Tweeden has been a popular face in the poker scene for a number of years. She is known not just for her beauty, but also her upbeat nature. She’s no slouch when it comes to poker strategy talk and commentary. She was the last host of NBC’s Poker After Dark for nearly three years, up until its abrupt cancellation following Black Friday. She also hosted NBC’s National Heads up Poker Championship.

Of the decision to pose nude, Tweeden was quoted as saying, “I think I look better now than when I was 21.” A very confidant woman, she’s also a self-described “voluptuous girl” who has benefited from other curvy celebrities such as Beyonce and J-Lo being in the spotlight.

The December issue of Playboy featuring Tweeden went on sale November 11th.

Tilt happens. When it does, it can hit the fan harder and faster than you’re prepared to deal with. It should be the goal of every poker player who aspires to profit to know how to control tilt.

I am not the world’s foremost expert on controlling tilt, but I have learned to control it in myself, and have coached players to control it in themselves. It’s not rocket science, but it is absolutely crucial to winning poker.

Here’s the crash course:

1. Understand tilt, deeply
2. Identify what triggers YOUR tilt
3. Outsmart yourself
4. Know yourself
5. Take action

1. Understand tilt, deeply

When you are not on tilt, tilt sounds like a silly concept, not worth much of your time. It is so painfully obvious looking from the outside in, that you probably don’t think about it very much. After all, who needs to? If you’re experiencing some strong emotion which has been caused by poker, you’re on tilt. Ta-da!

It’s not that simple.

When you are experiencing an emotion, you are almost always unaware of it. That’s not good for your poker game.

Good poker is reacting to observations, insights, and facts. Bad poker is reacting to how we feel at that moment. When we are playing good poker, we are playing with our brain and our insights. When we are playing bad poker, we are reacting to our emotions.

Here are a few common psychological reactions to a hostile environment:

• Something goes terribly wrong and hurts you. You become angry, and you react against the creator of this situation. The last thing you want to do is admit to yourself (or anybody else!) that you’re angry or that you’ve been harmed.
• Despite your best efforts for hours on ends, things just aren’t going your way. You become down, feeling blue. You don’t want to interact with much, become bored, and dodge questions. The last thing which will feel “natural” is picking yourself up and moving on emotionally.
• You just made some great moves, and you have been playing what feels like your A-game, for a solid 2 hours. But there is just this one guy, and he is playing back at you, and doing his best to make your evening terrible. You become frustrated with this player, that you cannot beat him, that despite your efforts, you are left unrewarded. You’ve played a winning game, and your stack has lost? How fair is that! You become hell-bent on fixing the problem and ignore all outside observations.

If you want to control your tilt, you have to be smarter and stronger than these emotions and all the other emotions you will feel during the game. As you know, emotions can be both incredibly strong and surprisingly sneaky.

If you want to turn a profit, take tilt seriously. Because whether you want it this way or not, your emotions are already a huge part of your game.

2. Identity what triggers YOUR tilt:
What puts you on tilt is different from everybody else. This is big. Your tilt is different from Phil Hellmuth’s tilt (thank goodness!) and from Phil Ivey’s (yes, even he goes on tilt). While there will be common themes to your tilt triggers (such as your opponent spiking the only card in the deck to make their full house on the river), what puts you over the edge is what puts YOU over the edge.

The next time you play, keep a notepad nearby. As you play, write down commentary on the hands you’re playing and when you hit that stretch of bad cards, or you play that terrible hand, or you face a donkey suck-out, write about it. Write about everything. Analyze yourself and discover what made you mad, what made you frustrated, what made you want to target that other player. Was it the snarky attitude? The 2% suck-out? That you played badly and you’re beating yourself up about it?

There’s not a lot of pressure here. Just keep a running commentary and when the inevitable frustrating run of cards comes by, comment to yourself about it. Easy, and very powerful, insights are created this way, in a natural environment.

You can’t skip this step.

3. Outsmart yourself
After a few sessions of analysis (and I suggest you are always keeping a commentary log, for the rest of your poker days, but that is a different matter), formulate a plan. Keep your plan extremely simple, so simple that if this was your second time playing cards, you’d know how to follow it. For example:

1. These are my top three tilt triggers: 1, 2, 3
2. The first time any one of these happen, I will take a stroll away from the table/computer
3. I’ll put my mind on other things, and come back in 10 minutes (but no sooner)

(You can take a stroll, you can smoke a cigarette, you can call a friend, you can eat a granola bar, you can play tetris. But whatever you ever do, do these two things: get up and away from the game, and do something that is not poker for a time. This is essential.)

The goal is [1] to know your triggers, [2] to have an action pre-meditated which you will take to alleviate the stress (simple things like walking for 5 minutes or reading 10 pages in a book), and [3] a time limit for when you are allowed to return to the game. (It’s a simple system, and it has worked for me for many years now.)

Making a plan is easy. Just keep it simple, and write it down. But  what’s not easy are the next two steps to controlling tilt.

4. Know yourself
Know when you’re on tilt.

Admit it. Admit to yourself that you are flawed, that you are emotionally compromised. Admit that you are being beaten by your own emotions, and that they are controlling your game.

Ouch! That is your pride being hurt. It’s okay. It is better to play winning poker with humility, than terrible poker with pride.

The only way to control tilt, is to grab it by the horns and wrestle it to the ground. Know yourself, know when it is happening, and have the guts, the cojones, the wherewithal, the pizzazz, and the steel nerve to say to yourself, in a clear and firm voice, “I am on tilt.”

This is huge and you should be proud of yourself for your honesty.

5. Take action
Admitting to yourself that you are on tilt is hard. Very hard. Once you’ve done it, do something about it.

Before you got on tilt, and because you are a wise, profitable, and ambitious poker player, you already formulated a plan to outsmart yourself (remember step 3?). Here, put it into action.

If you do aspire to control your tilt, you need to understand tilt deeply (step 1!), you need to be able to quantify what is putting you on tilt (step 2!), you need a plan (step 3!), and you need the guts to say you are on tilt (step 4!). But none of that will bear any fruit until, like all things, you put your plan into action (step 5!).

It is worth its own step, taking action, because you must deliberately and willfully pre-meditate and choose to take an action which, in all likelihood, will be contradicting all of your emotions at the moment. You are mad! You want to get even! You want to win it all back! However. If you have made a plan which includes an accurate analysis of yourself, then you can confidently make the right decision to temporarily ignore your emotions, and take constructive action (e.g. taking a stroll, doing something non-poker for a few minutes).

As a sidenote, you shouldn’t expect to pull this off perfectly the first time you try to implement it. It takes practice. But what you should expect, is that the more conscious and intentional you become about controlling your tilt, the more you analyze yourself, and the more willpower you develop, the more profit you will create every time you play this fascinating game.

And there you have it, in highly condensed form, a sensible approach to controlling your tilt!

Extra:
Here is Phil Hellmuth, becoming totally and completely emotionally compromised by his opponent:

Click here to view the embedded video.

One of Hellmuth’s tilt triggers is revealed at the very end of the clip, where Hellmuth says, “To you it’s just poker. To me, it’s my life.”

“A chip and a chair” is all you need to make your comeback. And in 2011, there are already some serious underdogs writing their own comeback stories …

Chris Moneymaker
The one-time-lucky, seven-year-bust, comeback-accountant

Who doesn’t know the story of Chris Moneymaker? He is likely the single greatest reason for poker’s popularity boom in the last 8 years. As a total unknown in 2003, and working as an accountant in Tennessee, Moneymaker bought into a $39 satellite tournament on PokerStars. He ended up winning a seat a the World Series of Poker Main Event, the most revered and coveted tournament in the world, and became a legend.

Moneymaker bested a field of 838 players. In the final heads-up match, he faced Sammy Farha, a well-known and highly successful poker celebrity. Moneymaker took first place, and the enormous $2.5 million grand prize. He quit his job to become a professional poker player, and went on to live the dream!

But, Moneymaker was a total bust.

From 2005 through most of 2008, Moneymaker didn’t record just about any live tournament cash worth talking about. In 2008, he recorded two cashes for just over $150k. In 2009, he recorded one cash for $15k. Considering living expenses, and regular poker losses, these types of cashes after 4 years of running dry were nothing but blips on the radar. (2010? No real cashes.) People have looked at Moneymaker as an amateur who got lucky once, and just didn’t have what it takes to be a regular winner. Generating mostly losses for seven years (not like he couldn’t afford to) does not earn you respect.

Enter 2011… Moneymaker hired a mental coach. He began leaning on his experience of 8 years of regular play. He developed strategies, and studies regularly. Moneymaker has decided to stop being a lucky player, and start being a smart one. The result? 2011 is only three months in, and he won second place in the National Heads up Championship (to the tune of a cool $300,000) and 11th place in the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure Main Event (for a respectable $130,000). In these three short months, he has pulled in more significant tournament money than in the entire seven years prior.

His rate of winning far exceeds anything he has ever accomplished to date, and his consistent performances suggest a totally new style of play. With determination, and the willingness to invest in developing his skill, Moneymaker has taken a whole new tack and completely upended all the negative opinions. Moneymaker is on the comeback trail, and just might be earning the respect of poker professionals by the end of 2011.

Patrik Antonius
The Finnish Rollercoaster

2009 was the year of Patrik Antonius. Up $9 million, almost all of it in online winnings, the Finnish pro put up a stellar performance. But later that year, he admitted in an interview that he “lost millions, millions, millions of dollars with other stuff last year.”

2010 didn’t get any better. He lost $3.6 million in the year from high stakes cash games alone, going nowhere about as fast as you can go. In addition to his poker losses, Antonius reportedly lost millions in sports bets, and millions on the golf course. To cap it all off, Antonius began suffering seriously from his back problems, and was forced to attend rehabilitation sessions twice a day. Antonius summed it all up pretty simply: “I hate these moments when everything just goes bad.”

That’s what they call a tailspin.

Enter 2010… Antonius plays Draw Poker. A lot of Draw Poker. It’s March, and he’s won more almost $2 million at this game alone. With his other online poker efforts, he pulled in by the end of February a huge $3 million in profit. That’s more than Moneymaker made in one of the world’s largest tournaments in 2003!

Let’s put this in perspective: last year in March, Antonius was negative $3 million. That is a $6 million difference year-to-date. That is more money than most people will earn in two lifetimes! Antonius credits his intense focus and work ethic for his ability to create such a turnaround. But come on Patrik, what poker secret do you know that we don’t? Regardless, we’ve only got respect for a player who can comeback like this.

Just remember poker players: no matter how bad it gets (losing $3 million in three months is pretty bad!), there is always another comeback story waiting to be written. All you need is a chip and a chair…

Chris Moneymaker photo, The Telegraph
Patrik Antonius photo, Poker Player.co.uk

This change of heart was largely prompted by the overwhelming support the formerly homeless Huggins has received from the gaming community. Spearheading his campaign are pro’s like Justin “BoostedJ” Smith and Daniel Negreanu.

Noted spokesman “PokerStars Steve” posted the following message on his TwoPlusTwo account just a few days ago:

“The seven Loose Cannons scheduled for the February, 2011 taping of The PokerStars.net Big Game are:

Gonzales Cannon II – Sacramento, CA
Courtney Gee – Vancouver BC
Jared Huggins – Los Angeles, CA
Massimiliano Martinez – Rome, Italy
Cari Bershell – Las Vegas, NV
Kenneth Hrankowski – Vancouver BC
Anton Dunyushkin – Moscow, Russia

Not all of the above will necessarily appear. Fewer than 7 LC’s may get to play if another LC wins and decides to come back for a second day.

The list above is not necessarily in order of appearance or schedule.”

So, the thrust of things here is that, while he’s not absolutely guaranteed a spot, it’s a safe bet that Huggins has a television appearance in his near future. The folks at PokerStars have a nose for publicity, and a show featuring such a heartwarming story would certainly make for increased traffic and television ratings.

For those who may not know his story, Huggins first emerged on the TwoPlusTwo forums under the user name “Relaxed Precision.” After moving to Los Angeles and being plagued by illness, he lost his apartment, bankroll, and each of his three jobs in February 2010. Living out of his car, the young man earned spare money by making videos in which he offered “Free Hugs” to passersby. Support swelled around Huggins who, at several points throughout the ordeal, seriously considered ending his own life.

But now, thanks to his own strength and courage, it appears that Huggins has his life back on track. And who knows? Maybe a career as a full-time poker professional could be somewhere down the road.

“It’s all in the cards” – What a load of baloney. As any devout poker player knows, the cards play a more minor role than most outsiders would ever believe. While the game’s practitioners and devotees have long been aware of this distinction, it seems as though the court of public opinion is finally beginning to swing our way. More than ever, individuals and entire nations are beginning to see that a winner’s edge comes not from the two pieces of paper in his or her hand, but from the quick computations and sharp observations made regarding their opponents.

Indeed, as David Sklansky, author of “The Theory of Poker” states, “expert players do not rely on luck. They are at war with luck. They use their skills to minimise luck as much as possible.”

Let’s be honest. The only reason that the United States government has shown reluctance to classify poker as a skill game is this – If poker is a game of skill, then it cannot be taxed and regulated as heavily as they want. Oddly enough, while the UIGEA legislation classifies poker as a game of chance, where the outcome is largely based on chance, it allows both horse racing and stock trading to go on unmolested.

Consider a study conducted in 2009 of more than 100,000,000 hands at PokerStars. Cigital, the company performing the test, found that 75% of the hands were decided before the players flipped over their cards. This is a strong argument that it is betting pattern and posture rather than hand strength which decides the outcome of any given match.

One of the game’s leading proponents, it happens, hails not from the felt, but from the chessboard. International grandmaster Garry Kasparov, widely recognized as the world’s best chess player, has spoken publicly about poker’s status as a skill game. Indeed, he has noted that poker may be a better teacher of risk/reward management, since players must base their decisions on incomplete information. In chess, he argues, players can see all the pieces. In poker, participants must pay more attention to the opponent and their actions, since the value of their hand is almost always hidden.

Thankfully for America’s poker populace, this movement seems to be gaining traction at a steady pace. It is up to each and every member of the playing community to nurture this new found acceptance. Play with pride and consideration. Take this as an opportunity to step up your game, and prove to the world that once and for all, poker is a game of skill.

Jerry Buss Goes Pro

77-year old Jerry Buss, who happens to own the Los Angeles Lakers in the way you and me would own a watch or a bottle of cologne (a very profitable watch or a bottle of cologne that is), decided to become a poker pro recently. Money could definitely not have been a motivation, because dear Jerry is a billionaire, after all. Billions, I’m telling you, billions!!! Well, at least Doyle has some companionship of age in the poker circuit now.

But before you dismiss Jerry as just a billionaire looking for excitement in his life, and therefore probably a fish in the games, think again. A gifted mind, Jerry has earned a Master of Science and a PH. D. in Chemistry at the age of just 24. Jerry placed 3rd in a 1991 WSOP 7-Card Stud event for a bracelet. To date, Jerry has won just a bit north of $150,000 in his tourney poker endeavors. Peas in a pod for him, but very significant money for common folk like you and me.

Jerry is no cash game slouch either, since he has also appeared on numerous episodes of NBC’s Poker After Dark and GSN’s High Stakes Poker. In High Stakes Poker in particular, he was part of the original lineup of players. And he has been a very tough opponent in the games, not exactly someone the other regulars such as Doyle Brunson, Gus Hansen, Phil Ivey, Patrik Antonius, David Benyamine, Antionio Esfandiari and Phil Laak among many are looking forward to sit at the table with.

You have to understand just how much of a poker aficionado Jerry is that he could have made this decision. Under his direction, his NBA team has been very successful. He has employed many hall of famers over the years, including Kareem Abdul Jabbar, Earvin “Magic” Johnson, James Worthy and also none other than The Shaq himself. And the team has brought home a ton of titles, possibly rivaled only by the Boston Celtics and the Chicago Bulls. The Lakers are pretty much known worldwide. He has also at times been owner or part owner of several other professional teams such as the Los Angeles Lazers, World Team Tennis, Los Angeles Kings, and also the Los Angeles Sparks.

While his current LA Lakers, under the lead of Kobe Bryant, Pau Gasol and Lamar Odom were taking down a championship in Staples Center last year, he was seated at a table in the Bicycle Casino playing poker. The guy loves the game, and now he will dedicate himself full time to it.

It’s so great being a billionaire, and Jerry definitely does good deeds with his money. For example in January of 2008, Jerry donated about $7,500,000 to the USC Dept. of Chemistry to fund a couple of endowed chairs and a full scholarship fund for chemistry grad students. Yo Jerry, can you take me in your private jet to the next WSOP Main Event? Stake me please?

I also wonder if Jerry will be dishing out the terror on us online or if it will be a strictly live thing.

Oh, and readers, please don’t hate, instead appreciate. The guy is living the life, enjoying it to the fullest. Best of luck Jerry, go and pwn those donks!

The incredible part is that yours truly has foretelling powers. I foretold that this would happen, and why it would happen. You can read more if you take a read into our friendly community, located here. The wiretapping act is an excellent example. And sadly, so is our beloved poker.

The issue at hand is once again if what we know for certain is actually true. Is poker actually a game of skill, making it legal, or a game of chance, making it illegal?

In Pennsylvania, they have recently made poker and other table games legal in all casinos . But, prior to this, Allan Richard Campbell and his wife Caro, both coming from McDonald, Pennsylvania, near Pittsburgh, would host poker games in their garage for a long time. Both of them received sentences from U.S. District Judge David Cercone on the basis of running an illegal sports betting and lottery-style gambling ring. Good thing we are not in the prohibition era or they would have slammed them on alcohol charges too. As punishment, Mr. Campbell received a sentence of 17 months (despite the best efforts of the prosecution who wanted a sentence of no less than two years) in federal prison. Mr. Campbell is 72 years old. Mrs. Campbell, on her own part, received two years probation. Yup, they brought down the banhammer alright.

Mr. Campbell pled guilty to several conspiracy charges, including conspiracy to engage in illegal gambling, money laundering, falsification of income tax documents (a favorite of many a prosecutor) and illegal possession of a gun by a convicted felon. Next to his 17 months in prison, the US government seized a ton of his assets, including $250,000 in cash, 8 vehicles, and upwards of 5 figures in savings bonds.

Both Mr. and Mrs. Campbell had a record of prior convictions for running illegal gambling operations, which seems to be the reason that the prosecutors would seek such tough sentences for the two oldies.

But there is more. Recently, an appeals court would overturn the ruling, declaring that poker is a game of skill. In a game of skill, even if you are wagering with money, it is not considered gambling because it’s a part of the game. A three panel judge voted, and it came down to a 2 to 1 decision that Columbia/Montour County Judge Thomas James Jr. erred when he said that poker, as we know it, is not a game of chance because the outcome of the game depends more upon the skill of the players involved rather than chance. This was huge. If there was no gambling involved it would be impossible to be running gambling rings, now would it?

But luck had it that this group of judges saw sense, and these old timers would walk.

But you just know a cog will be thrown into that smooth moving machinery, the only question is when. And it happened, just two days after Judge Thomas James Jr. showed a bit of knowledge in the matter. Judge Kate Ford Elliott and Senior Judge Robert Freedberg (Senior Judge Robert Colville dissented) basically said that poker, as we know it, is a game of chance. They cited the opinions of other courts, in the ultimate case of the blind leading the deaf and the deaf leading the mute, who ruled that while there is some skill involved, poker is and will always remain a game of chance. Someone should send an SMS to Phil Ivey telling him that, and also message his opponents that they should not fear his skill, but only his massive luckbox.

So now, the Campbell couple is back at square one. Stay tuned and we will bring you more (rather opinionated, but correct AND accurate!) information on the matter. Remember folks: poker is unique in that it combines luck and skill. The only thing is that luck, when it manifests itself, does make its presence felt with the force of an earthquake, while skill is always present in the game but much more subdued. We have all seen hole-in-ones in golf, but we cannot ever say that someone who scores a hole in one does so because he is just that skilled, right? Or hitting for the cycle in baseball? Luck is always involved in everything, but those with skill will always prevail. That is reality.

Building on the success of his critically acclaimed “Hold’em Wisdom for All Players”, Daniel Negreanu has returned for a second round.

In the aptly named “More Hold’em Wisdom for All Players”, Kid Poker presents readers with 50 additional playing tips. As with the first volume, each bit of wisdom is presented in a clear, easy to understand fashion. Retailing for $14.95 US, you’d be hard pressed to find a better read for the money.

I admit that I sort of missed the boat on this book. It was released in 2008, but I’ve just now discovered it on the shelves at my local bookstore. His original book of wisdom was one of the formative influences on my young poker career, and the second dose promises to be just as enlightening.

So why bother bringing it to you now? Because I figured that if I managed to miss this book, you might have, too! And trust me, this is one book that you’ll want in your poker bookshelf. While the first “Wisdom” focused on more entry-level concepts, Negreanu tackles quite a few more advanced concepts in his second go-around.

These include some against-the-grain ideas, as presented in chapters like “Giving Away a Free Card”, “Dumbing it Down”, and “Selling a Poker Hand is Like Selling a Car.”

The book itself is broken into four sections: “Winning Tournaments with Smart Play”, “Playing Your Players, Your Position, and (Oh, Yes) Your Cards”, “Betting and Bluffing With No Fear”, and “What’s the Best Play? Using Poker Wisdom as Your Guide.” Each of these contain between 12 and 13 segments, all of which are informative and insightful.

Formerly winning players who have lost their way of late will especially enjoy the “Fancy Play Syndrome” section, found on page 80. According to Negreanu, Mike Caro was the first man to use FPS as a regular term describe players who have forgotten some of the basic lessons of the game, and are now being a little too cute for their own good. It’s an enlightening read, one that could put you back on the path to poker proficiency.

Bottom line: Whether you’re an aspiring pro or a veteran looking for a refresher, you owe it to yourself to pick up “More Hold’em Wisdom for All Players.”

]]> http://www.flopturnriver.com/blogs/negreanu-returns-with-50-more-tips-in-new-book-12347/feed 0 http://www.flopturnriver.com/blogs/vc-poker-limits-winning-players-12162 http://www.flopturnriver.com/blogs/vc-poker-limits-winning-players-12162#comments Wed, 03 Feb 2010 17:08:57 +0000 PokerJanitor http://www.flopturnriver.com/blogs/?p=12162 In a desperate attempt to get in line with iPoker’s impending policy changes, VC Poker has banned several dominant players from its cash games. Some of the site’s more accomplished winners have been notified via email that their money will no longer buy them a seat outside of tournament play.

Normally, I’d provide some sort of in-depth analysis of this situation, but I think their message pretty much speaks for itself. The email reads as follows:

“If you are not already aware iPoker will be implementing a new policy in the New Year which will categorize players depending upon certain criteria. The new policy will also impose penalties upon card rooms that in essence, have a high proportion of winning players in relation to losing players.

“Regrettably therefore, we are being forced to restrict a number of accounts in order to comply with the new policy and to avoid penalization by iPoker and it grieves me to inform you that we have no option for the time being other than to restrict the cash game stakes at which you can play on Victor Chandler Poker.

“We sincerely regret having to take this action and hope that the policy will change in the future so that you may once again enjoy playing cash games at Victor Chandler Poker. In the meantime, please accept our apologies for any inconvenience that this action will cause but know that you can still play in our tournaments and on any other of the Victor Chandler suite of products.”

So, what’s happening here is this: If you’ve made more withdrawals than deposits, you’re probably on VC’s watch list. iPoker has decided to put their focus back into attracting casual players who, since they are usually losing payers, bring more revenue to the company. Poker rooms on their network who have more winners than losers will be penalized.

This, of course, will mean the end of rakeback. While the company has not officially sanctioned the practice, it continued to exist in many “under the table” skins on the network. This came at a cost to all of iPoker’s other clients who played rakeback-free.

Other notable gaming sites such as Party Poker and Poker Stars have found ways to reward customer loyalty without awarding rakeback. So, while this may at first seem like a desperate move by VC, it is one that will probably strengthen their network in the long run.

Most of my recent blogs have been geared toward live poker. However, since we’re in an online environment, I felt that it was high time that I gave some tips and tricks to help you in the internet age.

We’ve all fallen prey to the common ills of online poker – playing while you’re too tired, playing for too many hours, forgoing meals or hydration, or sitting at the table with too many thoughts swimming in our heads. Here are a few simple tips that are guaranteed to make you feel better at the digital felt.

Rule #1: No Alcohol.

This holds true for live players as well. You may think that you’re a better player while under the influence of intoxicants, but you’re not. It’s strictly biological. Your response times slow and your focus decreases. While it can be tempting to get up and pop the top on a beer while your table’s on break, this is always a bad idea. It’s a lesson I learned the hard way. You might as well guzzle your bankroll.

Rule #2: Be Calm.

Sitting down at the poker table is not the best way to blow off steam. If you’re already in a bad mood, poker most likely will not make you feel better. It isn’t like a live tournament, where you have a set time at which you must begin, regardless of your health or mood. You’re playing online because you choose to, when you choose to. Don’t sit down when you’re not feeling right. You’ll chase bad hands and your play will suffer.

Rule #3: Be Comfortable.

This should be a no-brainer. Can you play with a room full of friends shouting in the background? Sure, if that’s what puts you at ease. For most players, however, I’d recommend finding a quiet place with a minimum of outside distractions. Pick a favorite couch or chair, and settle in for a few hours. Make sure you have everything you need so that you won’t have to get up from your machine every ten minutes. If you find yourself losing in one particular area of your house, move to another. A change of scenery can sometimes bring out the best.

Rule #4: Music?

This is a tricky one. I don’t listen to music when I play live, as I prefer to listen to my opponents. However, I do enjoy some background noise when I’m competing online. Pick your playlist with care. Does thrash metal put you in the right mood? Maybe if you’re the ultra-agressive type. For myself, I prefer something smoother. Maybe jazz, folk, or some low-key techno. At times, I’ve also been known to have Tool or Chevelle playing in my headphones. Listen to what you feel like hearing. If you’re not feeling the flow, then change your tunes. If you’re in a tense situation (heads up, final table, etc.), it may be better to simply go without.

Rule #5: Be Flexible.

As I’ve said several times, comfort is essential. If you’re not relaxed, then fix whatever it is that’s causing your discomfort. You’re in your own home – you’re in control of your environment. Nagging distractions will only hinder your play.

Rule #6: It’s Still Money.

If nothing else, this should be your biggest motivator when it comes to finding your comfort zone. Just because your bankroll is made of digital money doesn’t make it any different than the cash in your wallet or purse. You can buy just as many things with your online funds as you can with your real money. Don’t throw it away just because it isn’t tangible. Be smart – nurture that online nest-egg.

Rule #7: No Excuses.

Playing online does not give you extra leeway when it comes to making bad plays. Digital cards, despite what you may think, do not tend to fall any differently than real ones. Don’t chase hands or pots that you’d normally avoid in a live game. Don’t disobey the basic rules of the game just because you can’t see the faces of your foes. It’s bad play, and you know what that does to a bankroll.

That’s what I’ve got. Take it from someone who’s made (and recovered from) all of the ills above. Play the right way, every time, and you’ll eventually come out on top.