Showing you how to fight those pressures is, of course, Dr. Alan Schoonmaker’s specialty. Something he does very well in this book, along with many other things. Winners are indeed “different.” But there’s probably no reason you can’t be one of them.
Acknowledgments
I am very lucky to have friends who help me with my books and magazine columns. They suggest topics, offer quotations, and critically review my drafts.
David Sklansky, poker’s foremost theorist, has had an immense impact on my thinking. Over the past eight years, we have discussed a very wide range of topics. He also commented on much of this book’s content when it was aimed at a different audience and had a different title, Business Is a Poker Game.
Mason Malmuth, the author and publisher of many of the best poker books, also read Business Is a Poker Game, and he made dozens of suggestions. Mason’s and David’s published works provided this book’s basic organization.
Matt Lessinger (author of The Book of Bluffs), Barry Tanenbaum (author of Advanced Limit Hold’em Strategy), Dave (“Cinch”) Hench (author of The Poker World According to Cinch), and Tommy Angelo (author of Elements of Poker) are very talented writers who have edited this book and many of my magazine columns. I repeatedly quote them because their ideas are so correct, original, and provocative.
Dr. Daniel Kessler, a clinical psychologist, has contributed many ideas that greatly improved the book, especially the final chapter and appendix C.
Ed Miller is the co-author of four poker books. His expertise in risk management greatly improved the chapter on that subject.
Jim Brier and I talk about poker all the time, and he has taught me a great deal. Jerry Flannigan helped me clarify my thoughts on several subjects.
I’d like to thank all the poker authors whose work I’ve quoted. Their published work and private conversations have taught me a great deal.
The No-limit Discussion Group and the Wednesday Poker Discussion Group have given me dozens of ideas on virtually everything related to poker.
Sharron Hoppe, my personal assistant, helped with both this book and the other tasks I neglected while writing it.
I am grateful to all of them and to the dozens of other people who have talked to me about poker and psychology.
PART ONE
Introduction
1. Poker Winners Are Really Different
Professional poker is a ruthless meritocracy.
—Barry Tanenbaum, professional player, coach, and author1
Barry summarized a critical difference between poker and most other professions. You can make a living, even a good one, as a mediocre salesman, teacher, lawyer, carpenter, or doctor. Most people are mediocre, but nearly everyone makes a living. In professional poker you can’t survive unless you’re among the best.
In fact, all cardroom and online poker games are ruthless meritocracies because so few people win. Many experts estimate that—because of the rake, tips, and other expenses—85–90 percent of all cardroom and online players are long-term losers, but they have no solid data. Jay Lovinger, an ESPN columnist, says the numbers are even worse.
There is one group that can and does track this kind of stat, though they are not about to publicize the results. That group consists of online poker site management, two members of which revealed to me . . . [that] only 8 and 7 percent, respectively, of all players on their sites finish the year in the black.2
This book will help you become one of that small percentage of winners. If you are already winning, it will help you win more. You will see how winners and losers think, feel, and act; then learn what to do to increase your profits.
The word “loser” may offend you, but—as we just saw—most players are losers. Of course, there are not just winners and losers. There is a huge range from big winners to big losers, and most players are somewhere in the middle, winning or losing less.
To make it easier to see the differences between winners and losers, I will describe the extremes. However, most chapters end with a section titled How Do You Rate? There you can estimate the degree to which you resemble winners or losers.
Do You Act Like a Winner or a Loser?
Let’s compare your approach to a winner’s. I’ll describe a few situations and give you several choices. Pick the action you would probably take (not the one you think is the textbook answer). Even if you don’t like any alternative or like two of them, pick just one. Don’t pick one that you wouldn’t have considered if I hadn’t mentioned it.
The “textbook answers” are in appendix A. Answer every question before looking at appendix A. Looking at any answer may affect your other answers.
Situation A
You have pocket aces in a no-limit hold’em game with $2 and $5 blinds. You push in your $100 stack. Assume that everyone has random cards. How many callers do you want?
Pick any number from one to nine.
Situation B
You’re in a very soft no-limit hold’em game. An obnoxious drunk has put nearly everyone off-balance. He plays almost every hand, raises more than half the pots, and has been extremely lucky. He has a huge stack. Despite playing your usual solid game, you’re losing heavily. He’s given you three terrible beats and needled you every time. He even said, “You don’t have the guts to play good poker.” Then he laughed at you. What would you do?
• Ignore him, keep playing a solid game, but adjust to his wild play and its effects on the other players.
• Say, “You’re an idiot, and you’re going to lose that stack.”
• Explain why you play such a solid game.
• Change tables.
• Go home.
• Loosen up to show everyone that you’re not afraid of him.
• _______________________________________________________
Situation C
You were a steady winner at $20–$40 limit hold’em, but you’re on a terrible losing streak. You lost $6,000 in the past two months, and financial pressures forced you to take $4,000 from your poker bankroll to fix your roof. Your bankroll is down to $2,000. You see seats open in four games. Which game will you join?
• A tight-passive $10–$20 game. Nearly everyone is weak-tight, and nobody is at all aggressive or tricky. You can beat them because they are easy to read and bluff. Of course, you cannot beat them for much.
• A fairly typical $20–$40 game. You are better than all but two players, and those two are about your equal.
• A wild $15–$30 game with huge pots. There are two maniacs, three loose-passive players, two strangers, and two moderately competent players.
• A loose-passive $15–$30 game. Six players are loose-passive, two are moderately competent, and one is a stranger.
Situation D
Tomorrow you will play at your first final table of a high buy-in, no-limit hold’em tournament. You will have an average stack. Five of tomorrow’s opponents are highly regarded pros. You have played against only two of them, but your friends have played against all of them. You know the other four players, and they are about as good as you are.
Even if you finish tenth, it’ll be your biggest