How to deal with being overwhelmed by the "meta" of live

Physical tells are tiebreakers at best.

If you sit there with your earbuds in you'll be like half the table.

Bottom line, don't sweat it.

I think I am similar to you, but I’m also kinda awkward socially, always feeling like I’m saying/doing the wrong thing. I really don’t like offending people so it’s conflicting. I think it’s easier to be good at poker if you’re a mean mother, but nice guys don’t fit in as well.

Things that have helped me:
Find a few questions to focus on during play. Repeatable questions
I won’t make suggestions, because you should find your own focused on ranging players. But come back to these when the mind wanders.

Don’t focus/try to find tells, let them come to you. Watch what is happening and if you don’t notice anything, don’t worry about it. When villain looks uncomfortable or does something strange, try to understand what it means. I mostly look for tells when not in a hand.

Just play the game. Focus on making good decisions and enjoy yourself.

Don’t let stinkin thinkin in. No you’re not the unluckiest person in the world, no the dealer doesn’t hate you, no the shuffle boxes are not cheating you, no the guy in seat 3 is not following you to the parking lot to whip your ass, no the drink lady isn’t waiting for you to ask her out, and no no no get the nonsense out of your head. Just play the game.

Tighten up, especially OOP
Playing too loose causes you to lose
And then the crazy thoughts begin
I can’t emphasize this enough, if you splash around - rake & bad player suckout will crush you - it’s not an easy game.

Finally, and this is a big one, walk in that room with swagger. You are one of a kind, nobody else is like you. You play this game well and you are here to compete. If you make a mistake, so what - don’t worry about impressing anyone.
Don’t Worry About Anything
Don’t let these people bother you
It’s just a game.

I try to help
A lot here probably doesn’t apply, but maybe an idea or two was relevant. I don’t know the guy and I’m no shill, but I recommend you read, ‘The Joy of Poker’ by Jason Su

You gotta get your mind right
and you can do it.

Cool post man. I have the hardest time walking in with any amount of swagger despite carrying excessive amounts with me in every other avenue in life. My anxiety starts hours before a session begins too.

Random thoughts...

1. Have you been diagnosed with any neurological condition that may impact your ability to play live, like ADHD, OCD, social anxiety, etc? If so, are you being treated?

2. Following on the above, if you're taking meds, have you tried timing your sessions based on your meds? I've found I play differently based on how long it's been since I took my ADHD meds.

3. Have you tried using ear buds to drown out some of the ambient distractions?

4. If the problem is that you're overwhelmed by the sensory input of live play, try watching live streams like HCL where there's a commentator and the players are mic'd up. While watching, pause the video every time there's an action, go through your in game thought process, then restart the video. Repeat the exercise until you feel confident that you're able to process the information quickly to come to a sound decision.

I have noticed a similar thing, that I sometimes have racing thoughts in game. The exercise above helps me practice calming my mind so I can think clearly when it matters.

1. Yes, quite a few. Some of them include - [Major Depressive Disorder, Bipolar 2, Bipolar 1, Bipolar with Psychotic Features, Schizophrenia, ADD, Insomnia, Autism]
2. That's a novel approach I've never thought about. For me personally, I am injected every 4 weeks so there's a constant stream of meds to my brain.
3. Ear buds are interesting. I listen to music and podcasts when I play typically. Still, I find myself in a sea of discomfort juggling all the tells with the social strategies unfolding.
4. This is the best answer I think I've heard in a while. I'm not one to digest visual content while I'm playing due to distractions (besides for chess matches), but I'll consider throwing on a poker stream in the future. Really cool, dunno why I didn't think about this.

Thanks again. Now if I could do something for the pre-session anxiety (it's slightly agonizing) that would be great.

The anxiety is so bad I have a very difficult time playing longer than two hour sessions. For comparison, I have played 250,000 hand months online before.

If you start feeling anxious you might try taking three deep breaths, breathing in slowly while you count to eight then exhaling slowly as you count to eight and doing that at least three times.

It's simple but it can help.

Yeah. I mean, if you've got a bunch of mental stuff going on, I'd expect perceptive opponents to pick up on it, and take advantage.

I'm constantly paying attention to my opponents - their age, how much they buy in for, how they stack their chips, how comfortable they look at the table, you name it. When I see some kid in his 20's buy in for less than the max and act timid, I go out of my way to abuse him in every pot we play.

There's a regular cast of characters that plays in the room I play in all the time. I remember who the degenerate gamblers are, the ones who can't fold top pair when the most obvious draw gets there, the ones who always fold 2P and sets when the draws come in, the OMC's, the old Asian women who just always have it, the serial donkers.

I love them all. They've contributed massively to my win-rate.

If you're going to play in the same room all the time, the other regs will pick up on it if you show signs of weakness, and quickly learn how to exploit your leaks. You may be better off sticking to online play.

In my initial post I didn’t realize the seriousness of your condition. Before you get your mind right, you gotta get your meds right.

This is beyond me as I don’t even take aspirin and simply have no experience with meds. Exercise is my medicine.

I did have a girlfriend long ago bi-polar and when she was in the mania stage it was amazing what she could accomplish. If you show up to the card room in that stage, you might crush.
But yea, when she slipped back into the depression phase it was hard to watch.

Again, I know nothing about pills, but it sounds like you’re not even sure what your mental health issues are, so you need to find something that helps.

Poker can be vicious with bad beats, bad luck and bad play. If you can’t be around people, it’s hard to play live. I try to think of them as avatars and just shrug a lot instead of getting involved in every conversation.

Maybe this is dumb, but I kept thinking about it as I wrote this. I knew a guy that would read a book during the game. It seemed a little weird, but maybe he was calming his nerves.

Finally, online is so fast compared to live. Your mind is constantly making decisions, no time for distractions. But playing live is one big distraction, a lot of free time between decisions. You fill that time by watching and playing the game thru the eyes of whoever is involved. What would my range be in his position? - constructive thoughts. You’re not making as many decisions as online, but involve yourself in other people’s decisions to fill the time and read them better.

Finally, if you can find someone to love that also loves you. I don’t think there’s anything better for mental health issues than a best friend that cares and supports you. With a trusting partner, many of those issues will flee from you.

I love the game, the strategy, the very unpredictability - it’s pure.

But it’s a game of ups and downs. It kinda a test of your mental health because bad things happen. It’s not for everyone. You’re going to get knocked down a lot, the faster you get back up, the better chance you have.

I get anxious every hand I play, big or small. The fear is I’m gonna make a mistake or be forced to make a big bluff or all the other scary things.

Embrace the fear. Take several deep breaths preflop as everyone is looking at their cards and then play like a boss.

No.

It isn't possible. Part of my condition is I don't know when to quit. And I don't want to quit either, Live poker is a friggen goldmine and the games are seriously good.

This sounds like a mild form of Bipolar. The more serious it gets, the more alien it is. At it's peak its a truly insane condition to have.

Yeah totally fair. Hard to argue with that really.

I got no advice boss, sorry. Just hope you continue to crush.

Give your energy to observation. The most powerful reads come from remembering your opponent’s hole cards and preflop betting lines. Don’t worry about physical tells or the social aspects of the game. As others said, physical tells are just tiebreakers