Hi Everyone:

An expanded edition of my book Real Poker Psychology should be up on Amazon in a few days. Th original book, which came out approximately six years ago, is 259 pages. The new version is 306 pages.

Some of the original book has been rewritten for more clarity, and a number of new chapters have been added. As soon as the book goes up on Amazon I'll be back with the link. Also, don't buy the original version. We're trying to get Amazon to take it down but haven't been able to get them to do this yet.

Please find the "Table of Contents" below and as soon as it's up on Amazon, I'll be back with a link to the Amazon page.


..............................Table of Contents


About Mason Malmuth v

Acknowledgments vii

Introduction 1

More Introductory Comments for the Expanded Edition 3

What Do I Mean by “Real Poker Psychology?” 5

Part One: Them Fluctuations 7
...Introduction 8
...Variance 9
...Variance is Your Friend 12
...A Mathematical Model of “Tilt” — Cause and Cure 14
...More on Tilt 20
...More Still on Tilt 24
...An Excuse to Lose 26
...A Note on Steaming 28
...Poker is Counterintuitive 32
...Rushes 35
...Running Bad and How to Handle It 40
...A Little More on “Them Fluctuations” 42
...Luck Versus Skill 45
...Four Other Ways to Reduce Variance 48
...Do You Really Want to Reduce Variance? 52
...What Else Do The Poker Mental Coaches Get Wrong
...About Variance? 54
...A Band-aid or a Cure 56

Part Two: How’s Your Poker Game? 57
...Introduction 58
...Play Your A Game — Why Wouldn’t You? 59
...Handling Pressure 61
...Being Unaware 65
...Craving Action 67
...Playing Too Many Hands 69
...The Maniac 71
...Evaluating Yourself and Your Opponents 74
...How to Become a Great Player 77
...Is It Better to Be Lucky or Good? 79
...10,000 Hours 82
...Low-Limit Hold ’em and Players Who are Unaware 85
...Poker Magic 89
...Psychological Strength 93
...Mental Toughness 98
...Selecting the Best Game 102
...Thinking Fast 105
...What’s Not Important 108
...Why You Lose 111
...Being a Tournament Star 114
...Mentally Tired Versus Physically Tired 117

Part Three: Image 119
...Introduction 120
...Where Did My Image Go? 121
...Appropriate Image 124
...When Is a Dynamic Image Good? 128
...It’s How You Are Perceived 131
...Weak-Tight Opponents 134
...What Your Opponent Thinks 137

Part Four: At the Tables 141
...Introduction 142
...No-Limit Hold ’em: Is it Too Irritating? 143
...Some Losing Concepts 147
...Suggestions for Professional Players 150
...Too Many Bad Players? 153
...Why Do the Best Players Sometimes Go Broke? 156
...Why Are There So Few Great Players? 159
...It’s Not What You Eat 162
...The Components of a Game 165
...Danny Robison 168

Part Five: Tells 171
...Introduction 172
...The Value of Tells and Positive Reinforcement 173
...Visual Cues 176

Part Six: Other Topics 183
...Introduction 184
...Observations 186
...Staying Broke 189
...That’s What She Said 192
...The World’s Worst Player 195
...The Worst Plays in History 198
...Throwing Money 201
...Bankroll Management 204
...What Happened to the Superstars? 212
...Jackpot / Bonus Games 215
...How Many Winners are There? 218
...Focus 220
...Fight or Flight 222
...Apathy 224
...The Four Psychological States of Losing Poker 226
...Self-Confidence 235
...Over-Confidence 237
...Does Tilt Cause Emotions or Do Emotions Cause Tilt? 239
...When Running Bad, Some Players Take Shots at You 241
...Getting Your Nose Open 242
...Sucker Privileges 245
...Blackjack Card Counters Don’t Tilt 247
...Ideas From Dr. Feeney 248

Part Seven: Silly Ideas 253
...Introduction 254
...Self-Weighting Hand Histories 255
...Having the Best Hand 258
...Recent Erroneous Concepts 262

Conclusion 289

Index 291

Hi Everyone:

The kindle is now up on Amazon:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09KCBZ9BQ

We hope to have the hard copy up in a few days.

Mason

And the printed book is now up on Amazon:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1880685663...=UTF8&qid=&sr=

Mason

And a couple of excerpts are reproduced below.

Mason

....................More Introductory Comments for the Expanded Edition


When this book was first released, I knew it would be controversial, and that’s exactly what happened. Except it caused an even bigger stir than I thought it would, and many personal attacks and insults came my way.


If the material that this book contains, and that includes the new material that has been added to this expanded edition, is accurate, and I have no doubt that it is, then many of these so-called poker mental coaches should be out of business, and I think this is what upset many of them and their followers most of all. In addition, don’t let the high prices some of poker mental coaches charge fool you into thinking that what they present has a lot of value. It doesn’t, and that will now be well explained in this edition.

Last year, I was on The Poker Zoo Podcast to discuss a different topic, but the host of the podcast still asked me if I had any issues with the first edition of this book. My answer was “No.” But then he went on to ask me why I was so sure this material was right, especially since I’m not an expert in psychology. I thought this was a good question and here’s my answer.

Much of what’s written in Real Poker Psychology, as well as my other writings in this area (which are now included in this expanded edition) are based on mathematical modeling and statistical theory, two areas which I have much experience in and am well qualified to talk about. Thus, this means that for much, or even some, of the information that follows to be wrong, it would also mean that my understanding of mathematical modeling and statistical theory must also be wrong, and that just isn’t the case. Also, once you grasp mathematical modeling and statistical theory, they can lead you into many areas that don’t seem related, and because of this, I can now talk accurately about real poker psychology while at the same time I can also correctly say that I know little about psychology in general.

Another claim which I sometimes read about this book is that it contains little advice relative to poker psychology, and this claim is ridiculous. However, it does contain many issues, ideas, and concepts, which the standard poker mental coaches never even mention. And in most cases, they’re not even aware of this stuff or at least don’t understand it well enough to talk about it. One example of this is the four states of losing poker, which will be addressed throughout this book. Two other examples are the whole discussion on “Them Fluctuations” and why games, like tennis, which is an athletic sport with a large execution component, has very little to do with a game like poker, which is mainly a game of knowledge.

Yes, I’m aware of ideas like eating a bad meal or being a little short on sleep can cause your energy to be lacking and that this can make you tired and sluggish, and therefore less able to focus well on the specific play at hand. However, poker is not an athletic sport which means that this idea is not anywhere as important as some of the poker mental coaches claim.

Anyway, enough of these introductions. Let’s now move forward into Real Poker Psychology.


..............................Four Other Ways to Reduce Variance


In the last chapter we talked about how reading hands and multi-tabling on the Internet can reduce your variance and increase your win rate, something that virtually all poker players want to do. Of course, many of the poker mental coaches will tell you that you can’t do anything about variance, but we have just seen two examples where this isn’t true.

Below, are four more ways to reduce variance. Unfortunately, they won’t increase your win rate for the particular game that you’re in. But if applied correctly, they shouldn’t reduce your win rate by much and the second way can in a sense increase your overall win rate since it might allow you to play a higher stakes game.

Method No. 1: Move down in stakes. This way should be obvious, but I’ve never seen a poker mental coach mention it (but just because I haven’t seen it doesn’t mean it hasn’t happened).

Of course, if you move down in stakes expect your overall win rate to drop. But if the game has more recreational players, and this is often the case at smaller stakes, your win rate may not drop much. However, if you’re a serious player and find the fluctuations in the game you’re currently playing bothersome, or you have previously lost a good portion of your bankroll, moving down, at least for a while, can be very important to your long-term success as a poker player.

Method No. 2: Move up and play tighter. This is something that was first proposed many years ago by David Sklansky. As David put it, suppose you saw an extremely good game that you wanted to play but it was at stakes which were higher than the games you usually played in, and that you were afraid of the possible fluctuations that the bigger game might present. David’s idea was to go ahead and play the larger game but to play tighter, and perhaps much tighter, than what you would normally do. This way, you would still have a higher expectation than your typical game, but the swings at the larger stakes would now be more tolerable.

And if you think about it, providing that you’re a good player, this all makes sense. What happens in poker is that there are many hands which you play because you think your expectation is positive, but the expectation for these hands, while positive, is not positive by much, but the variance is still there. So, if you choose not to play some of these, it should only lower your long-term win rate by a little, but the short-term luck factor (or variance) can be reduced by a lot.

Method No. 3: Giving up on aggressive plays where you know the decision is close. This third method is closely related to Method No. 2 above. Here, when you have a close decision, you choose the one that’s less aggressive. For example, suppose in no-limit hold ’em you’re holding the JT on fourth street the board is the A962 and your opponent checks to you. Clearly, he’ll have you beat (on fourth street) almost every time but you can certainly draw out. So, should you bet or just call?

Without analyzing the hand, against some players this can be a very close decision, but if you’re trying to reduce variance, then checking becomes the best play even though you might lose a little expectation by playing the hand this way. But since the lost in expectation is low, you don’t expect plays like this to have much impact on your overall results. But they can certainly cut down your swings.

Method No. 4: Play lots of hands. The interesting thing about this method is that if you play a lot of poker, and most people who read this book will be doing just that, the short-term luck factor will be reduced. In the chapter on “Variance” starting on page 9 the following appears:

But there's another aspect to this. It turns out that the expectation is proportional to how much you play while the standard deviation is proportional to the square root of how much you play. And this means that the luck factor, which can dominate your short-term results, will in time have much less impact on your overall results.


What this means is that the more you play the less impact the short-term luck factor will have on your long-term results. As an example, if you’re a small winner, expect to be a small winner after you’ve played a lot of hands even though you’ll probably have a few big wins as well as a few big loses while you play.

Now, exactly what the number of hands required for this to be true is not clear. That’ll depend on your win rate and standard deviation. But understand that when the poker mental coaches say you can’t do anything about variance, and you don’t do anything about variance, its affect will dissipate anyway. Just be sure your bankroll is large enough to withstand those inevitable swings that will come your way.


...............What Else Do The Poker Mental Coaches Get Wrong About Variance?


As already indicated, when playing poker, there’s a lot of luck in the short term and the poker mental coaches like to describe this by using the term “variance.” In fact, if it wasn’t for variance, I wonder if there would be any poker mental coaching at all. But as someone who spent years working as a professional statistician, I also object somewhat to the way this term is used and believe that it leads to many misconceptions in the world of poker psychology.

It turns out that variance has a very precise statistical meaning and certain statistical properties, and without being specific, it also seems to me that the way the poker mental coaches use this term, as already pointed out, is to imply that the luck factor has no end and never seems to stop. Of course, this is not the case.

I much prefer to use the term “standard deviation” which, as we have already seen, in the world of statistical theory is the square root of the variance, or just say “short-term luck factor” which is an accurate description of what really happens when it comes to statistical fluctuations that are present in poker. The reason for this, which has already been mentioned, is that your results are proportional to the number of hands that you play, while the standard deviation is proportional to the square root of the number of hands that you play. Put in English, what this means is that the short-term luck factor, which can be quite large in poker (especially if you’re a tournament player), will also dissipate over time relative to your overall results.

This is a highly important idea and it can’t be emphasized enough. It means that after a fair amount of play, your best predictor of your future results are your past results, and if your past results are disappointing, it almost always means that your knowledge of all things poker, and this, of course, includes strategy, needs to improve for you to be a successful player. This misconception is also a possible reason why the required bankrolls that I often see recommended by some of these poker mental coaches are way too high, and when I say “way too high,” that’s no exaggeration. It can also lead a struggling player, who has hired a poker mental coach, to think that mental coaching is the way to improve his results at the poker table and thus neglect the hard work of improving his understanding of the strategies that govern his game.