Why Being Hard on Yourself Is Destroying Your Poker Game

One of the biggest challenges of being a poker player is that you are always trying to get better whilst frustratingly making mistakes along the way.

You are trying to execute your strategy, but you are not performing the way you want to, and it feels like you should be doing better. And here is the thing I hear again and again from the players I work with: they are very hard on themselves.

They call themselves an idiot. They tell themselves, "I should know better. Why can't I improve? Why am I still making these silly mistakes?"

The root of this is a belief that being hard on yourself will make you improve quicker. It is almost like disciplining a child. If you are strict enough, if you punish the behaviour, it will not happen again. Players criticise themselves thinking it will speed up their learning. And their fear of being too soft on themselves is that they will lower their standards, accept mediocrity, and lose their drive to improve.

But here is what I want to challenge: is being hard on yourself actually working?

In Game: When Harsh Self-Talk Costs You

Let us look at a common spot. You are on the river, you think your opponent could be bluffing, so you call. You see his hand and immediately realise he was never bluffing. It is a mistake you have made before. You struggle to fold in these spots.

If you are harsh on yourself, your mind starts looping: "What an idiot. Why did I call that? I knew he had it."

Your mind does this because it thinks that keeping the mistake front of mind will stop you from repeating it. But think about what actually happens when you go down that path. Your mind is now preoccupied with a hand that is already over. You are missing the action in front of you. You cannot be ruminating on a past mistake and simultaneously be fully present, reading the table, and making good decisions.

Being overly critical of yourself in the moment will always create a performance drop-off. You simply cannot play your best poker when your mind is calling you an idiot.

After the Session: Some Utility, But Not Much

Now, there is a case to be made for reviewing your sessions with a high standard. If you look at your mistakes calmly and say, "This is not good enough, I need to fix this," and it leads to an action plan, that has genuine value.

But from my experience working with players, most of them do not actually improve from being harsh on themselves. All it becomes is a way to talk down on themselves. "You are an idiot. Don't be so stupid in these spots." And we do not learn that way.

People learn best by looking at a mistake calmly, without labelling the situation, and asking: "What went wrong here? How can I do better?" None of the real learning process requires you to be hard on yourself. It requires high standards, yes. It requires curiosity. But harshness? For the most part, that is a hindrance.

From Labelling to Curiosity

When you are harsh on yourself, you are a labeller. You make a mistake and your mind stamps it: "I am an idiot. I should have known better."

But here is the problem. You are probably not an idiot, and you did not "know better" in that moment, because if you had, you would not have made the mistake. The mistake is simply showing you that there is something to learn, a gap in execution, a conflict in how you are approaching a spot.

The shift I encourage is moving from labelling to curiosity.

Instead of: "I did this, therefore I am that."

Try: "Interesting. Why did I do that? I thought he was bluffing yet I called. What was going on for me in that moment?"

This is the skill of perspective. The way you look at a situation is not fixed. You can train yourself to view mistakes through a lens that is actually helpful to you. And that lens is one of open curiosity rather than rigid judgement.

Every time you catch yourself labelling a mistake, try switching it to a question. That is the first step.

The Training Mindset vs The Performance Mindset

The second skill to work on is presence, specifically the ability to trust yourself in the moment.

I talk about two different mindsets you operate from.

The Training Mindset is methodical and critical. It wants things done correctly. It judges errors and analyses mistakes. This mindset is brilliant in a study session. Reviewing hands, identifying leaks, building a better strategy. That is exactly where the training mindset belongs.

The Performance Mindset is different. It gives you permission to live and die by your own decisions in the moment. It trusts your judgement. When something goes wrong, it acknowledges it, tags the hand, and moves on. "Didn't go the way I wanted. Interesting. Next hand."

The best players in the world do this. They trust their reads in key moments. They use their intuition when it counts. And when it goes wrong, they move on. They will almost certainly review it after the session. But in game, they do not ruminate. They stay present.

If you are overly critical on yourself, this is the mindset you lose most. The ability to be intuitive, to process information clearly, to think at a high level. A mind that is constantly judging itself has no space left for creativity or genuine presence.

What to Do From Here

To summarise, here are the two shifts to start making:

1. Drop the labels, open up curiosity. Every time you catch yourself labelling a mistake with harsh self-talk, shift it to a genuine question. Why did I do that? What can I learn from this?

2. Trust yourself in the moment. In game, you are in performance mode. Save the analysis for after. When something goes wrong, acknowledge it, move on, and bring your full attention to the next hand.

These are skills. They can be learnt. And once you develop them, they will absolutely change how you perform at the table.

Ready to Go Deeper?

If this resonated with you and you want to genuinely develop these skills, the Poker Athlete program teaches you the 8 skills need for elite poker performance, including Perspective and Presence, the two we covered today.

It is a structured program designed specifically for poker players who are serious about closing the gap between how they study and how they actually perform.

Apply for the Poker Athlete program here

Spots are limited, so if you are ready to take your mental game to the next level, apply now and let us talk.

Adam