Winning Poker — How to Crack the Code

I enjoy the process of fig­ur­ing things out.  Puz­zles make me feel alive. Get my brain swirling about in the best of ways.

You prob­a­bly think I am going to say that poker is the biggest puz­zle I have ever encoun­tered. Not true.  That award goes to being a hus­band and father. Much harder AND much more reward­ing.  But poker comes in second.

There is some­thing so entic­ing about the puz­zle that we call poker.  With all the books, dis­cus­sion groups and casi­nos, there are lit­er­ally thou­sands of avenues to explore that can you help you crack the code. Most of us have tried them all. So why aren’t more of us win­ning? As I’ve said before, I am not a win­ning poker player, so I often ask myself why I play?

To crack the code.

More than money, ego, brag­ging rights or that adren­a­line rush of get­ting a one-outer on the river, I play poker sim­ply to fig­ure out what it takes to be a win­ner. What is that formula?

I keep a book of all my sessions:

When I play. For how long. What stakes. What game. Won/lost amount. Who I play against.

This book is a cryp­tic puz­zle that I des­per­ately want to fig­ure out. Some­where in those pages is the answer as to why I don’t win more money at poker.

Some of the answers are obvi­ous: I play when I am tired. I play against bet­ter play­ers. I go on tilt and give away my last $30 (did that last night!). I play too long. I play too loose when I am win­ning. I don’t leave when I am losing.

On closer look, I real­ize these are not results, but really symp­toms. There is some­thing deeper. Some­thing within myself that pre­vents me from win­ning more money. Not sure what that is yet.

I just started read­ing a great book: The Secrets of the Mil­lion­aire Mind. It says that rich peo­ple think dif­fer­ently than poor peo­ple. This reminded of Alan Schoonmaker’s book, Poker Win­ners Are Dif­fer­ent.

Both books imply that rich peo­ple and win­ners (in poker this is often the same thing) have dif­fer­ent wiring in their brain.

If that’s the case, then I guess I need brain surgery. Now I need to fig­ure out how to pay for that.

Maybe I’ll win the WSOP Main Event. A few mil­lion should cover the surgery, right?

Why do you play? Let me know at stories@whydoiplaypoker.net