OTB #046: Confidence is Your Super Power - How to Develop It Over Time

The older (and wiser) I get, the more I realise how important confidence is at the table:

• Confidence in your strategy

• Confidence you'll be able to pull the trigger and execute

Confidence might be the single most important component of a successful poker player.

It's that deep-rooted belief in yourself and your game that fuels you to tackle challenges and come out the other side much stronger.

But confidence isn't just something you either have or you don't have, it's something you need to develop over time.

Today I want to share how.

Let's dive in...

The Poker Player's Problem

You wake up on a Monday morning and see that seemingly everyone else on social media won a tournament last night.

And that can feel demoralising if you had yet another bad Sunday session.

I get it. I've been there.

Everyone has moments when they're not doing that well.

The self-doubt starts to creep in, and it makes everything feel so much harder.

When you lack confidence, you're not sure if it's your game that needs work or you're just running bad.

But here's the thing: your game will always need work.

And you develop confidence in this game by continuously working on your game.

Competence Breeds Confidence

If you're ever in a spot where you're not 100% sure you know what to do, that's a pretty good sign that you haven't mastered that situation yet.

And that's a good thing.

Add it to the list of topics that you need to study - use them as fuel to create a clear gameplan or framework for that particular spot or situation.

The more competent you become in different spots, the more confident you'll feel at the table.

And you end up focusing on what you can control.

Push yourself every day to develop your skill set

Start by focusing on improving the bread-and-butter spots that are crucial for your success in tournament poker game.

Whether that's mastering preflop ranges, getting better in position against the big blind postflop or learning how the strategies change on the bubble or the final table, it's crucial to commit to being a life-long student of the game.

As you develop your skill set, you build competence. And this will lead to increased confidence.

And you'll soon realise that confidence is your greatest asset.

It's what keeps driving you forward in the face of a downswing as you make great decisions, take daily action and start believing in yourself again.

Confidence Is The Key

And competence will get you there every time.

That's it for this week.

See you next time.