Poker Wisdom of a Degenerate

Recently published on Kindle and available on Amazon here a few short excerpts for you:

Includes sections on making deals, staking, borrowing and lending, playing whilst drinking and playing on a hangover!

"I like to assess what drives my opponent to play poker; once I have this information I can quickly gain an insight into how they will approach their game so I can tailor my decisions to reflect their actions"…

…"I wish never to be out of my comfort zone again in that respect but as you can imagine it taught me an extremely valuable lesson which was to make sure I am always psychologically prepared to handle the pressure of playing a game which has been designed to offer ambiguous results"…

…" it was a friend who just happened to search my name in the client at that point in time and reminded me about it the next day saying that the profanities in the chat-box were unbelievable when I busted."….

…"The problem is that it may start to become a crutch; once you start borrowing there is a tendency to keep borrowing and asking again even when you don’t really need to. It will eventually become an unnecessary strain on the friendship as your friend may start to feel obligated and again if you don’t have the money, do you really need to play?"…

…" it can be a profitable decision as not only are you playing the tournament yourself (if you so chose) but there are others playing for you and their labour comes at no cost to you if they make a profit. Of course it comes at a cost to you when they fail to cash but only if that is the deal you put forward to them, as a backer you generally hold most of the cards"…

…"Before negotiating any deal make sure you do your own calculations and use the model that will give you the biggest payout, be it a websites calculator or your own calculations. That will legitimise your initial figure and from that point try to squeeze maximum value out of your situation"…

…"The possibilities are endless, get players on your side or get them completely against you it’s your choice. I prefer the nice approach but whatever you do, make sure you are throwing them off your scent and get them thinking about your chit chat and less about the game"…

…"it was early (for a casino) and the poker room was waiting to fill up. There was a dealer at a table with two players sat either side of him so one player in the number 1 seat and the other player in the number 9 seat meaning that I had nowhere to go but the middle, immediately after the dealer had started shuffling I twigged that I recognised them and they were a husband and wife team that like to hustle tourists"…

"…the consequence of which was that I was in an ‘all-in’ situation with no hole cards and hoping that the board came up with a split pot, it didn’t happen. The very next day I went to buy myself a card protector, it was a sturdy Buddha. Not only does it protect my cards from the dealer but it has the fortunate outcome of making me look like a chump!"…

…"If you want to be a success you have to be a player who approaches poker with as much professionalism as possible and hope that your positive approach will put you in the right place at the right time to take what you desire from the game"…