blonde poker forum

I am going to be working on getting through The Mental Game of Poker by the end of June 2013.  There is just so much interesting stuff to discuss and there have been some great contributions on this forum so far.

I plan to put in some time every fortnight and work my way through the eight chapters.  It is not necessary to read the book chronologically, so I will focus on my own immediate issues. 

I may branch of into seperate threads if I feel a particular subject calls for it and use this one to hold the flow together.  Depends if people thinks that makes sense or whether I should keep everything here.

I have a blog to finish, called 'I Wish' by the end of this week and another coaching session to catch up on.  I should be ready to sit down for a couple of hours with TMGOP book again next week.

GL in 2013 all.

I hope this thread can gain some legs.

Good luck with this Mr Blue.

You may have struck gold, as one of the co-authors of the book is a regular - nay, esteemed - Member & Poster here, most especially when sober.

Yes - I have had some help from Barry last year with blogging and ocassionally talk on Twitter/FB.  Thanks for the encouragement Tikay.

Oh - and Mark is fine.

My first book of 2013 so will read this too with interest

I picked it up and only put it down 3 days later when id finished... Great book imo

Thanks for starting the thread Mark, although I'm a shameless spammer on the social interweb I tend to avoid doing it on Blonde, just because its my fave forum. However since you started the thread I guess it would be rude not to post  :)

Jared and I are currently working on book number 2, its all different material, but his overall body of work is currently very fresh in my mind as a result. So any questions post away.

The manner in which you are approaching it, ie. over six months, I think is a fantastic way to do it. Jared's material is not the sort of stuff you can digest in one read, so I think you've nailed that aspect.

Jared's even more busy than I am with the book, especially as he has started doing a podcast, but he does come onto Blonde now and then so I'll get him to say hi at some point.

Chance for a bit more spam- is there a version i can download for my Iphone. I often get time at work where I could read and carrying a book itsn't compatible in an engineering environment. All that nasty grease and dirt stuff you know.  Will be following this thread with interest as this is deffo one of the books i need to read.

Mods - if at any point I cross the spam line, just delete the post and tell me off, I apologize in advance.

Yes, it is available on every single ebook format that I can think of - kindle, nook, itunes, epub. All of which you can get on your phone. Kindle is most popular, just do a search on Amazon.

It is also available on audiobook, and if you are new to Audible (Amazons audiobook site) you can actually get it for free, details here (http://jaredtendlerpoker.com/mental-game-of-poker/free-copy-of-tmgp-audiobook/) .

Thanks Mr Shoelace.
 Looking forward to the first post on the book by Mr Vblue. Should make for a very interesting thread.

Don't be daft Barry, carry on as much as you like. You are a solid-gold Member, you don't ever cause the Mods a moments trouble, & you don't come here solely for the purposes of spamming as so many do, you contribute a balanced range right across all the Boards. We are proud to have a book author amongst us, even if he does hail from Yorkshire.

Spamming a book you co-penned causes no conflict of interest whatsoever.

The only spamming issues we have are with those who, for example, come here solely to promote Live Venues & Fessies not associated with our Sponsor, DTD.  Plus, of course, folks who post "what is the best rakeback deal I can get on PKR?" or somesuch. That is not intentional spamming, but just arises from lack of thought by the Poster. 


(http://i1147.photobucket.com/albums/o541/tikay2/thementalgameofpoker.jpg)

PS - as a would be/wannabe author myself, interested in the low-volume e-publishing route, I have to add........


(http://i1147.photobucket.com/albums/o541/tikay2/TMGOP.jpg)

 ;letsparty;


The Mental Game of Poker is definitely on Kindle (http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Mental-Game-Poker-ebook/dp/B005RZRHDG/ref=tmm_kin_title_0?ie=UTF8&qid=1357166153&sr=8-1 (http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Mental-Game-Poker-ebook/dp/B005RZRHDG/ref=tmm_kin_title_0?ie=UTF8&qid=1357166153&sr=8-1)), I bought the Kindle version a few months ago.

Ahh, my apologies, thanks Andy.

So we CAN get The Mental Game of Poker on Kindle?


(http://i1147.photobucket.com/albums/o541/tikay2/thementalgameofpoker.jpg)

Thread works, just gone to the jungle and bought this! Heard nothing but good things so hurry those 2-4 working days delivery.

Ha!

I bags half the Royalties on that copy please Carter.

Aw shucks thanks for the kind words Tikay.

We do indeed have it on Kindle, I know because I was really resistant to it at first, I thought it was just going to open the floodgates to piracy. As it happens, not the case, far from it. Most people would rather pay for the convenience of not having to go through piracy sites and it outsells softcover 2-1.

Hows things going with your own book btw Tikay?

Sneak peek, to give you an idea

(http://img40.imageshack.us/img40/184/81ahvamopylaa1500.jpg) (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/40/81ahvamopylaa1500.jpg/)

(Thats the end of my spamming btw Mark, continue)

Barry - great to have you have on the thread and a very kind offer to help with questions.

Just to give a background to the work I have done with Jared - I have attended a 'live' online training session which I have a recording of (not available for copies so please do not ask) where I got to ask questions and get some individual replies.  Also, I have had individual responses from Jared through another training site (I won't spam either so won't promote who that was with).  To get this kind of 1:1 for free or next to free has been amazing and really helped me with such things as Confidence & Motivation (two big subjects in TMGOP) and setting up things like a Process Model to ensure I have a routine for Pre-Game, and Post-Game Evaluation & Analysis (more on this as I come to it in the book).

Thanks to all who have shown an interest.  I am going to be taking on a lot of different training in this first month of 2013 alongside some longer-term training and the ongoing approach to improving Mental Game.

Painfully slow.

I also lack an adequate vocab range to write a book well, which I'm trying to cure by using a Thesaurus a lot in my everyday stuff. Bit hard to learn new stuff (& retain it) at my age though.

Some of the best books I've read were very simple and direct with the vocabulary, nothing puts me off a book more than someone tripping over their words showing off (Case in point, I'm a massive Derren Brown fan, but put his biography down after three pages for that reason).

IMO just write the thing out and then refine it afterwards.

Just got the Derren Brown autobiography too (that means a book what someone writes about their own life for Tikay's reference) and tickets for the new show, Infamous in March.

His tricks of the mind book is excellent, but the Bio, good luck with that.

Live show is amazing, high recommended.

Very apt post on this subject.  Just a 'bonus material' type link - http://jaredtendlerpoker.com/blog/making-new-years-resolutions-stick/

New book looks excellent. Topics covered are quite intriguing.
What timescale are we looking for the release?

I have just got around to actually starting to read this boo. Any advice?

Read it from cover to cover first then go back and work on the process model etc?

Either way works. Its not that difficult to read cover to cover first
then go back to parts you wish to review. some interesting concepts within.

I spoke to my old chess coach about this as he has written a few books in his time. He states the obvious: who are you writing for?

People who know who you are will have seen you on TV and will be expecting that persona to come through, so writing ebulliently (but not necessarily writing the word "ebulliently") is all that your audience might want.

The people who don't know you from Adam might not be fussed about having to have a dictionary to-hand.

I hasten to add I didn't speak to my old coach about you, Tikay; it was a year or two ago, when I was thinking of writing a few articles and submitting them to local newspapers.

Barry's articles are a good case in point (Barry, look away now if your posterior prefers being smoke-free): they are written in a way even the most recreational of players can take something out of them* but you know very quickly that this is an intelligent author who is comfortable and confident in his subject matter.


*my take on it is the technical side tends to come from a real-life experience or a relatable problem the audience will likely either have encountered or can easily imagine. The story drags them in and makes them more receptive to the technical info that follows - tell me if I'm wrong tho!

Advice number one is stick with this thread as I start to work through the elements of my mental game I want to improve.

I have done some work on setting up a Process Model, looking at getting a Preparation routine in place, a post-session Evaluation, and thinking about what Analysis I want to do each week in between sessions.

Preparation - How do you prepare? What do you do before you start a session playing poker? Physical preparation and/or mental preparation? Inspirational - listening to a piece of music/reviewing goals? Setting session goals? Reviewing hands?
 
Evaluation - How do you evaluate your session performance? When do you do this (straight afterwards is Jared's recommendation)? What elements of your play do you evaluate (I have introduced a scoring system evaluating Concentration, Focus, Session Goals, Tilt, Decision Making).  I don't know how this is going to help me yet though.
 
Analysis - How much time do you spend in between sessions? What do you evaluate? How does it help? What tools/forums/etc do you use?
 

It should be released in April, we have almost finished writing it.

Cheers. Enjoyed the first book, trust you both let rip here and spill all the beans mental game wise.
Poker shelf is bowing certainly room for this though.

Looking forward to the new book the first one I am reading at the moment and it is really good. I certainly see why everybody recommends it

OK - I'm going to have a go at getting this thread to work in the way I set out on Page 1.  The difficulty is that there is sooooo much good stuff in each chapter, on each page, that it hard to summarise, but also I do not want to just plagiarise the whole text.

The process I go through when working on things like this in my game is to read the chapter, then go back through it taking notes, and then I work from those notes working concepts into my game.  Sounds a little long-winded but it works for me.

Chapter One

Is an Introduction to Mental Game.  To sum it up in the most succinct way I can - mental game is much like your poker game.  You can work on your deficiencies if you can address what they are and get the right information.  Luckily for us, Jared Tendler & Barry Carter are the right information.  I will quote two lines from this opening chapter which illustrate this point and an other big message in the opening chapter:

'Tilt, fear, motivation, and confidence do not happen for random, illogical, or irrational reasons.  If you think that you simply lack the skill to see how it's predictable and rational'.

'Actions, thoughts, and emotions lead you to play your best or worst.' - I will come on to this second message further in the next chapter where we discuss something called The Process Model.

There is a list of Mental Game fish traits - thankfully I don't do any of these (any more).  A classic mistake would be 'reading a poker book cover to cover and think you know everything in it'.  A classic tilt 'get frustrated when a bad player plays badly and even educate them as to why they are bad'.

There is also a dispelling of myths, which I think many people will have believed at some point, such as 'emotions are a problem and need to be blocked out at all times', or 'you should always quit if you think you are about to tilt'.

The close is a 'How To Use This Book'.  Of course, it takes time to achieve mental game growth so you must work systematically and methodically as I have set out to do ITT.  Look at the quick fix smaller issues first so you can make some progress quickly, then work through most cost, most frequent, and those that cause the most emotional turmoil.  The most important tip I took was to do what works; we are all different.

I'll be back in a week or two with the first few pieces of work we can do to improve our mental game:

The Adult Learning Model - how we learn new skills to a competent level
Inchworm - an approach to improving our poker game
The Process Model - the stages we follow pre-game, in-game, and post-game

Of course, anyone who wants to follow this journey should buy the book or get the audio free from Jared's website will the offer remains.

Please join in now with any comments, queries, or questions.

Bought the book tonight after seeing this thread a few days ago so will be able to pass comment a little bit more when I have started reading it, but I am hoping for BIG things from it in helping me work and understand my game more and more!!

Apologies for bumping an old thread but it looks like you haven't been able to follow through on this.

I don't want this to appear like a rub in any way, the reason I ask is because I have massive problems with this as well. I get an idea, I half-heartedly follow through on it for the next few days or weeks but it inevitably fizzles out relatively soon. Are you still working on the book but have just failed to update the thread?

Hi wazz.  Yes - and thanks for bumping this.

I guess at the time I was trying to do quite a lot in one go and reaching out to different forums to try and amass as much involvement and feedback as I could.  I was a little unsure of how to proceed and probably discouraged when not too many people posted to say they would be interested in joining me on this.

I then got lazy with some coaching and mental game work and was finding it hard to play 2 nights and also study 1 due to stuff at home, etc.

I have a mate who has just got TMGOP and is interested in doing something.  Maybe skype would work better, but I'm not against using this post again.

I'll look at my calendar and see if I can reschedule coaching and mental game work back into my weekly, or even fortnightly poker diary.

If you ever fancy the crack on skype - I'm mark.luis.varela.  Look me up.