I'm very surprised at how little discussion there is of the mental game of pokemon. So, I wanted to start a conversation about it. This may go no where, but if it doesn't, oh well! I'm not sure where to start, but I guess I'll start with a common issue. When I'm having fun with a team, it always coincides with me playing at my best and most consistent. This, I assume, is true of most players. But after a good consistent streak, it is common for a player to lose, and then hit a period of inconsistency. Why does this happen? What I have noticed by watching myself, is that what seems to happen when we lose is that, in our next games, we fall back on math and completely exclude the intuition we were using when we were having fun. We stop trying to become one with our opponent's mind, and instead, in an attempt to double down to make sure we don't lose again, we put extra focus on what we think is optimal, carefully calculated, decisions. We become far too focused on the math side in an effort to protect our gxe and elo, yet this has a counterintuitive effect.
Completely unrelated to that: as someone who has topped the ladder countless times, I've noticed that there are basically two different mental states you can be in to top the ladder. One is, "I'm going to top the ladder. I want to top the ladder, and I'm going to really focus to do it." This works, and I've been in this mental state before, but it adds unnecessary stress to the player. The second mindset is, "I'm going to try to play as consistent as possible, in order to raise my gxe. If I lose, it's fine. I'm going to lose. We all lose. What matters is the consistency achieved in the long term." With this mindset, topping the ladder isn't the goal, but it happens anyway as a by-product of another goal (to be consistent). This is the mindset I used to top the ladder most recently.
So, those are two mindset related scenarios that I could think of; please contribute whatever you want.
Completely unrelated to that: as someone who has topped the ladder countless times, I've noticed that there are basically two different mental states you can be in to top the ladder. One is, "I'm going to top the ladder. I want to top the ladder, and I'm going to really focus to do it." This works, and I've been in this mental state before, but it adds unnecessary stress to the player. The second mindset is, "I'm going to try to play as consistent as possible, in order to raise my gxe. If I lose, it's fine. I'm going to lose. We all lose. What matters is the consistency achieved in the long term." With this mindset, topping the ladder isn't the goal, but it happens anyway as a by-product of another goal (to be consistent). This is the mindset I used to top the ladder most recently.
So, those are two mindset related scenarios that I could think of; please contribute whatever you want.
