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POCKET ACES

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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.

April 11, 2009

Are You Different?

Alan N. Schoonmaker's (Ph.D) name is familiar to players on the poker circuit and to folks who read poker books. He's a scholar who plays poker and writes about it in a fluid, confident tone that both challenges the reader and puts him at ease. (His past works include "Your Worst Poker Enemy," "Your Best Poker Friend" and "The Psychology of Poker.") When he walked in with a copy of his about-to-be-released title ("Poker Winners are Different"), I set it aside because I hadn't played any serious poker in months. (Heavy schedule, not win or loss based.) I had other priorities (heaven forbid!). I intended to get back to it swiftly but with paperwork piling up and not enough hours to deal with the day-to-day toil, the book slid under my line of vision.

Yesterday, though, I ploughed though the list of messages, piles of edits and unfinished articles next to my laptop. I uncovered this book and flipped past the David Sklansky foreword and the acknowledgements and went straight for the introduction to the first section for a cursory glance. Well, let me tell you, this book deserves a lot more than a cursory glance, and I say that after reading just the first introduction.

Schoonmaker begins with a little test of six situations, instructing the reader to read the scenario and then select a decision from the listed choices, honestly, based on your personal motivation, not what you think someone would recommend. These aren't hard questions but they could be hard answers. I know because I got four of them right (and conversely two of them wrong.) The questions cover a range of poker situations such as what to do the night before you get to play in a big-money final-table challenge such as the World Series of Poker, specifically noting the types of opponents you will face and knowing how difficult it will be to sleep. (Would you have a nip or two of wine, take something to help you sleep, dive into Harrington's book on the end game play, go to bed early or what?) Once you finish answering the questions you can turn to the appropriate appendix to see how your responses stand up.

Getting two answers wrong is critical! That's just 66 percent correct! That's a 33 percent leak in my game. Of course one of the questions was about the final table in a big event, something I'd likely never face. Wait! Don't rationalize! Poker's poker, whether it's at your kitchen table, at Joe's Crab Shack, in the expansive room at The Venetian or under the lights at the World Poker Tour.

It doesn't matter if you're in a hand against your best friend or a person who can't stand you or the most obnoxious pro on the tournament circuit. Poker's poker and playing at a 66 percent level is not good enough.

Interestingly, in the very beginning of the book the good doctor prints a fact that should have been splashed across the cover. He reports that research done by two independent online poker sites prove that shows only 7 or 8 percent of the people who play there are in the black!

Just 8 out of 100 poker players show a profit! Picture the field of players at the 2008 World Series of Poker. Before the final table, the event started with 6,844 hopefuls. Now, look at the stats. Only 544 of them have a real shot at making a profit. I know, this is a silly example. In reality, this huge field is actually the 8 percent. I use the example to give a true perspective here and to indicate how difficult it is to be a poker winner.

Yeah, sad to say, poker winners definitely are different. They are a small group out of a large sample. Out of the 92 percent losers, those who read this book have a shot of increasing the study's numbers so next year perhaps the figure will be 9 or 10 percent.

So, instead of preparing for tomorrow's workload, instead of attacking the spam in my inbox, instead of paying bills, I am reading, carefully, Dr. Schoonmaker's book to help me, as the subtitle promises "Get the Mental Advantage."