Lao Tsu - Dao De Jing



Tucker Max - I Hope They Serve Beer In Hell

Now that you've read Josh's book, you should read his father's book, Searching for Bobby Fisher. I'm not sure it will help you with poker, but it's a great book.

Josh Waitzkin has a book no way! I watched his tutorials in chessmaster religiously.

Inner game of tennis/Inner game of golf helped me.

The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho

It helped my entire life game. I believe it is a great read, especially for those "great players" that are abusive in the chat-box, and for many OL players that take a once-in-a-while trip to the casino.

Nice call, daveT.

for some reason this seems sftrue. brandon adams book "broke" and "verbal judo" by george thompson.those books made me dig deeper.

Inner Game of Tennis

Zen and the Art of Archery

The Black Swan

Flow

The How of Happiness

Not exactly. It seems that way when just starting, but ultimately I found it mostly unhelpful.

First of all, the "instinct" thing (not really instinct) only works if you have a lot of expertise/experience. The first example in the book - scientists analyzed a statue for months and found that it was old. Art experts took one look at it and immediately decided "something doesn't look right - this is a modern fake". So they "got it" immediately, but only because they had years of education and experience.

Second, the book also "teaches" how wrong the approach can be. One example that stands out in my mind was a police group that shot an innocent man in a fairly innocent situation. They went with their immediate first instinct, based on years of experience and training, and shot and killed a man who was reaching for his wallet, and probably didn't pose a serious enogh threat time-wise or manpower-wise even if he had been reaching for a gun.

So the "premise" of the book, which superficially seems to be "make really quick decisions", was pretty lost on me. Perhaps it was more an essay on some of the elements involved in decision making, rather than a "here's how you should do it" book.

For many years of my life, the point of meditation was lost on me. I thought it was something very mystical and spiritual (which I suppose it can be.) Only recently have I realized that it's really about paying attention. When you meditate, you (usually) are simply practicing paying attention, so it doesn't matter much what you meditate on. You meditate to practice for life kind of like you'd go to a driving range to practice for golf. (Of course some people find that meditating can be enjoyable in and of itself, just like some people enjoy driving ranges without viewing it as practice for actual golf).

And of course some meditation is an end in itself, as you are not practicting but thinking about something important or trying to determine your inner feelings or the path you should take.

The bible

just bet or call and PRAY

That's not what the book is really about. It deals more with the way people who have a very high level of mastery in a field are able to make instant calls that are as good or better than ones that people with less mastery can make in hours or even days.

For instance, an experienced tennis coach is able to call whether a serve will be a foul or not as the ball rises in the air, before it is even hit. Or how experienced lawyers can tell whether a doctor is likely to be sued for malpractice based on a twenty second clip of listening to them speak.

It is a really fascinating book, but it doesn't actually tell you how to get the point where you can make those snap judgements. I guess the same thing is happening when 2+2ers are 12 tabling sitngos to some degree. You learn until the point where you can make complex judgements very rapidly, its one of the cooler features of our brains.

QFT

Unfortunately, also true.

There was a Scientific American article called "The Expert Mind" that parallels the book and talks a little more about the study of thinking. If you liked the book, or are wondering if you'd like the book, the article is also worth a read.

From the article, the good news is "... motivation appears to be a more important factor than innate ability in the development of expertise."

But the bad news is, there is no shortcut. "the 10-year rule ... states that it takes approximately a decade of heavy labor to master any field."

It's a long journey, that path up the mountain to the master's temple.

- pathwalker dubiousdrift

Machiavelli's The Prince.

His relationhship between 'virtu' and 'fortuna' definitely has something to say about poker. fortune favours the brave, etc......

Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind by Shunryu Suzuki.

If you have no interest in philosophy and/or spirituality, you might not take anything from this book. I couldn't imagine life without it. Some chapters are more easily related to poker than others are, but in general this book keeps me focused and helps me stay in the moment, which is crucial to my success in life and with poker.

Blink was terrific. It got me thinking of poker in a different way.

Can I bump this thread? I need more suggestions please!

Mind Illuminated

The Daily Stoic

I have watched Stockfish chess engine play my select positions and I am trying to predict the moves and can say there is some overlap in accuracy but I don't think I need to improve there and the processes the mind does in poker are different. I would avoid backgammon, considering Gus, but I have never really played it.

I think the books that might help one's poker are math and mental/psychology books. I read probability and statistics in high school and upgraded my understanding of variance during my poker years when it comes to really understand it and the related tilt and anxiety that exists the more the less one understands variance and the expected winrates. I add a mental/psychological thing now and then into my poker career overall. All of these can be considered to be poker related.

Meditations of Marcus Aurelius, read it 3 times