Ambitious poker players are under immense pressure to achieve their goals. It’s no coincidence that poker is often called “a hard way to earn an easy living.” Calculating odds, making the right decision in seconds, bluffing, controlling tilt, managing stress, tension, uncertainty, setting your own pace, and reading opponents are just a few of the elements a poker player must handle during a game. Not to mention online multi-tabling!
This requires them not only to understand poker theory well but also to become incredibly skilled at dealing with setbacks. Do you want to become a successful poker player? Then mental training is essential. In this blog, We’ll tell you why.

What is mental training for poker players?
Mental training is the consistent improvement and practice of psychological skills aimed at enhancing your performance. There are various areas (which we’’ll discuss shortly) that help reduce unwanted behaviors and increase desirable ones.
Just as you go to the gym to train your body, you go to the mental gym to train your mind. This applies to anyone aiming to get the most out of their career, and certainly to poker players. While they study and optimise their ranges and dive into solvers to become better players, they also want to engage in mental fitness to keep their minds sharp.

Why would you need mental training?
Mental training can improve your ROI at the tables by as much as 30%. Let that sink in: 30%. There are several reasons for this. It can plug mental leaks, optimise routines and discipline, it can help you think clearer, become more motivated, more passionate and will definitely make you enjoy poker more if you do it right.
We can identify different categories of mental training that poker players should focus on and enhance.
4 areas of mental training for poker players
These include four key areas that you can train: motivation, concentration, stress levels, and self-confidence. You can compare this to different muscle groups; each challenge in your poker career requires one or more specific muscle groups to engage in order to tackle the challenge and become mentally tougher.
1. Motivation
Motivation is the first of those areas that you can train. Having motivation is not something we are simply at the mercy of; it is something we can influence. The key way to do this is by setting the right goals. A good goal is one where you have (almost) complete control. You should always start by creating a vision for your poker career.
Usually, we are talking about improvement goals or process goals. Here, you ask yourself what and how you want to improve. Achieving these goals gives you a sense of fulfillment and reinforces your belief that you can tackle the next, bigger challenge. This sense of accomplishment also brings you joy in the game, which is the cornerstone of intrinsic motivation! If you maintain that joy in your game, you significantly increase the chances of extending your poker career for decades!
2. Attention & focus
Concentration or focus is the ability to direct your attention. This is a cognitive action, which means that we can influence it when we focus on it. When you are concentrated, you can think more clearly and absorb more information to make decisions at the poker table. As a result, you make better choices when your concentration is high. Better decisions mean that you become a better poker player, which in turn increases your ROI.

3. Managing stress levels
Another phenomenon that is part of mental training for poker players is their stress levels. Poker is like a pressure cooker, a cocktail of various stressful components coming together. Potential income loss or gain, complex decisions that follow one after another at a rapid pace, emotions that can swing wildly, pressure from opponents, bluffing or value betting, applying pressure—there’s so much more to consider.
This has an incredibly significant impact on your nervous system, as your brain prepares your body to face the challenge, much like in prehistoric times. This response is beneficial to a certain extent, and as you can see from the Yerkes-Dodson law below, it can enhance performance. However, if you are too tense, you may find it difficult to think clearly and sometimes make foolish, emotional decisions at the table. Stress regulation is, therefore, a highly effective method and form of mental training for poker players to keep their heads cool.
4. Confidence
The final aspect I want to focus on is self-confidence. Everyone has self-confidence when things are going well, when you’re consistently winning flips, or when you seem to make the right hero calls time and again. The real test comes when things aren’t running smoothly. When you find yourself making the same mistakes repeatedly and even start to doubt yourself in the simplest, most straightforward situations!
The key to dealing with mistakes lies in the beliefs you hold about yourself and your abilities as a poker player. These beliefs stem from the worldview you have, which has been ingrained in you over the years. They manifest in your internal dialogue, or how you talk to yourself. Reprogramming yourself takes time but is a very rewarding and effective way to become a much better poker player!

Mental training is crucial for poker players
As you have read here, you can improve as a poker player by up to 30% if you approach mental training correctly. There are four independent components that you can work on individually. Mental training is therefore essential if you are an ambitious poker player looking to crush your stakes!
Pssst… we wrote another blog on 9 creative ways to improve your poker mindset, so you can start your mental training today!