Dear reader,
This is an excerpt from the introduction to Elements of Poker.
(Now available in audiobook)
I started writing about my poker experiences in 1999. Soon after that, people starting writing to me with theirs. They’d ask me what I thought about how they played a hand. Or they’d ask me about a ruling, or they’d describe an ethical dilemma and ask what I’d do. With each letter I was learning, teaching, and flattered. So I kept writing, and the letters kept coming.
There were only a few guys in the world then who were known throughout the poker community as poker teachers for hire. I thought about becoming one of them. I often visited my ideas as to who, what, why, where, and how I would teach. But I hadn’t done anything with my teaching ideas because I was stubbornly unkeen on the soliciting idea.
The World Poker Tour first aired on TV in March of 2003, at the same time as tournament attendance and internet poker exploded. Poker entered millions of homes via televisions and computers, thereby creating a massive market for poker instruction. The internet provided accelerated interaction and experience. The tournaments created clumps of money that became bankrolls. All of sudden there were a lot of smart players with lots of money, and some of them would be hell bent on getting better. Maybe I could be persuaded to help.
Then, in July of 2003, I got this email:
Tommy,
I enjoy your poker articles and your posts at twoplustwo.com very much. I was wondering if you have ever given poker lessons or if you would want to? I’d be interested.
Your fan,
Michael
Michael’s letter opened my eyes to a brilliant business model. Because I had done two of my favorite things – play poker and write about poker – I was being offered money to do my other favorite thing, which is to talk about poker. So my plan was to continue to play poker and write about poker, and prepare some helpful things to talk about, and then figure out how much to charge the next guy.
The first thing I did was go online to see if the domain “tiltless.com” was available. It was. I bought it. I was very pleased.
T I L T L E S S
I’ve had a thing for those letters in that order for a long time. I see them as one word, and also as two words. I’ll use both versions in a sentence.
If no one is tiltless then everyone can tilt less.
So, I had a name for my new poker-coaching business. And I had some bedrock ideas that I’d been cementing myself to. As a poker coach, I would:
- Hold all in confidence.
- Remain available for life for ongoing coaching.
- Teach only one-on-one and primarily face-to-face. This was mainly because of fear. I was terrified that I would fail to deliver an expected value. The way I felt was that if I could just talk to a guy and ask him questions and get to know him some, and he me, then I’d be able to say things and write things and do things that were worth the price. I wouldn’t be afraid.
- Play in the same game with the client for mutual observation. Everyone I’ve ever met falls into one of two groups: those I’ve shared a poker table with, and everyone else. I wanted my clients to be in that first group if at all possible because it would give me more to give.
- Presume that the client wants to score higher.
To help me elaborate on that last point, I’d like to introduce Joe and Moe. Joe and Moe appear throughout this book. They are not consistent characters. They are just names I use for examples. For example:
- Joe is the best player at his casino. Everybody knows it, and everybody says so. When Joe plays his A-game, his expectation is +2 big bets per hour (BB/H). But when he tilts, he tilts hard, and he becomes one of the worst players in the room. Everybody knows this too, and everybody says so. When Joe plays his C-game, his expectation is -1BB/H. Let’s say Joe hired me to help him improve his score. What should we work on? Should we work on his A-game? Or his C-game?
- Moe is a loser who rarely and barely tilts. When Moe plays his best game, he loses 1BB/H. When he plays his worst game, he loses 1.3BB/H. Because of his mental steadiness, Moe’s C-game will always net only slightly less than his A-game. What should Moe work on? His A-game? Or his C-game?
My premise would not be that the client wants to merely learn how to play better. I would assume that the client’s objective is to score higher. Learning how to make your best game better is one way to score higher. Learning how to play your best game more often is another way. My curriculum would put equal emphasis on both ways.
In March 2004, I launched my tiltless.com website, where I described my services. Right away the word was out at twoplustwo.com that I was coaching, and I was instantly in action. Today it is three plus years later and I have 50 clients. Five of my clients were…
Okay, I have to cut in here for a second to talk about the word “client” because my buddy Deva gives me all kinds of shit over it. “How can a poker bum like you have something called a client?” And I’m like, okay, fair enough. So just what would you suggest I call these people? Students? I tried that word for a while and it didn’t sit right. So eventually I settled on calling my clients “clients,” which technically makes me a “consultant,” which is another word Deva gives me grief over.
I must say though, there is one thing I really like about using the word “client.” I like being able to invoke the sanctuarial right of client confidentiality. Okay, where were we…
Five of the fifty have been face-to-face clients that were one-session-and-out. Five have been face-to-face one-session-at-a-time clients. Fifteen were/are phone-only clients of various commitments. And the rest have been through my full tiltless program, which is a comprehensive, personalized, face-to-face, three-day coaching blitz, followed by follow-up coaching. My favorite endorsement came during a goodbye when a client said, “This was not at all what I expected, but it was exactly what I needed.”
I have taught seasoned pros, scared newbies, college students, and family men. I’ve coached quiet players and chatterboxes, struggling players and millionaires.
For two years, my material was in a state of constant and drastic revision and expansion. It collected itself into one Word document that I call the master outline, but really it’s more like a clothesline. It’s a very long list of topics and talking points, some of them in code that only I know, others expanded. Plus analogies, stories, charts, and short writings by me and clients.
To write this book, I looked through the master outline and I selected the topics that I thought would be most helpful to the most players most often. Then I stopped playing poker and started typing.
ADD Elements of Poker TO CART
ADD Elements of Poker TO CART
2018 Coaching Update: I’m doing video coaching now on whatever ails you, from betting problems and tilt issues, to bad quitting and no patience. For more details and to schedule a call, click here. Talk soon! 🙂
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