CasinoGaming.com


	Sundays: Inside Gaming Tuesdays: Video Poker Wednesdays: Off the Shelf Fridays: Richard Eng, Player's Edge Saturdays: Pocket Aces

POCKET ACES

Columns

• Back to Maryann's index

• Back to columnists' index

Maryann Guberman has been a writer and editor with many gaming publications, including Sports Form, Card Player, Poker World, Player's Panorama and Systems and Methods. She also has written and edited numerous books on gambling.

Aug 14, 2004

Meditate to Prepare for Poker Success

Money was never a big motivation for me, except as a way to keep score. The real excitement is playing the game -- Donald Trump

Each person who approaches a poker game brings his and her individual motivation. Usually the reasoning is similar -- to play, to compete, to profit -- with the degree of devotion to that reason based on the existent personality.

If, for example, Donald Trump were to buy-in to one of the games in his relatively new cardroom in Gary, Indiana, he likely would be tuned into the more visceral aspect of the game -- the psychological high that comes from winning. On the extreme opposite of the financial scale, a retired retail clerk on a fixed social security income might come to the game in search of suplementing income or to seek companionship or just for a little recreation.

Understanding why you play is the an important factor in helping you reach your goal. But there's no advantage as good as preparation and there's no better way to prepare than through medidation.

Now, before you close this window because you're think we're going to tell you to attend some Buddhist retreat in the Himalayas, stop. Meditation doesn't mean you have to change religions or even get religion. It doesn't mean you have to learn Hindu prayers or chant some mantra. It doesn't mean you have to go to some cloistered area and meditate on your navel. It means simply that you have to find peace within yourself so you can enter your competiton with a clear, defined, alert mind set.

How many times have you heard football players, basketball coaches, and sportscasters use the phrase "not prepared to win." These words are not in reference to skill or knowledge of the game. They are in reference to the mind set, or lack thereof, that helps the knowledge gel and manifest itself into action.

In his book, Think Like a Champion: Building Success One Victory at a Time, Mike Shanahan, who coached the Denver Broncos to two national championship, wrote about the five points of success. At the top of the list was "Preparation is the Key."

Richard J. Davidson conducted a study at Harvard which showed a direct correlation between experience at meditation and the increased ability to focus and maintain attention.

The logical next step, then would be to combine the two recommendation/philosophies and become prepared by meditation or -- putting it into less scary words -- by putting yourself in a relaxed, calm, positive mood. When you learn how to relax and put your mind into a positive mode -- and it takes practice -- you increase your productivity, are able to react faster, you realize heightened perceptual ability, have more energey and less tension. All these outcomes should help your poker game.

The secret to success here is the same as the secret to any success and that's practice. Everyday, you should set aside two 15-minute blocks of time when you can relax and meditate. The two main components of meditation are deep breathing and relaxation. And if you are like the majority, you do neither on an unconscious level.

Within minutes of the onset of deep breathing, relaxation should happen with little or no effort, but it could take weeks before you get so good at these 15 minute sessions that they begin to have an effect on your life.

The web has numerous home-study pages if you want to explore this topic in more detail. Do a quick search, check out the top six or seven sites, and if you have an open mind and are willing to put a little bit of discipline and mental muscle into action, you will realize positive results, and they will be about pleasantly-earned profits, not passing moments of excitement because you played the game -- unless you're The Donald, that is..