Let’s talk about secretly supercharging yourself right in the middle of your poker sessions so that you’ll feel better, and therefore play better, and therefore feel even better. It’s simple to do, but hard, and that’s a recipe for frustration because even though you’ll probably want to try this stuff, you probably won’t. Was that a dare? A throw-down? An unprovoked act of aggressive from a mission-driven pen-wielder? Yes to all. Let’s begin… Meditation refers to sitting in one spot for an extended period, stock still. Poker also refers to sitting in one spot for an extended period. But to pla ..read more

What if there was one guy in your game who had position on you every time the two of you played a pot? You dread playing against him because hand after hand, when the flop hits the table, you have to go first. Turn and river, same drill. He gets to see what you do before he does what he does. It’s frustrating as hell, and definitely not profitable. You can be that guy. You can be the dreaded one. Here’s a quote from Elements of Poker: Acting last is like taking a drink of water. We don’t have to understand why it’s good for us to know that it is. And the benefits are unaffected by o ..read more

When Andy stumbled into our little snake pit, we know he had no chance. Not because he was drooping around like someone who had washed down his quaaludes with Jack Daniels, and not because he lacked basic card sense. There was no way to tell if he did or not. That’s because this was his first time ever playing poker for money, as in, ever. Have you read “Shut Up and Deal” by Jesse May, the part toward the front, where he talks about poker being an easy game to play? Jesse points out that because of the assistance that dealers and players can give to other players, all you really have to be abl ..read more

Have you ever played a hand so atrociously poorly that you just can’t let it go? During the session you keep thinking about it. The next day you keep thinking about it. It’s an itch. In your mind. That just keeps coming back. It’s like those trick birthday candles. You blow out the flames, but then they keep popping back up. Butchering a hand of poker can be like that, when the memory just won’t go away. Like this hand I played last week in Vegas. The game was $5/10 no-limit hold’em. Two players folded and the next player opened for $40. This guy’s VPIP was around 50%. Yes, he liked ..read more

Words lag behind what they label. Bad beats were around long before the term “bad beat” was invented. And “the universe” was here for billions of years before it got its name. So it’s no surprise, given how fast poker is growing and changing, that we are always running behind. That’s why I have taken it upon my magnanimous self, in the spirit of public service, to help us stay caught up, by making up words (or reassigning them) when I notice that one is missing. Most of the words I come up with are like defective genes; they don’t get passed along. Now and then, I coin one that spreads, such a ..read more

Went camping last weekend. First night was solo. Best one of those yet. Kay appeared the next day. The day after that, friends came. Some stayed for dinner, some for breakfast. It was all quite glorious. One morning I was up ahead of the rest. I made a fire and put the kettle over it. I got my meditation bench out and spread a mat right next to the fire and assumed the position. My eyeballs were aimed at the kettle. I had some logs next to me, ready to put on the fire as needed. I don’t know how much time passed, but I know I held my gaze until the kettle first whispered, then whistled. So now ..read more

It was a chatty $2/5 game in Vegas. Good vibe. Good action. The waitress came by and several players ordered adult beverages. She was standing behind seat six, and I was in seat one, so when it came my turn to order, everybody heard it. “I’d like a glass of milk please.” The player next to me was gone from the table when we ordered drinks. When my milk arrived, he asked me what it was. “Milk,” I said. “Oh,” he said, “I thought maybe it was some sort of coconut cocktail concoction.” “Nope, just milk.” I saw some listeners grinning. On the next hand, I had 7-5 on the button. One player limped, I ..read more

Dear reader: I wrote this in 2002.   He really got me good on this one. I was playing $40-80 limit hold’em at Lucky Chances. Alex was at the next table, playing no-limit. He spoke to me with a hand gesture and said, “Do you want to take a break on your next big blind?” I signaled back “yes.” A few hands later, he was standing behind me, ready to go. I was under-the-gun. I looked at my cards and raised. I don’t recall how the hand went after that except for the only thing that is pertinent to the story: at some point, I folded. Then I hopped up, and outside we went. Walking away from the t ..read more

Dear reader: I wrote this in 2009.   I’m in Vegas right now doing a four-day coaching program with a new client. At the end of day one, after doing coaching stuff all day in my hotel room, we went downstairs to the poker room to play some poker in the same game, for mutual observation. The plan is that I watch him and take notes so that the next day, up in the room, we can talk about changes he could make that would make him more money. These changes range from how he plays to what he says to how he looks at his cards and everything else. The other reason we play together is so he can obs ..read more

Here’s a hand I played in the big no-limit game at Lucky Chances. There was a guy in the game I’d never played with before. He was giving lots of action. So far I’d played two pots against him. Both times I was on the button. Both times the river went check-check. Both times I had the winner. And both times my cards caught him by surprise by being quite a bit less strong than he expected. He made it known that in his perception of the universe, I suck. Then this hand came up. My stack was $4,000 and he had me covered. He was on the button and I had the big blind. Everyone folded to him and he ..read more