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Regardless of what anyone may try to tell you to the contrary, poker is a game of skill. While there are definitely aspects of luck involved in poker, it is no fluke that the same people constantly show up at the final tables. They are not the luckiest people in the world, they are just some of the best, at poker that is. Because there is a lot of skill and strategy required to be a good poker player, the ability to apply the good strategy and maintain your skill through all play scenarios is vital to your success.

There are many truths in online poker and one is that you always remember the bad beats that you suffered but you remember far less often the bad beats that you have given to other people. This penchant to focus on the negative rather than the positive can be harmful to your morale and your play. Always try to focus on the good things that happen at the table as opposed to harping on the negatives, as it will build a better mindset, which is extremely important. Without the right mindset, you will have less clarity and a poorer ability to make good decisions.

The human mind is an extremely powerful thing and many people do not realize the sort of control that it can have over us. On that point, though, we can exercise our own control over the power of our minds through a little bit of training and work. The practical applications of psychology in poker are extensive because they will help you to maintain your calm and focus which is the single most important factor to playing well. Just imagine if you never went on tilt and made every single decision dispassionately, rationally, and without any bit of emotion to taint your judgment.

This is entirely possible with some work. Training your mind takes time but all it requires is a little practice on PokerStars and no special skills are required. The first thing that you should say to yourself all the time and learn to understand is that events are completely NEUTRAL and have no emotion attached to them whatsoever. Your emotional response to a given event is completely controlled by you and you can change what sort of response, or lack thereof, that you exhibit in a given situation. That bad beat for you which made you feel depressed was a miraculous suck-out for your opponent who is sitting on cloud nine.

Once you recognize that your emotions are a result of what goes on in your mind and your subconscious analysis of the events, all you have to do is change how you approach the event. One of the easiest things you can do is what I like to call the “at least I… blank” method. When something that is not very good happens, you immediately follow it up with a thought of “at least I… followed by something good or not terrible.” This will keep your emotions in the right place, keep your judgment sharp and collected, and increase your success at the tables and your happiness and control in life.