is an excellent opportunity to make good money without going up against very good players. I have already heard of Cricketers using similar techniques during their time at the crease as there is no one else around them to mentally spur them on and this is a problem with any individual sport or game.