In chapter 7 of The Mental Game of Poker, Jared Tendler adds practical tools that support resolution and make long-term mental game improvement more measurable, organized, and effective.
Tracking Your Mental Game Progress
Because there is no software to track mindset the way poker software tracks hands, Tendler stresses the need to measure improvement manually. Mental game progress is often subtle, so without tracking it, players may wrongly believe nothing is changing and lose motivation.
He lists many signs that show progress, including better awareness of emotional patterns, earlier recognition of tilt or fear, fewer bad decisions, faster recovery after tough sessions, and a stronger ability to keep playing well under pressure. One of the most important benchmarks is that your worst performance improves over time, even if your best already looks strong.
Using Writing as a Tool
Writing is presented as one of the most powerful tools for mental game work. Putting thoughts and emotions on paper makes them clearer, easier to analyze, and less overwhelming. It also creates a record that lets you compare your past and present mindset.
Writing builds recognition, speeds learning, releases emotional pressure, and helps you organize both poker and mental game issues so they can be addressed more directly.
Understanding Accumulated Emotion
Some emotions don’t reset after a session. Instead, they stack up over days, weeks, or even years. This is why a single bad beat can trigger an outsized reaction—it’s activating a backlog of similar experiences.
When emotion is that intense, in-game tools like injecting logic often aren’t strong enough. The solution is to work on reducing the stored emotion away from the table.
How to Work Through Old Emotional Baggage
Tendler outlines a process for dealing with accumulated emotion, centered on using mental hand histories and writing to unpack old experiences. By revisiting past emotional moments, analyzing them, and extracting what they taught you, you can weaken their emotional charge.
He also stresses the importance of patience. Old emotion doesn’t vanish quickly, and some days will be harder than others. The goal is gradual reduction in intensity and gradual improvement in emotional control.
In more severe cases, he recommends seeking professional help, especially when poker emotions connect to issues outside the game.
The Bigger Picture
The chapter closes by reinforcing a core theme of the book: emotional problems aren’t obstacles to success—they are guides pointing to where improvement is needed most. By tracking progress, writing things down, and working through accumulated emotion, players stop sabotaging themselves and give their skill a chance to fully show through.