(Dear reader: These are the last two pages of Elements of Poker.) During bad times, we get unhappy. Let’s say we wanted to be less unhappy during bad times. We could train ourselves to do it, if we were to use our bad times as opportunities to practice getting better at getting over bad times.
Before anything flows, there must be a difference. Between different elevations, water flows. Between different pressures, air flows. Between different poker players, money flows. What is Reciprocality? What is Reciprocality? In the world of reciprocality, it’s not what you do that matters most, and it’s not what they do. It’s both. Reciprocality is any
Dear reader, This is an excerpt from Elements of Poker. (Now available in audiobook) Tilt has many causes and kinds, but it has only one effect. It makes us play bad. It makes us do things we wouldn’t do if we were at our very best. And that’s how I want to define it,
Dear reader: This book excerpt is from Elements of Poker. (Now available in audiobook) 129. The Path of Least Resistance There’s good resistance and bad resistance. When we resist harming ourselves and others, that’s the good kind. When we resist reality, that’s the bad kind. What we want to do then is apply the good kind of
Dear reader, This is an excerpt from the introduction to Elements of Poker. (Now available in audiobook) When I was growing up, there was only one person in the known universe who wrote about card games and his name was Edmond Hoyle. We had some of his books in our house. I still have one
Dear reader: This book excerpt is from the Game Selection element in Elements of Poker. (Now available in audiobook) If, while you are playing, you are attached to the notion that you are a “better player” than any or all of your opponents, or that you are a “worse player” than any or all of your opponents,
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
Dear reader, This is element #35 from Elements of Poker. (Now available in audiobook) 35. The Rating Game We have been designed by natural selection to overrate ourselves at poker. It all started with sex. Gal attracts guy. Guy attracts gal. Genetically speaking, this arrangement works, so nature favors the genes that rate to get us
It’s been three years since my book Elements of Poker came out. Since then, I have received many emails that go something like this: Dear Tommy, If you don’t make Elements of Poker available as an eBook soon, I am going to nail my head to the floor. Your fan, Pat Hand Welp, it’s
