Nonetheless, many players ignore a critical aspect of the improved results equation when they focus entirely on learning new things, and ignore something that's probably not only more important, but also might be (at least for some players) easier to do: apply what they DO know already.
In other words, a lot of players are so busy trying to learn new things they forget that maybe they don't always do the old things so well.
Just as many people who eat unhealthy diets actually know how to eat healthily, but chose not to bother because it's too much work, or the healthy food doesn't taste as good as the unhealthy food, so too do many poker players frequently play less than their best game.
The reasons why this happens could fill a book, and indeed have filled many books. Two of the best are Larry Phillips' Zen and the Art of Poker, and a newer work, The Psychology of Poker, by Alan N. Schoonmaker, Ph.D. I haven't finished TPOP yet, but already I can tell it will earn a very high place on my list of books everyone should read. (2004 Glazer note: I have finished it since, and my original impression was correct.)
My best indication of TPOP's quality is…I hesitated before recommending it! The teacher in me didn't hesitate, the player did! The material in it was so good I had an immediate fear/greed reaction. The greed was "this is going to help me a lot." The fear was "this is going to help my opponents even more." I'm a writer first and a player second, thought, so I'm biting the bullet and recommending it heartily.
In the long run, understanding yourself is the key to playing your best game all the time, or at least most of the time, and I can't cram all the sage advice in these two texts into one short column. But there are a few short run tricks you can use that might help you while you're developing more discipline.
1) Pretend you're at the final table of the World Series of Poker.
No, I don't mean pretend a lot is at stake; it's too hard to fool yourself about that. What I mean is, pretend that the world is getting to see how you play every hand with that slick "cameras under the table" technology. Many of us play hands we know we shouldn't, for all sorts of reasons, but we wouldn't play those hands if we knew people were watching us.
2) On a regular basis, ask yourself which three players at your table are playing the best poker.
Many times you will sit down a games where you feel, rightly or wrongly, that you are one of the top players. Asking yourself regularly, perhaps every half hour or so, which three players at the table are currently playing the best will accomplish a number of very useful deeds.
First, it will remind you to monitor how your opponents are playing NOW and to discard assumptions you made about them when you first saw them (the player who threw away his first 27 hands and looked like the Rock of Gibraltar when you first sat down may have loosed up considerably in the interim.)
Second, it will remind you to monitor your own game. Yes, you're a gifted player, we all know that, but how are you playing TODAY? How have you been playing for the last 30 minutes? Been jumping into a few too many hands, have we? Been calling too much and not raising enough after all those bad beats, are we?
3) Make up an "X-Mistake Rule" and stick to it.
I know that in the course of any poker session, I'm going to make some mistakes. Many of these I won't be able to recognize, some I will be able to recognize as I am making them, and some I will be able to recognize after I have made them.
I'm not a big fan in inflexible concepts in poker, but I have found one pretty useful. I call it my "Three Mistake Rule." If I'm playing poker for money (this rule doesn't work in a tournament where I must keep playing until I win or go broke), I track my errors. I'm not talking about pots I lost, I'm talking about pots where it is clear to me I made a serious error at some point.
If I feel that I have made three serious errors in the course of a money session, I leave, unless there is an overwhelming reason to stay, such as a game that is so good that I know I can beat it even when playing less than my best. I'm flexible; if the three errors all happen in the first hour, it's pretty clear to me I'm not on top of my game. If the third error comes in the tenth hour of play, I'm more likely to give myself a Get Out Of Jail Free card and continue.
My rationale is that if I have made three errors that I can see myself, I have probably made a lot of others that I can't see and I am clearly not on form this particular day, whatever the reason. This rule has the salutary effect of making me play a lot better after I have made two mistakes, much as a college basketball player must play more cautiously when he has four fouls.
You might chose to make your own rule the "Four Mistake Rule" or whatever other number you like, but the principle remains the same: analyze your play, stay alert for errors, and monitor how often you're making them.
In the short run, these little tricks may help you stay a bit more focused. In the long run, you need to figure out why you lack the focus you need to play your best all the time, and books like Zen and TPOP—to say nothing of a lot of soul-searching—will help a great deal.