The United States of Unconscious Gambling: I'm Over the Influence

Date: Mon, Dec 1, 2008 Professional Live Tournament

Free will or free won't- Texas Holdem Cowboy Card Junkies

In the United States Of Unconscious gambling, poker without money is an opinion; and opinions about poker are just shovels we use to dig our own graves: because if you are not playing poker but thinking about playing poker you are already dead.

24 Hour Casinos-I Don't Have Time For That "Get Rich Click"

Everyone wants to go to heaven but nobody wants to die.
Poker Zombies who are playing 24/7 just don’t like being here in the USA all the time. Now you're gambling from home and can lose the house! while thinking you're more "in control", it becomes part of everyday living.

The original name of this blog---Hotel @nyware is about location neutral internet gambling. Playing online poker insinuates its way in into our daily lives deeply and invisibly, whether by laptop, desktop or phone. Something incredible happens with poker which is never put down or can always be picked up. Gambling is always on, always reliably available. Always at the edge of "creative" impulse(s), Poker is as bad as any drug.

In this case, poker has nothing to do with money, and everything to do with a state of mind, a sensation of "beating the system", of feeling a winner, a way to find out if life is "gonna go the way I want" because I don't want to fail.

In fact, it's not the money you go back for, it's the feeling that you are a winner, not the state of Nevada but the consistent state of mind that, "Yes, I can now beat life...and finally do the things I want to do." The funny thing is life is alway on our side, is always interested in our personal development. We never beat life, we participate in it....and the system helps us grow.

Paper or Plastic-America's scariest addiction just gets scarier

Played with buttons, clicks and phony chips, many people naturally underestimate the amount of money they're actually playing with.

Online Poker Rooms(Oasis of the Zombies) are the in to your sane, a kind of voluntary madness. The surest way of getting nothing from something. The road less traveled-the psycho path! It's pain for sale, self punishment. Yet everythime you turn your computer on, this could be the day you win a big tournament.

"I'm doing online course work at Full Tilt and Poker Stars. I'm $80,000 credits short of graduating. You see, Money is life's report card"...Anything that isn't poker is a waste of your time. You skip classes and call in sick to work. Get the picture.

White Angry Holdem-The Cure

Growing old isn't optional, growing up is. You(th) can outgrow poker and not slip up--just by avoiding slippery places--- casinos, online and live ones.

Playing Holdem without a "license"...Look Mom, no trusted third party. Home isn't where your heart is, it's where your compute is.

Yet, what are the odds that poker will go away forever---You might have a better chance to do well after many types of cancer than you have of recovering from Texas Holdem addiction, or as I like to call it, "Cardlust"--- an all consuming default mode of thinking about poker and uncontrollable craving, like Lay's Potato Chips...I bet you can't eat (play) just one (Hand).

Hooked or Hooked Up

Behavior has consequences, but Poker "Pros" (addicts) don't care about consequences. Biology is biography (see my other post My brain made me re-buy) and if you are addicted to anything you are addicted to everything. More than that, the way you do anything is the way you do everything. With time, with money, with opportunity, the planets lineup with availability (live and online Full Tilt, Poker Stars, games) and exposure (ESPN WSOP, GSN High Stakes, WPT World Poker Tour). You're hooked up.

When you say "I messed up", no big deal. When you say " I messed up again" the behavior speaks louder than the words: continually gambling in the face of negative consequences and the desire to continue (something you know is bad for you)---takes it from a habit, a want, to a need. You're hooked.

What's the engine, and who's doing the steering?Our brain likes to dupe us into believing we are thinking when actually we are just rearranging our bad habits, a mind over money logic verses emotion farce. One thing for sure, dopamine receptors are the gas, your brain's own inhibitory systems act as the brakes.

You gotta be a somebody before you can be a nobody.

Calling poker a sport is like calling bald a hair color. I am done with this male pattern madness---It's lame, all about lose, lose of money, lose of health, lose of relationships, lose of things.

Go within or go without...more pain for sale. You can only quit once--I am quitting, among other things, second-hand smoking once and for all.

Check Please

Time to consider writing the only kind of book that makes sense, one I want to read: The Sex Of Poker-How to turn your bargain with chaos into a gambling lobotomy. Why stop at 12 steps.


poker addiction gambling addiction

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The Demographics Of Overconfidence

Date: Tue, Nov 18, 2008 Professional Live Tournament

Poker is considered the purest of games; and No Limit Holdem (NLH) is surely the purest crack cocaine of Poker. see Grey Matters- In search of The All-In Molecule

You can’t be a poker player and not think about addiction. It’s like not thinking about death because it lasts too long.

You gotta be willing to die in order to live to be a great player; to Go All In with the best or bluff with the worst. Consequently, There's no such thing as good and bad math in holdem: 1+1=infinity.

You see, Poker Doesn't think. It is an infinite game;the overall phenomenon of NLH has no end. It is always a frontier, always on the edge. see: Feel Athletic, go to a sports bar; feel lucky, a casino.

Denial is a River in Vegas
The future is not what it used to be---neither is taking risks --thanks to Wall Street's Viagra up and down math and after math, even number atheists and non "investors" get the picture. The market cannot be controlled and neither can a deck of cards.

Poker is not a form of gambling---but gambling is a form of poker
Most market theories and models assume “investors” are rational decision makers who act in their own best interests. But, in reality, our investment brain often drives us to do things that are quite illogical, but make perfect emotional sense.

CEO Bob Reif, Left Center, taking down a table at The Celebrity Sundance Film Festival Poker Tournament. Reif's advice: "All in Works every time except once.". see: I am Phil Helmuth and So Can You

Poker is more reflective of real-life "wild" randomness because No-Limit has major strategic and tactical components to it that is mashed up with the quasi-dealer element of a shuffled deck.

Think of the ipod shuffle mode----the shuffle mode has an algorithm that randomizes the selection of songs that your IPod can select. Any 'pattern' you discern from what songs your IPod selects is illusory. Just because you lost five times in a row, doesn’t mean you are “due” to win one. Yet, Motion Creates Emotion...not progress.

I’ll talk about Discounting The Future in this post; a mental bias that affects all sorts of risky behavior---from the paradox of smoking cigarettes in the healthy conscious USA to the fact that more people in America die from over eating rather than starvation, fast food for a fast world. But let's move from the United States of Unconscious eating,Your brain on French Fries to Unconscious Gambling, your brain on Poker and Decision


The quicker you go, the longer it takes---That's why Instant Gratification Takes Too Long. Perform the Psychological Judo and Procrastinate NOW! because Infinite Patience brings immediate results to your game.



The Impatience of Patience

There is Mr. Right and Mr Right NOW---Players very robustly want instant gratification right now, and want to be patient in the future. Instead of inspiring caution, when we risk money, our brains' typical response to this uncertainty is to sharply reduce the importance of the future in our decision-making, an effect known in Behavioral Finance as hyperbolic discounting.

Most Rounders know hand values and preflop strategy, but post flop is where a bit of hyperbole comes in. This irrational affliction is ubiquitous in the DNA of grinders; a mind over money problem,er, I mean challange, valuing imminent hands over future ones.

Poker's outward simplicity-The ability to affect the outcome is present, unlike roulette. If no one sees any cards, the cards did not play a role in the outcome. Thus, the outcome was determined by the betting of the players, clearly a process of skill or strategy. If he checks bet. If he bets raise. If he re-raises, go All -In. Put the commitment on him; last in money creates the edge instead of First Money Vigorish. see First in Money is so pre 9 Eleven

There is no YES in Yesterday, because of the luck factor and the fact that poker is situational, you don't learn from you mistakes, you un-learn from them.

Consequently, The future isn't what it used to be because it is perfectly reasonable to "think" you will suck out and get lucky. (That makes it a thinking problem, not a gambling one). In fact, those who think about the past (scared money) have no future. You see, Too much respect for money, therefore, makes you a bad no limit holdem player. This game is sick, isn't it? Check please.

Spending Your Derelict You(th) at the Poker table
A little past playing good is playing badly.

In order to open the Black Box up after your game crashes, there shouldn’t be any disconnect between what I’m doing and what I want to be doing...in the future...But on some level, there always is.

Forget about the degeneracy that surrounds poker. the addiction, drug and alcohol use, depression, and sleep deprivation. After all, Few things are harder to put up with than a good example--- If it wasn't for pimps, prostitutes, hustlers, gangsters there wouldn't be any No Limit Poker as we know it today.

There was a time when one could almost be afraid to call himself a poker player because it meant so much, now it means so little. You are not keeping up with the Joneses. You’re dragging them down to your level on the green felt jungle.

It's like using Visa or MasterCard--- You(th)buy(s) things they can’t afford on a credit card, and as a result you get to buy less over the course of your lifetimes.

After all, Who thinks of saving for retirement when the urge to merge and spend is always on and ever present. Who thinks of Insurance? I am in the business of creating risk. Insurance protects me from risk, you're betting you're gonna lose, you're gonna get sick, you're gonna get in an accident. Nah, I'll bet on me, and fund the risk myself.

Putting some quo in your status or “But there’s Still A Chance”

If you ask people, ‘Which do you want right now, Vegetables or Pizza ?’ they say, ‘Pizza !’

But if you ask, ‘Which one a week from now?’ they will say, ‘Vegetables .’ Now we want Pizza , beer and cigarettes. In the future, we want to eat Vegetables , Vitamins, and drink Evian bottled water.

Likewise, you can always tell a poker player, but you can't tell them much---about holdem being a game of position, about holdem being a game of (selective) aggression, about folding 60% of your starting hands.

Ah, but you are going to need a compelling reason to fold more starting hands. As long as you remember your choices as better than they actually were (Using the past to predict the future), there's more pain for sale. (Your brain made you re- buy).

There is never a certain prescribed way to play a hand, just a way to think about them. I've had racks of chips only to be felted 14 hours later because instead of an attitude of gratitude, I personally have the Mick Jaggar Tumbling Dice "Anything worth doing is worth overdoing"soundtrack playing. There is no limit like no limit!

Holdem is too random to be left up to chance so you want to play against people who say, “But there’s still a chance” or better yet, “But they were suited!” Most players will gravitate towards low probability high payoff bets. Most players experience risk in the short-term thinking that money doesn’t grow on trees but trees grow to the sky.

To short circuit this kind of thinking, simply ask yourself, If they weren’t suited , would you still play them---Of Course not. Making decisions by accepting the default option-But they were suitedand There’s always Bob (Hope) is hopeless. Yet something that everyone knows isn’t worth knowing.

Choosing Preferences over Outcomes

It's not success or failure only outcomes.It's not about winning or losing, but exceling and making good decisions in spite of the outcome! ER

Poker is, first and foremost, a game of managing resources, or if non are available, being resourceful. You can explain anything with preferences- For example “I always play 7 deuce unsuited”. It’s The Hammer. 7-2 off suit is considered the worst hand in Texas Hold'em. ... Because it is the worst, some players will play it for fun, and will continue to keep betting, even if they expect to lose This .Belief perseverance-that you can spike that one out, and get lucky is every where in Poker, the seductive NOW moment in the the game. It's becoming a routine observation.

This malignant optimism can create the happy accident-- you can get lucky 100% of the time....on any one hand.

This is a predictable surprise in holdem, the cost of doing "Business" are chips, and BAD BEATS are the overhead!

Playing holdem without a helmet

This is one of the secrets to Beating America's 92 Million Irrational Poker Players:Most players are experience rich and technique poor. They most likely are gambling not betting. This is your demographic of"overconfidence", of magical thinking,Every Americon Gambler is only a hand away from a very humbling wake-up call.

Most people will choose preferences over outcomes. like playing Russian roulette and saying to yourself "You have a 5/6 chance of surviving. People sometimes select the choice they put less monetary value on. That is why calling to the river is a way of folding. The Cult of the amateur has drunk the kool-aid. The close choice of say, a heavy metal fan of Metalica verses Mozart Effect. The glass is not half full, it’s not big enough for gamblers. If you swim in the river, you drown in the river. Things don't even out with time, they even out with the number of hands you play against "fish" PS Don't tap the Aquarium, you'll scare the fish.

Every hand of poker is a series of risk/reward decisions. America's 92 Million Irrational Poker Players cannot always figure out what is in their best interest.

Money and risk are abstract, complex things. We act less rationally, less logically, and more emotionally when playing cards. When your left brain gets good at telling your right brain what to do, you even the score, and gain a competitive advantage.

Behvaioral Finance Mental Bias Poker Discounting The Future hyperbolic discounting decision-making Gambling

Read Full Blog Post

The Demographics Of Overconfidence

Date: Tue, Nov 18, 2008 Professional Live Tournament

Poker is considered the purest of games; and No Limit Holdem (NLH) is surely the purest crack cocaine of Poker. see Grey Matters- In search of The All-In Molecule

Playing poker isn’t as scandalous as writing about it.You can’t be a poker blogger and not think about addiction. It’s like not thinking about death because it lasts too long.

Yet as the selfish brain fears death and looks for predictable experiences, poker is a great placebo that hijacks the brain with a predictable surprise: card players are surprised if they win and surprised if they lose. see: Poker= f(dopamine flow); Money= happiness

It's not winning that makes a winner, but losing. The excitement is not from the winning, it's avoiding the disaster, because you're flirting with it every day. The way the system works is if we get rewarded in a surprising way, dopamine is released and that kind of alerts the system how that is going to happen again.

Addictions–and only addictions–can open us up to all that makes life rich and fulfilling. It's all about loss: loss of control, loss of resources, loss of health. They are not diseases, but consumer choices. They don't show a lack of will power, for even the mantra "Everything In Moderation" provide an excuse for bad behavior.

After all, what is a habit but self-discipline? (I feel that way about overweight people too--God, they had to work so hard to get that way--Volume eating! What self discipline to eat every frickin' minute of the day.)



Men Behaving Badly

You gotta be willing to die, however, in order to live, to be a great player: to Go All In with the best or bluff with the worst. Consequently, There's no such thing as good and bad math in holdem: 1+1=infinity, but they are empty infinities of bliss and death, an abyss of divine enjoyment (Are your ready to shuffle up and deal now)

You see, Poker Doesn't think. It is an infinite game;the overall phenomenon of NLH has no end. It is always a frontier, always on the edge .The rules are simple but the dynamics of the game are ruthless: it is designed to F with you.

Once in a while there's a night when you get exactly where you're trying to go. Magic. Then you chase that memory for a while. (Nostalgia) But precisely because you so want to get there it becomes harder and harder. If you think long, you think wrong, it make your game weaker because Poker doesn't think.

Like you(th), poker is best understood in retrospect: from within the experience, you cannot see it for what it is. see: Feel Athletic, go to a sports bar; feel lucky, a casino.

Denial is a River in Vegas
The future is not what it used to be---neither is taking risks --thanks to Wall Street's Viagra up and down math and after math, even number atheists and non "investors" get the picture. The market cannot be controlled and neither can a deck of cards.

Poker is not a form of gambling---but gambling is a form of poker
Most market theories and models assume “investors” are rational decision makers who act in their own best interests. But, in reality, our investment brain often drives us to do things that are quite illogical, but make perfect emotional sense.

CEO Bob Reif, Left Center, taking down a table at The Celebrity Sundance Film Festival Poker Tournament. Reif's advice: "All in Works every time except once.". see: I am Phil Helmuth and So Can You

Poker is more reflective of real-life "wild" randomness because No-Limit has major strategic and tactical components to it that is mashed up with the quasi-dealer element of a shuffled deck.

Think of the ipod shuffle mode----the shuffle mode has an algorithm that randomizes the selection of songs that your IPod can select. Any 'pattern' you discern from what songs your IPod selects is illusory. Just because you lost five times in a row, doesn’t mean you are “due” to win one. Yet, Motion Creates Emotion...not progress.

I’ll talk about Discounting The Future in this post; a mental bias that affects all sorts of risky behavior---from the paradox of smoking cigarettes in the healthy conscious USA to the fact that more people in America die from over eating rather than starvation, fast food for a fast world. But let's move from the United States of Unconscious eating,Your brain on French Fries to Unconscious Gambling, your brain on Poker and Decision


The quicker you go, the longer it takes---That's why Instant Gratification Takes Too Long. Perform the Psychological Judo and Procrastinate NOW! because Infinite Patience brings immediate results to your game.



The Impatience of Patience

There is Mr. Right and Mr Right NOW---Players very robustly want instant gratification right now, and want to be patient in the future. Instead of inspiring caution, when we risk money, our brains' typical response to this uncertainty is to sharply reduce the importance of the future in our decision-making, an effect known in Behavioral Finance as hyperbolic discounting.

Most Rounders know hand values and preflop strategy, but post flop is where a bit of hyperbole comes in. This irrational affliction is ubiquitous in the DNA of grinders; a mind over money problem,er, I mean challange, valuing imminent hands over future ones.

Poker's outward simplicity-The ability to affect the outcome is present, unlike roulette. If no one sees any cards, the cards did not play a role in the outcome. Thus, the outcome was determined by the betting of the players, clearly a process of skill or strategy. If he checks bet. If he bets raise. If he re-raises, go All -In. Put the commitment on him; last in money creates the edge instead of First Money Vigorish. see First in Money is so pre 9 Eleven

There is no YES in Yesterday, because of the luck factor and the fact that poker is situational, you don't learn from you mistakes, you un-learn from them.

Consequently, The future isn't what it used to be because it is perfectly reasonable to "think" you will suck out and get lucky. (That makes it a thinking problem, not a gambling one). In fact, those who think about the past (scared money) have no future. You see, Too much respect for money, therefore, makes you a bad no limit holdem player. This game is sick, isn't it? Check please.

Spending Your Derelict You(th) at the Poker table
A little past playing good is playing badly.

In order to open the Black Box up after your game crashes, there shouldn’t be any disconnect between what I’m doing and what I want to be doing...in the future...But on some level, there always is.

Forget about the degeneracy that surrounds poker. the addiction, drug and alcohol use, depression, and sleep deprivation. After all, Few things are harder to put up with than a good example--- If it wasn't for pimps, prostitutes, hustlers, gangsters there wouldn't be any No Limit Poker as we know it today.

There was a time when one could almost be afraid to call himself a poker player because it meant so much, now it means so little. You are not keeping up with the Joneses. You’re dragging them down to your level on the green felt jungle.

It's like using Visa or MasterCard--- You(th)buy(s) things they can’t afford on a credit card, and as a result you get to buy less over the course of your lifetimes.

After all, Who thinks of saving for retirement when the urge to merge and spend is always on and ever present. Who thinks of Insurance? I am in the business of creating risk. Insurance protects me from risk, you're betting you're gonna lose, you're gonna get sick, you're gonna get in an accident. Nah, I'll bet on me, and fund the risk myself.

Putting some quo in your status or “But there’s Still A Chance”

If you ask people, ‘Which do you want right now, Vegetables or Pizza ?’ they say, ‘Pizza !’

But if you ask, ‘Which one a week from now?’ they will say, ‘Vegetables .’ Now we want Pizza , beer and cigarettes. In the future, we want to eat Vegetables , Vitamins, and drink Evian bottled water.

Likewise, you can always tell a poker player, but you can't tell them much---about holdem being a game of position, about holdem being a game of (selective) aggression, about folding 60% of your starting hands.

Ah, but you are going to need a compelling reason to fold more starting hands. As long as you remember your choices as better than they actually were (Using the past to predict the future), there's more pain for sale. (Your brain made you re- buy).

There is never a certain prescribed way to play a hand, just a way to think about them. I've had racks of chips only to be felted 14 hours later because instead of an attitude of gratitude, I personally have the Mick Jaggar Tumbling Dice "Anything worth doing is worth overdoing"soundtrack playing. There is no limit like no limit!

Holdem is too random to be left up to chance so you want to play against people who say, “But there’s still a chance” or better yet, “But they were suited!” Most players will gravitate towards low probability high payoff bets. Most players experience risk in the short-term thinking that money doesn’t grow on trees but trees grow to the sky.

To short circuit this kind of thinking, simply ask yourself, If they weren’t suited , would you still play them---Of Course not. Making decisions by accepting the default option-But they were suitedand There’s always Bob (Hope) is hopeless. Yet something that everyone knows isn’t worth knowing.

Choosing Preferences over Outcomes

It's not success or failure only outcomes.It's not about winning or losing, but exceling and making good decisions in spite of the outcome! ER

Poker is, first and foremost, a game of managing resources, or if non are available, being resourceful. You can explain anything with preferences- For example “I always play 7 deuce unsuited”. It’s The Hammer. 7-2 off suit is considered the worst hand in Texas Hold'em. ... Because it is the worst, some players will play it for fun, and will continue to keep betting, even if they expect to lose This .Belief perseverance-that you can spike that one out, and get lucky is every where in Poker, the seductive NOW moment in the the game. It's becoming a routine observation.

This malignant optimism can create the happy accident-- you can get lucky 100% of the time....on any one hand.

This is a predictable surprise in holdem, the cost of doing "Business" are chips, and BAD BEATS are the overhead!

Playing holdem without a helmet

This is one of the secrets to Beating America's 92 Million Irrational Poker Players:Most players are experience rich and technique poor. They most likely are gambling not betting. This is your demographic of"overconfidence", of magical thinking,Every Americon Gambler is only a hand away from a very humbling wake-up call.

Most people will choose preferences over outcomes. like playing Russian roulette and saying to yourself "You have a 5/6 chance of surviving. People sometimes select the choice they put less monetary value on. That is why calling to the river is a way of folding. The Cult of the amateur has drunk the kool-aid. The close choice of say, a heavy metal fan of Metalica verses Mozart Effect. The glass is not half full, it’s not big enough for gamblers. If you swim in the river, you drown in the river. Things don't even out with time, they even out with the number of hands you play against "fish" PS Don't tap the Aquarium, you'll scare the fish.

Every hand of poker is a series of risk/reward decisions. America's 92 Million Irrational Poker Players cannot always figure out what is in their best interest.

Money and risk are abstract, complex things. We act less rationally, less logically, and more emotionally when playing cards. When your left brain gets good at telling your right brain what to do, you even the score, and gain a competitive advantage.

Behvaioral Finance Mental Bias Poker Discounting The Future hyperbolic discounting decision-making Gambling

Read Full Blog Post

Nothing is the hardest thing to do in Poker

Date: Sun, Nov 16, 2008 Professional Live Tournament

Poker And Investing- Two Games of Incomplete Information

On any given hand, poker is about 85% luck and 15% skill, but over the course of thousands of hands, it is the reverse - 15% luck and 85% skill. See Poker's Pattern's Are Not Our Own

Mo' money is pissed away by players who know the right thing to do , but don't do it anyway. See My Brain Made Me Rebuy!

The Poker Universe always has the first move. There’s uncertainty with every hand? Yes, it’s always a coin flip, not always 50/50, sometimes 60/40. This is not rocket science. It's brain surgery. Give yourself a poker lobotomy with Behavioral Finance. see What you think is right is wrong with your game.

Behavioral finance can inform poker. Superlative performance is not just the ability to eliminate chance, but also to recognize opportunity, and, more importantly, when your LEFT brain gets good at telling your RIGHT brain what to do.

Holdem is too random to be left up to chance.When you treat No Limit Hold em as only a game of chance instead of skill, it is not a law of probability, it's a fact for games with negative expectations: Risk of ruin is 100%.---Have the best hand, the best draw, or get out.

In other words, know the 60/40 end of a proposition--- when to hold em and when to fold em--- when you have some competitive advantage over somebody else. Know when the odds are in your favor and bet, or know when the odds are not in your favor and get out of the way. You don't "invest", unless you have some competitive advantage.

Making the wrong mistake---playing too many hands. "Why? do we do it. Because we didn't come to play poker just to fold. We want action and we want to take down pots. The average Joe thinks they have to get into more pots to win more hands. What you need to do is play fewer, better hands. Win Chips, not pots.

Folding, is the "invisable" way to win. Try telling that to a Friday night action player: "Let's go to the casino and fold 60% of our hands!" Yet there is no cure for the common cold-of getting EVENitius---aka Chasing, staying in a pot to make an unlikely hand, usually (but not always) with poor odds.

Making the right mistake-Many irrational poker-player behaviors actually “make sense” when viewed from a Behavioral Finance point of view. Spotting someone the nuts and sucking out can take you from Zero to Hero.

Poker is a game of maximizing wins (when you have the best hand) and minimizing loss (when you don't have the best hand). In the last hundred hours of play I have had pocket aces 25+ times, and they held up about 80% of the time. This is really a rare incredible run. Although against a random hand, they do tend to hold up more. Still, if you know your opponent has them, and you're in a multi-way pot, suited connectors looks real good, because Pocket Aces is gonna push all-in with a continuation bet on the flop. So: DON'T BET DANGEROUS FLOPS IN MULTIWAY POTS. AA demands isolation.

GREAT players experience more bad beats than GOOD players. Great players get their money into the pot with the best hand and the suckers are forced to draw out. As a corollary, great players rarely deliver a bad beat: they almost never get their money into the pot drawing slim.

Raise or fold," is another maxim used in poker. If you have a hand that's worth being in, then the hand is worth raising. If it's not

worth raising, then it's probably not worth being in. You can save a lot of money in poker and in investing if you know when to say bye bye.

Note to self: A new investment trend: backing poker (players) . My “traders” are all poker players; in a nutshell, Hotel Anyware will provides the entire bankroll for a player and covers the player’s losses while keeping 50% of their winnings. Of course there is more to it: players have daily loss limits, minimum table-hour requirements and an exclusivity agreement.

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Putting the ODD(s) Back into The Godfather

Date: Thu, Nov 13, 2008 Professional Live Tournament

Why Players make irrational financial decisions.

By the end of this post, you'll have a better understanding of some of the anomalies (that's an S.A.T. bonus word) that Sklansky's Theory of Poker and Doyle's Super System have failed to explain. Warning: If you are over forty, please leave this blog because---The truth will set you free but first it will piss you off.

Poker without money is an opinion. I got my hunting license--I am the sharpshooter that comes down from the hill after the battle to shoot the wounded, in this case, the dead. I'll give it my best shot.

A is for Aces-- You(th) says “I want something new everyday.” and “I want to be surprised”. You(th) says, I'll play 3,4 suited , spot him the nuts and suck out.

Brunson may be the Godfather of Poker , keeping his friends close and his enemies closer, but Peter Eastgate, is The Geekfather, through the numbness of numbers, Peter picked up the pieces of everyone else's mathematical dust, connected the dots and won the WSOP main event.

YOU(th) sees that scared money is a misuse of imagination. You(th) hears the internet stutter of brick and mortar ABC players. You(th) feels that playing with more luck and less skill, is almost the right way to play NLH and (almost) the right way to play is the difference between lightning and a lightning bug.

Eastgate didn't just bring math to the game, he brought strategy, getting others to play with the cards he mentally dealt them. I like to call Eastgate's style of play, "Boiling the frog" In this case, infinite patience brought immediate results for Mr. Science.

The Geekfather knew that from his online experience--things don't even out with time, the even out with the number hands you have played. I'll get to Dennis Philips in a moment, the way he played Doyle's favorite hand "AK because it is so easy to throw away"....which is what Phillips did to cost him the championship, essentially crippling himself when he drew air on the flop and made a continuation bet only to be re raised with a bluff from Demidov, The Mini-Geekfather, shipping a huge stack of chips to the Russian.

Final Table-ist Scott Montgomery played Tom Dwan's version of New (North) Americon Geekfather Poker Club: Ba da bing ba da boom. He dared to be naive

We'll call it New (North)American Geekfather Poker because the word F_ck was taken.. Geekfather poker is anything You(th) could get away with!

If practice makes perfect, and nobody's perfect, then why practice? There is absolutely no substitute in NLH (No Limit Holdem) than for a genuine lack of preparation.

Geekfather Poker is not a "A-ha" experience, it is more of a "holy-shit" experience. Montgomery was no miraculous exception

Calling poker a sport is like calling bald a hair color. Montgomery's style of play is not a game, it's a concussion! In fact, the bad beats Scott gave his opponents left them with no other option but The Big "Oh Well" Shrug a WTF, "That's Poker"; and "It's only a game", the lesser known, "I don't have a dream" speech.

Most Geeks like Scott, are experience rich and technique poor. Home isn't where their heart is, it's where their computer is; Multi tabling at Pokerstars and FullTilt.

Without an Internet connection, it's (like) having a seizure or a mild stroke--Online poker makes You(th) more.

Something incredible happens with the availability 24/7 of online poker and the ubiquitous exposure of WPT, GSN and WSOP ESPN coverage: Poker is never put down — is always on, always reliably available. SHIFT happens---A collection of situations you haven't played yet; of the things you don't know. there is a massive collection of unknowledge, the anti-hands that contain all the hands that may still change your poker life.

The secret of staying poker-young isn't lying about your age, it's havng bandwidth-, an internet connection and using online gaming sites. It brings a 10x exponential edge to the nth degree to a live game.

B is for Cajones--Take em out of your purse or grow a set.

Godfathers Raise ATC (any two cards) only to be re-raised by Geekfathers also holding a range of hands from 88 to A 10, only to be re-shoved back over the top of them by uber Geeks.That’s The Power Of New Americon Poker—the language of betting, a slang that rolls up its sleeves, spits in the street, screams strength possibly more than any other and gets the work done. Tells Don’t Tell – Geekfather's Do with the language of their betting. And it's not really in the DNA of ABC players to really do business with the Geekfather's. Live Cash game specialists speak with a internet stutter.

The first Rule About New Americon Geeklfather Poker Club, Don't talk about New Americon Poker Club. The second rule, tip your dealer, the third:The surest way to win a huge pot in NLH is to spot'em the nuts and suck out! When this happens: Hate the win, not the winner. I call this, Making the right mistake! The number one thingw e hate about the game we love--NL Holdem.

Playing 'in the dark': betting that Godfather's DON'T have the cards rather than that they do is a strategy, not THE strategy. That's Durr's Zero Gravity thinking.Creating rather than responding has less to do with originality and more to do with the unexpected.

An Aggressive game is a game of strategy and deception. A passive game is one where money flows from bad to good players. A loose game is a game of money and odds; a tight one is a battle for the antes. This is all just karaoke Poker, a cheap imitation of Stu Unger.

It was Ready, Fire, Aim---unloading three bullets--- flop, turn AND river, into a pot, holding Squadush-"nothing".The Stu Unger three-barrel bluff worked throughout Scott's tournament

C is for Card Lust---It's about the juice,where people and bits of information meet.

Poker is a game of situations, like milk, with an expiration date stamped right on the carton. There are no perfect strategies. Poker history doesn't repeat itself, but it does rhyme!

It's not so much about "counting your outs" and "folding AK in a raise, re-raised pot"-- that cause-effect relationship stuff. It's more about the anti-poker game--situations. A collection of situations you haven't played yet; of the things you don't know. there is a massive collection of unknowledge,the anti-hands that contain all the hands that may still change your poker life.

This is the wake up call for ABC Phil's, the by-the- book players. The so-called new ways to play holdem are the old ones heated up in a microwave for 15 seconds. You see, Poker Doesn't think. It is an infinite game;the overall phenomenon of NLH has no end. It is always a frontier, always on the edge.

Everything we think we know about tournament poker is changing, so we really know nothing.

The Power of New Americon Poker is about being the last in the pot. It too can be an extremely effective way of accumulating chips in spite of your hole cards, not because of them.

• Sklansky’s old school calls it The Gap Concept ---“you need a better hand to call a raise with than you would need to open the betting yourself”. Sure.

First in the pot is the old school idea of taking pots down pre-flop or pre-turn using stack pressure. Especially when a tournament is in the money stage. Today, Playahs may go into the game with a larger bank and better cards (Dennis Phillips AK against Ivan Demidov's AQ), they will lose in the long run to the Ballas, who are last in. Ivan put the commitment back on Phillips with a peflop AK raise by Dennis, with a reraise with AQ-and Dennis folded. he couldn't seem to get traction, to get his Geek on--Yielding to the advice of his Coach and the four month layoff, thinking "When you don't have good cards, somebody else probably does"...and fold AK, Doyle's favorite because it's the easiest hand to get away from.

Gain insight into some of the underlying reasons and biases that cause some players (Including yours truely) to behave irrationally (and often against our best interests). This new found knowledge will give you an edge when it comes to making poker financial decisions.

When you ASSuME you make an ASS out of U and ME--One of the most basic instincts is the assumption that players are rational "Moneymakers" who seek to increase life, liberty and the pursuit of a fast buck. Adam Smith's "rational self interest" , the grip of the invisable hand isn't so tight, because it leaves out emotions and other extraneous factors, when it comes to making economic choices.

Reality at the poker table is a collective hunch where motion creates emotion.Poker plays, not like a sport, but a concussion. In a New York minute, an ACME anvil pancakes you, and then a split second later, you’re expanded - accordion-style - back to normal, like some tempurpedic mattress. It’s a formula of ins and outs, need and speed, aggravation and acceleration

The "Rational self interest" assumption doesn't reflect how people behave in the real world. The fact is people frequently behave irrationally. It's called tilt.Everyday Players enjoy the risk associated with winning; and are for the most part, risk averse--they don't want to lose---and when they do, you can be sure TILT is not far behind.
Our brain is the most powerful computer. When on tilt, our brain is the most powerful broken computer . Tilt makes us sub-optimal for evaluating rewards, sizing up risks and calculating probabilities. Your brain on poker and decision: Your bankroll increases when the LEFT brain gets good at telling the RIGHT brain what to do. How does it help to know that you're literally "of two minds"? The Limbic RIGHT and Analytic LEFT.

Consider how many people buy in to the WSOP at 10Kin the hope of making the final table From a purely logical standpoint, it does not make sense to play the tournament when the odds of winning are overwhelming against the player. Despite this, thousand of people buy in, turning the Wimbledon of Poker into a carnival game, The Powerball of Poker.

When faced with a decision, if a player is given two equal choices, one expressed in terms of possible gains and the other in possible losses, people would choose the gain alomost every time. The average Joe can't make lay downs. If he has trips or top two pair, and there is a flush or a straight on the board. His money is going in, and you'll get payed off. This is considered "lose averse" not "risk averse". Since gambling is risky behavior and everybody is there to gamble. I like to call this Stone Age Poker.

I am about to go against my mantra "Don't tap the aquarium" !

A fish is the last to know it is in the water, and there is a greatpoker shift coming that is seperating the fish from the sea.

The biology of fear for Homo Economicus is about running away from saber tooth tigers, and trying to live past your twentieth birthday. That impulse to avoid lose is so strong.There is a little piece of neanderthal in everyone's game that responds primitively to certain poker situations.

Caveman Fred has been hard-wired by evolution to have a malignant optimism and bullish outlook on things. Fred suffers from an incorrect interpretation of statistics (Gamblers Fallacy). Fred also has an irrational tendency to be less willing to gamble with profits than with losses (lose-averse) and even experiences more pain with a lose than pleasure from a gain (Prospect Theory); choosing a small reward that arrives soon as opposed to a larger reward that arrives later (risk-averse). The future is uncertain.Why wait?

Under the influence of powerful Flintstone emotions and drives, players often end up doing the opposite of what they think is best for themselves, even at the moment of acting. No matter how much we evolve as players, we're still capable of going "Yabadabadoo"!

Put pressure on our Fred —and he responds -- with a rush of adrenaline and the urge to fight or flee. Those survival impulses are hardwired into the oldest layers of all of our brains. Emotions like these can damage our game not to mention devastate our bankroll . When we give in to our old-brain reflexes, we'll probably regret it.

When we feel under attack, we experience a visceral response that may lead us down the primitive path. If we feel shamed, we may withdraw, like the caveman taking flight.(fold) If we feel angry, we might lash out and fight.(Call/Go over the top all-in with marginal holdings).

All behavioral biases have some evolutionary reasons for existing and it's very tough to overcome those deep-rooted impulses! So here’s the Neural Poker Challange--- we have two systems for reacting to risk–a primitive intuitive system and a more advanced analytic system–and they’re operating in parallel. And it’s hard for the neocortex to contradict the amygdala.

Bamm! Bamm! Beat- you -over -the- head- with -a -club- smash-mouth poker is motivated by "red" emotions -- anger, fear, greed – and by "green" ones --confidence and enthusiasm. Its not a question of if, but when, will our greens and reds light up our game.

The empathy gap is the difference between how we behave in "hot'' states---those of anxiety, courage, fear; and ''cold'' states of even-keeled calm. Our empathy gap impacts our thoughts and behaviors to the point where we cannot seem to predict how we will behave in a hot state when we are in a cold state.

Putting the Odds back into the God(fathers)

You're feeling on edge, but is the fear nothing to fear but devolutionary fear itself? Have you felt this way before? How intense is the feeling? Understanding the f.e.a.r., the false information appearing as real. It is key to getting control. After all, nothing real can be threatened, nothing unreal exists, Herein lies the peace of God

Identify the cause of the feeling. What is the source of it? Trace the feeling back to its source. Explore a way out by feeling the fear and doing anyway---that's where your game expands

I dared to do something different and my poker game grew larger. For me, it was Monday's Fulltilt- Stu Unger- three -barrel- stone -cold bluff I pulled off. It was energizing, a peak experiences much like I had as a track athlete at Comsewogue High School.

I lose money frequently, but in small amounts, and make money rarely, but in large amounts. I am a crisis hunter. You can't avoid crisis in NLH, you must be in a perpetual one that you create. Get lucky or bluff was the selective aggression I used, and poker rewards not only infinite patience, but selective aggression.

Give Yourself A Poker Lobotomy

It's not so much about "counting your outs" and "folding AK in a raise, re-raised pot"-- that cause-effect relationship stuff. It's more about the anti-neuro-poker game--situations. A collection of situations you haven't played yet; of the things you don't know. there is a massive collection of unknowledge,the anti-hands that contain all the hands that may still change your poker life.

The Sex Of Poker logic makes what you don't know far more relevant than what you do know. I considered that many of my Jackpots and big hands were caused and accelerated by their being unexpected.---of me being an anti-gambler. The upshot is that:knowledge leads to action but lack of knowledge can also lead to action.

The “Open Source” world that everybody is smarter than anybody, this is the NEW Herd mentality. WSOP Survivorship Bias-We see the winners who cash and learn from them, while forgetting the huge unseen herd of railbirds -losers. who were making all the right mistakes.

A poker game is not static. It's a dynamic, living organism that changes from moment to moment. You have to respond to those changes. You have to be the change you want to see . . In the RW(Real World) change is seen as some “thing” built to last. Would you rather have a TEMPORARY change to your game that lasts as long as it is useful, or rather a LASTING change that continues to last far beyond any limits of usefulness.

Players underestimate, on average, the probability and impact of improbable events. Going completely broke is consistently unexpected, but highly likelyin cash games. Buying into a poker game , unlike buying a car, is a gamble that the future will represent an improved version of the past. And who knows whether that will be true?

Nevertheless, when it comes to NLH, what you don’t know is far more relevant than what you do know. Consider that many huge hands can be caused and sped up by their being unexpected, that case eight on the river for a suck out, a four card flush free roll. That is why after rerading Doyle and Sklansky's books, I became more and more aware of the shortcomings in these conventional "systemns" and Theories as they relate to people's poker behaviors.

The Winner's Curse

Hate the win, not the winner, the game , not the player. Short-term winners believe they are good players, and thus don't make changes the anticipation of consequences---this type of behavior has consequences-Nothing fails like success. A broken clock is right twice a day---and because of the huge luck factor in poker, you can win lots of pots(not always chips).

Where Attention Goes, Chips Flow-- When bad things happen to nice starting hands.

My mental accounting anchor of AJ=Bad Beat. Under mental accounting, I live a personal "storyline " concerning my history with each an every AJ I have ever played , not unlike having a personal Monica relationship with each AJ because I cannot get it through my thick skull that the loses-they are imaginary. It is not about winning or losing. It is about exceling.

A behavioral game theory approach realizes that anyone can get lucky 100% of the time, and, more than that, realize that, good play will have bad beats.

Behavioral Game theory is the more ‘down-to-earth’ approach dealing with one case at a time, especially when Lift Ticket plays with ATC, any two cards- if they don’t know what they’re doing how can you!

The hand that has the highest potential must be a hand that gets played in different ways and in different situations. It's going to be somewhere between the hands that are rarely folded, and the hands that are rarely played. Ace Jack Heads Up is almost never folded before the flop, so we know AJ cannot be the most profitable hand. So keep that in perspective.

Time without attention is worthless, so value attention over time. Therefore: Stop Waiting For “Better Spots” To Get Your Money In! Pick a favorite hand--commit your attention to it and play it strong.

If you don’t have attention, you don’t have time, and if you don't have time-er, well time is money. Can't play poker without money.

Joe plays when he "feels" like it, a Pro, all the time! Call them perpetual shortcuts JOES make when losing poker ASAP; and as any of the PROS will tell you, they don't need cards to win--that's for amateurs. Pro Players specialize in other people's biases! especially that malignant optimistic one that beats its chest and says, "I'm the best player at the table".

Secrets to Beating America's 92 Million Irrational Poker Players:Behavioral Finance-Part ART Part SCIENCE:

Common sense is not so common, and these common flaws are often consistent, predictable, and can be exploited for profit. We are not logical, we are emotional, and motion creates emotion-winning and losing in the stock market or in poker have some suprising failings--Let's reframe them and call them OUTCOMES:

Illusion of control - the tendency for players to believe they can control or at least influence outcomes which they clearly cannot. NLH is 100% luck and 100% chance. An opponent can (suck out) win one hand 100% of the time. NLH is too random to be left up to chance-yet good results will have you rejecting alternative ways to play--Nothing fails like success. Doing things right the first time is an obscenity--If your game isn't broke, don't just break it, break it before the competition does.

Loss aversion - The pain of chips lost generally is much greater than the pleasure of a chips gained. Players strongly prefer avoiding losses over acquiring gains ( Quit early when winning and playing marathon sessions when stuck or chasing---see also sunk cost effects.

To win money over the long haul, you’ve got to win big pots. And to win big pots, you can’t be held back by this thinking error. You can't play a safe tight- is -right solid game and expect to win. You can't avoid crisis, you must be in a perpetual one that you create...but selectively picking your spots). too much respect for chips (money) makes you a bad NLH player.

Bias blind spot - The left side of the brain will do the math. But the right side will "tag" it with a story. That story usually doesn't compensate for one’s own cognitive biases. The grip of the invisable hand of Poker capitalism is creative destruction. You gotta perpetually blow your whole game up, shift gears, and take a wrecking ball tothe Winners curse, After all, Few teams win back to back championships because nothing fails like succcess.

Choice-supportive bias - It's called "anchoring" remember one’s choices as better than they actually were. (Using the past to predict the future). There is never a certain prescribed way to play a hand, just a way to think about them. I've had racks of chips only to be felted 14 hours later because instead of an attitude of gratitude, I had the Mick Jaggar Tumbling Dice "Anything worth doing is worth overdoing"soundtrack playing.

Endowment effect - When I own something, I will tend to value it more highly. If I have to sell it, I will probably want to ask more than it is really worth. (Not being able to let go of QQ,AA,KK---rookie moves, and over betting the pot) There's the expected result, based on analysis, and the actual result, based on events. Poker is a game of situations---I've learned to thrown away Kings, Queens, and with a four card flush on the board, even two red Aces!

Confirmation bias - The Indians Rain Dance worked because they never stopped dancing! The Jeane Dixon effect-of making a few right predictions, and overlooking the false ones. Searching for information in a way that confirms one’s preconceptions. The delusions of reference--tells, lucky charms, hunches and coincidences.

Bandwagon effect - Do things because smart money people do or believe the same, like playing Helmeuth starting hands, or walking the painted line of Sklansky's Theory of Poker or Doyle's Super System. Related to groupthink, herd behaviour. That's what I find so cool about my game--being able to fire three barrels with squadush. (Thank you Poker Stars Sit and Go's)

Déformation professionnelle - the tendency to look at things according to the conventions of one’s own T.O.E., time on earth; assuming things that have similar traits are likely to be identical; forgetting any broader point of view. Past experience and feedback loops can make you Hola Lupe.

Disconfirmation bias -. We tend to use the information that is most handy when we make decisions/predictions. The path of least resistence mashed up with thin slicing.

Focusing effect - prediction bias occurring when players place too much importance on one aspect of an event; causes error in accurately predicting the utility of a future outcome.

Hyperbolic discounting - the tendency for players to have a stronger preference for more immediate payoffs relative to later payoffs, the closer to the present both payoffs are.

Impact bias -Our minds are suited for solving problems related to our survival, rather than being optimised for poker decisions. Players overestimate the length or the intensity of the impact of future feeling states.

Information bias - Seeking TMI, too much information, even when it cannot affect action. Try playing in the dark, or blind---With less information to be processed and filtered, the brain assigns higher priority to the information that it does receive.

Neglect of probability - the tendency to completely disregard probability when making a decision under uncertainty. Expected Value and Variance---weighing all the possible outcomes, weighting the more likely outcomes, and coming to a conclusion---play a big part in the decision process. There is therefore, never a certain prescribed way to play a hand, just a way to think about them.

Mere exposure effect - the tendency for players to express undue liking for things merely because they are familiar with them. If it's not broke, break it!

Omission bias - The tendency to judge harmful actions as worse, or less moral, than equally harmful omissions (inactions).

Outcome bias - the tendency to judge things on their outcome, and not on their process. Over weighing and overeacting to a bad beat-- the most recent information or circumstances.

Planning fallacy - the tendency to underestimate task-completion times. It has taken me ten years to become an overnight Holdem success!

Post-purchase rationalization - the tendency to persuade oneself through rational argument that a purchase was a good value.

Pseudocertainty effect - the tendency to make risk-averse choices if the expected outcome is positive, but make risk-seeking choices to avoid negative outcomes.

Selective perception - the tendency for expectations to affect perception. (Gamblers Fallacy)

Status quo bias - the tendency for players to like things to stay relatively the same.

Von Restorff effect - Purple Cows and items that “stands out like a sore thumb” have a tendency to be more likely to be remembered than other items.

Zero-risk bias - preference for reducing a small risk to zero over a greater reduction in a larger risk.

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Paul Newman:The One With The Most Chips Still Dies

Date: Sat, Sep 27, 2008 Professional Live Tournament

"Money won is twice as sweet as money earned" Paul Newman

I learned a bit of poker etiquette from Henry Gondoff, aka, "Shaw", Newman's character in The Sting, that---Poker is anything you can get away with!

Doyle Lonnegan (Robert Shaw) gets put on TILT, and Newman owns him, making us realize, Poker is not a game of cards played with money—It is a game of money played with cards. This isn't really a poker movie but it does contain this one famous poker scene:

Dealer: Doyle, I KNOW I gave him four THREES. He had to make a SWITCH. We can't let him get away with that.

Doyle Lonnegan: What was I supposed to do - call him for cheating better than me, in front of the others?


Our brain is the most powerful computer. When on tilt, our brain is the most powerful broken computer .

The power of mind over money is rooted in mental bias . It is our own idiosyncratic way to distort our map of reality. Just as the menu is not the meal, this map is not the territory--because everyone experiences gambling differently.

When Lonnegan's reality check bounces, he goes on major steam--- He change the map (and the deck) , but Harry goes over the top---putting the CON back in confidence, and the SIN in sincere, cheating the cheating crime boss at his own game.

"If you're playing a poker game and you look around the table and can't tell who the sucker is, it's you." Paul Newman

He had vision, and the rest of the word was wearing glasses---You never saw the whole deck, there was always some card somewhere he may or may not have played, like being an Indy Racing Car Owner and a Gourmet Food King, whose salad dressing out-grossed his films, shameless exploitation in pursuit of the common good

Maybe he didn't even have it, and bluffed, like when he did that movie Slap Shot, and didn't play a "big" bastard, just a simple one; and maybe he did have "it"--- like every thing he did after 1977 (Slap Shot).

Makes me think how unlike, but must be compared to, Brando he was; who, in the second half, pissed away his talent.

Newman instead, got old and grey, but better, like The Color Of Money lyrics, " It's in the way that you use it..It comes and it goes..."

The extraordinary role that luck plays in all our lives--

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Jamie Gold :Telling Lies And Getting Paid

Date: Sat, Aug 23, 2008 Professional Live Tournament

At The Bicycle Casino Tonight  With Jamie Gold, 2006 WSOP Champion. 

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Play The Hand That You're Dealt-The Last Lecture by Randy Pausch

Date: Mon, Aug 4, 2008 Professional Live Tournament

Experience is what you get when you didn't get what you want!

Brick walls are there for a reason - they let us prove how badly we want things.

Play the Hand that you're dealt.

I wish I had said these things, but Randy Pausch, did; the Carnegie Mellon Prof who died two weeks ago at 47 to cancer. Here's his last lecture, made famous by You tube: (His last words are 76 minutes long! so even if you watch just a bit of it, you'll be inspired)




Here are the "Cliff Notes"

• Always have fun
• Dream big
• Ask for what you want
• Dare to take a risk
• Look for the best in everybody
• Make time for what matters
• Let kids be themselves

* "Apologize when you screw up and focus on other people, not on yourself. How do I make a concrete example of that? See, yesterday was my wife's birthday. If there was ever a time I might be entitled to have the focus on me, it might be the last lecture. But no, I feel very badly that my wife didn't really get a proper birthday, and I thought it would be very nice if 500 people... [a birthday cake is wheeled on to the stage]."

* "Remember, brick walls let us show our dedication. They are there to separate us from the people who don't really want to achieve their dreams. Don't bail. The best of the gold's at the bottom of barrels of crap."

* "Show gratitude. When I got tenure I took all of my research team down to Disney World for a week. And one of the other professors said, 'How can you do that?' I said: 'These people just busted their ass and got me the best job in the world for life. How could I not do that?'"

* "Don't complain. Just work harder [shows slide of Jackie Robinson, the first black major league baseball player]. It was in his contract not to complain, even when fans spit on him."

* "Work hard. I got tenure a year early. Junior faculty members used to say to me, 'What's your secret?' I said, 'It's pretty simple: call me any Friday night in my office at ten o'clock and I'll tell you.'"

* "Find the best in everybody. You might have to wait a long time, but people will show you their good side. Just keep waiting, it will come out. And be prepared. Luck is truly where preparation meets opportunity."

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Night Vision-playing 'in the dark': betting that your opponents DON'T have the cards rather than that they do.

Date: Sun, Jul 20, 2008 Professional Live Tournament

Bad Beats are overhead; Chips, the cost of doing business. and business is good.

There is never a certain prescribed way to play a hand, just a way to think about them. There's the expected result, based on analysis, and the actual result, based on events.

It's not winning that makes a winner, but losing. The excitement is not from the winning, it's avoiding the disaster, because you're flirting with it every day. When my "behavioral finance" stuff kicks in, and I only want to win, but can't take the sting of a lose, I am "risk averse" or more accurately "lose averse", after all, I am gambling in a casino!

I always say-"Whether my decision is good or bad depends on how I make it, not on the outcome". LOOSE players are looking for reasons to CALL; TIGHT, to FOLD. Last night, I sat down with a bunch of loose players---and when the right people show up, the right game does too.

Focus on decisions not consequences

Here's the scenerio: Preflop decision with K10 off suit in a multiway pot- There's a six dollar straddle, I re-raise $15 last to act, trying to steal the straddle or at least go heads up. with the button! I get reraised to $100,(I am thinking small pair88 or JJ who wants to isolate) then something crazy hppened: call, call, call. Pocket 99 folds. That's 4 to 1 on my money---I know I am a dog. I defined my hand early, when it was cheap to do so, and have to put others on pocket pairs, but poker is situational, and these cats at the table are loosey goosey. SO:

Making the wrong mistake at the right time

I call with ATC's (Any two cards) right? Ok, I get lucky and flop a made Broadway straight, with no draws! and rake in a massive pot---going from Zero to Hero. I went against my mantra--"When you don't have good cards, somebody else probably does" but I got my FREAKonomoics on!

Sklansky’s old school ABC's: The Gap Concept, didn't apply this time---“you need a better hand to call a raise with than you would need to open the betting yourself”.

I felt I was getting the right odds to call. Sometimes poker is a feeling, sometimes a verb. (That's the huge buckets of luck that go with the territory).

I didn't really make a probability based decision--How many outs do I have? What are the immediate odds-pre flop, flop, turn and river? (In this case, the implied odds of all the money left on the table was too huge to fold preflop) What are the long shot odds for you and your opponent, once you put him on a range of hands? I made the wrong mistake at the right time.

For these loose players , the second hundred was not worth as much as the first.

The reason for I called the $100 was that my opponents Utility of (Chips) Money changed based on how many chips they already had. Most $700 behind. In ECON 101: Each level of worth or income has associated with it a certain level of utility. That utility is not necessarily going to increase uniformly. For This is called Diminishing Marginal Utility.

And according to my theory of poker; Too much repsect for money makes you a bad no limit player---These guys were "good" players because they had no respect for their money!

Doing the same thing over again is an obscenity.

Poker is too random to be left up to chance. It's situtational too. Big hands for big pots--not committing your big stack with weak small hands---I need a poker time out...because nothing fails like success. You can't lose what you don't put into the pot and if I keep on putting my money in bad like this I'll get broke.

Think about good decisions, not results. It's about the process not pots won---the chips will come. Do what you love and the money will follow--have a love affair with making sound decisions based on partial information. It is, after all, about excelling, not winning or losing a particular hand.

Make probability based decisions--How many outs do you have? What are the immediate odds-pre flop, flop, turn and river? What are the long shot odds for you and your opponent, once you put him on a range of hands? The universal tell in poker is called betting!

I once wrote:

It is better to be skillful than lucky but then again.... I wasn’t born with the math gene, in fact, I am a math atheist: but after "beasting out" both on The Theory Of Poker and The Mathematics of Poker, I realize that poker is less an exploitive strategy, and more an optimal one. Once having said that, we don't need to deify poker math and won't bring its math to the game ---we bring strategy to it, an optimal strategy, yet it still remains dependent on opponents actions and tells.

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Kung Fu Poker-Fear is The Only Darkness

Date: Fri, Jul 11, 2008 Professional Live Tournament

"Of all things, to live in darkness must be the worst." - say young Caine "Fear is the only darkness." -says that old blind guy Master Po who taught youngCaine in Kung Fu.

The Power of NEW-Zen Mind Beginner's Mind, verses The Power of NOW--Staying in the Moment is poker mastery.

There are four basic stages that a player must pass through to achieve poker mastery:

1. Beginner's Passion
"In the beginner's mind there are many possibilities, in the expert's there are few." Shunryu Suzuki

2. The Student Emerges
"He is now forced to admit that he is at the mercy of everyone who is stronger, more nimble and more practiced than he." Eugen Herrigel

3. Expert Level is Achieved
"He who has a hundred miles to walk should reckon ninety as half the journey" Japanese Proverb

4. Poker, One Hand at a Time
"If one really wishes to be master of an art, technical knowledge of it is not enough. One has to transcend technique so that the art becomes an 'artless art' growing out of the Unconscious" Daisetz T. Suzuki

"When the teacher is ready the student appears...

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I have seen the future and it works

Date: Mon, Jun 30, 2008 Professional Live Tournament

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In ABC by the book holdem--A is for Aces----

In the long term, I look at the profitability of my pocket aces rather than the number of times they win or lose. To maximize profit with them, I make a conscious effort to minimize my losses when I am clearly going to lose a showdown. Going all-in preflop is a good strategy. It takes the guess work out of post flop play---but it doesn't minimize losses.

At the end of the day, it's all about how many chips are coming back to your stack. The more you put in pre-flop, the more you should get out of the pot when it's all said and done. Sometimes, I like my opponent(s) to see a flop, to "catch" up, hoping they'll hit their card on the flop and bet out. I fgure this out by:

Basically, DEFINING -MY/THEIR- HAND EARLY - WHEN IT'S CHEAP TO DO SO. Firsts money in raises, and you re-raise, let's him know where you are at. If he goes over the top, it's probably Kings. If he smooth calls, you are probably against a small pocket pair or AK,AQ,AJQQ,JJ---put him on a range of hands.

DON'T BET DANGEROUS FLOPS IN MULTIWAY POTS. My AA demands isolation, But let's say I am under the gun with them, and find myself in a 4 handed pot and the flop is J-10-9. I am stuck without betting---It is better to check this flop with AA, even if was in a late position and it has been checked around to me . It is difficult to expect anyone to fold any sort of draw (even a gutshot) on this particular flop. Further, when I bet, they are correct in calling me.

GREAT players experience more bad beats than GOOD players. Great players get their money into the pot with the best hand and the suckers are forced to draw out. As a corollary, great players rarely deliver a bad beat: they almost never get their money into the pot drawing slim.

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Small Ball Poker

Date: Tue, Jun 24, 2008 Professional Live Tournament

Smash Mouth all-in-preflop poker is somewhat of a river game. Small Ball Holdem, on the other hand, is somewhat of a flop game, so if you can see three cards cheaply, it is a good thing.

Smashmouth poker is about first in money- ----You can't immediately win by calling; you can by betting, or raising! Betting or raising allows the possibility of winning the pot immediately by forcing decisions on the other opponents, who may very well fold, with slim holdings.



Small Ball Poker is about calling one or two small bets, but more than that it is about Never getting all your money in pre-flop. The best way to win in small ball is to fold more!(after you see the flop). Smash Mouth players are looking for reasons to bet, Small Ball, reasons to fold. Therefore, folding, is the "invisable" way to win. Try telling that to a Friday night action player: "Let's go to the casino and fold 60% of our hands!"

Most of the bad beat smashmouth pedal-to-the metal stories you hear start out like this, "Well, I got my money in good... only to get sucked out on the river." On the one hand, smash mouth poker is about agression, and poker rewards agression (selective aggression). On the other hand, Infinite patience in poker is also rewarded immediately. (You can't lose money you don't put into a pot).

As Mickey Mantle said in his 1985 autobiography"When you keep aiming for the fences, you're bound to strike out a lot ." Small ball poker avoids the MIS (move in specialists) and let them have their hands.

With Small Ball poker, AFTER the flop, you can evaluate the texture and the number of players in, and attack. If the pot starts to get big, then you must be ahead to continue to play. If you can keep the pot small, you can read you opponent(s) and decide what is in your best interest.

You have to be a good post flop player to play small ball. You have to be willing to see a flop with TT, knowing full well that it might mean mucking the hand if the texture of the flop doesn’t match up with your cards (No Set, No Bet).

You need to make high value river bets when the board shows broken draws. You can also bluff someone who is chasing you down with AX when the flush card comes on the river. Ax players know the flush draw very well as its their favorite hand. They WILL notice and often muck TP (top pair) to a big river bet that makes a 3 flush.
Ed Reif Daniel Negreanu Small Ball Poker No Limit Holdem Poker Strategy

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Poker's patterns are not our own

Date: Sun, Jun 22, 2008 Professional Live Tournament

Motion Creates Emotion

Every hand of poker is a series of risk/reward decisions. Players cannot always figure out what is in their best interest. Money and risk are abstract, complex things. We act less rationally, less logically, and more emotionally when playing cards. When your left brain gets good at telling your right brain what to do, you even the score, and gain a competitive advatage.

Paper or Plastic? Live Cash game chips are not tournament chips! There is a difference between gambling and betting. Live "brick/click and mortar"poker is a game of money played with cards.

Yet, we tend to throw good money after bad---the sunk-cost fallacy is a common mental mistake. Just because we’ve spent money to see a flop doesn’t mean we should continue to spend money on it. It doesn’t even mean we should continue to play the hand . What matters is the hands ’s future value(flop-turn-river) to us, not how much we’ve “spent” on it.

The ability to take a small loss to avoid a big one is the hallmark of smart poker player. It's also the sign of a great investor. Great poker players lay down great hands. You have to reframe the situation and retrain your mind. In other words, you have to learn to love to take losses to be a long-term winner. Just like no one hand is going to make or break you, it is about exceling, about process, not results.

As in real estate, location counts-In Holdem it is position, position, position. The forced blind small bet is where most people call, even a riase, because they have money already in the pot. When you're in position, however, you have the luxury of getting the last action, when you're not you don't. It is that simple-yet common sense is not so common,e specially in the small blind.

Most people know hand values and preflop strategy, but post flop is where a bit of behavioral financing comes in: or The Power of Mind over Money. It is rooted in mental bias. It is our own idiosyncratic way to distort our map of reality. Just as the menu is not the meal, this map is not the territory--because everyone experiences gambling differently

I, for one, am guilty of the House Money Effect, with chip overload of playing loose with their money--actually it is ALL my money once won!

Poker is not a form of gambling---but gambling is a form of poker

Most wall street theories and models assume “investors” are rational decision makers who act in their own best interests. But, in reality, our investment brain often drives us to do things that are quite illogical, but make perfect emotional sense.

Poker's outward simplicity-The ability to affect the outcome is present, unlike roulette. If no one sees any cards, the cards did not play a role in the outcome. Thus, the outcome was determined by the betting of the players, clearly a process of skill or strategy.

Ipod Shuffle Mode-Delusions of Reference

Poker's patterns are not our own. Poker is more reflective of real-life "wild" randomness because that game has major strategic and tactical components to it that is mashed up with the quasi-dealer element of a shuffled deck. Makes me think of the ipod shuffle mode----the shuffle mode has an algorithm that randomizes the selection of songs that your IPod can select. Any 'pattern' you discern from what songs your IPod selects is illusory. Just because you lost five times in a row, doesn’t mean you are “due” to win one.

Any strongly held belief that random events, objects, behaviors of others, etc., have a particular and unusual significance to oneself or ones play or game is purely incidental. The Rabbit's foot-good luck? Not for the rabbit. More than that, the in to your sane, "ruunning bad" or "running good", that it reflect your situation or , in fact, communicates about you or your "predicaments" is usually accidental in nature- so reading too much into it is counter productive. Usually if things are really bad, there are probably leaks in your game-and the quest for "good luck" is usually in these questions:

1.) How much of your bad run is your fault? Anyalsis may be paralysis but the meaning of a poker life--is get one! and the unexamined poker life is not worth living! Assign blame-- Do you find yourself saying "should" I shouda raised, I shoulda folded that. Be honest

2.) Do you need to step down in limits? Money can't buy happiness but it can buy chips, which is kinda the same thing, and you can't play poker without money! It's better to step down voluntarily to a game you can crush than to be forced to because you lost all your bankroll playing above your head on a bad run

3.) Are you playing the right game? Without the right game, the right people don't show up. Game selection-(e.g. limit, no-limit sit-and-go tourneys, etc.) and also to choosing the right tables. The urge to "get back" when losing repeatedly can cloud your vision, leaving you stuck at an unprofitable table when there are plenty of loose, crushable games to choose from. Change Tables!

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Being Fooled By Randomness

Date: Sat, Jun 21, 2008 Professional Live Tournament

Live At The BIKE ---Bicycle Casino in Los Angeles Last Night

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