The following video is partly entertainment, but I also want to open your eyes to what is possible. Now don´t think this is the “standard” way things go. But as you will see me reasoning and arguing over time, “the main job is to GET THERE”. The main job is to enable yourself to get those opportunities. You will watch the video and think “ok Nate, you haven´t done anything special there” . If you´ve realized this, my work is accomplished. That’s all that I wanted to tell you today. HOW to get there is for another day, another story.

I am working on a system to teach YOU how to do this as well. And no, this is not going to be a get rich quick scheme. I can´t help myself, but to tell you over and over again, that this is the ...]]> As you’ve probably seen, most of my articles so far have been about the poker mindset, the psychology of poker, coaching advice and bankroll management. I´m going to start to implement some Heads up no limit holdem strategy as well. When playing online poker, especially HU, there are certain things that can boost your winrate without much variance.

Open up your eyes to what is possible

The following video is partly entertainment, but I also want to open your eyes to what is possible. Now don´t think this is the “standard” way things go. But as you will see me reasoning and arguing over time, “the main job is to GET THERE”. The main job is to enable yourself to get those opportunities. You will watch the video and think “ok Nate, you haven´t done anything special there” . If you´ve realized this, my work is accomplished. That’s all that I wanted to tell you today. HOW to get there is for another day, another story.

I am working on a system to teach YOU how to do this as well. And no, this is not going to be a get rich quick scheme. I can´t help myself, but to tell you over and over again, that this is the wrong site, if you´re looking for that.

Things don´t always go well, what to do then?

You need a plan. You need to know in advance how much money you are willing to invest. If this goes bad, the guy sucks out, you need to be able to loose 20,000 or even 30,000 USD. This is actually something most people can´t do, without risking their bankroll and leaving solid poker bankroll management on the side.

Having that said: Here, the video, enjoy.

The topic of the short movie “The secret” is what is referred to as the “Law of Attraction”. Basically let me state this right away, the movie is a big bunch of bullshit. But nice fluff, gotta admit that. For more details you can read this overview in Wikipedia .

The first minutes are also free to watch on youtube. Don´t even waste a second on buying this. There´s nothing meaningful to follow. However, I ask you to watch a few minutes of this clip:

Besides the new thoughts/new agey blabla there IS something true, essential and very important to what is called the “Law of Attraction”. What I have found out to be true for myself is that we do attract certain things in our life by the way we act and behave. Also by what we tolerate and especially what we DON´T tolerate.

Which kind of people do you attract in your life?

What does this say about yourself?

One example of the law of attraction would be in my mindset article “getting lucky”. My brother naturally attracts luck.

Some people have told me that they´re always the first ones to get bugged with the most stupid shit. Today I´d advise them right away to think about WHY they ...]]> The Law of Attraction

The topic of the short movie “The secret” is what is referred to as the “Law of Attraction”. Basically let me state this right away, the movie is a big bunch of bullshit. But nice fluff, gotta admit that. For more details you can read this overview in Wikipedia .

The first minutes are also free to watch on youtube. Don´t even waste a second on buying this. There´s nothing meaningful to follow. However, I ask you to watch a few minutes of this clip:

Besides the new thoughts/new agey blabla there IS something true, essential and very important to what is called the “Law of Attraction”.
What I have found out to be true for myself is that we do attract certain things in our life by the way we act and behave. Also by what we tolerate and especially what we DON´T tolerate.

Which kind of people do you attract in your life?

What does this say about yourself?

One example of the law of attraction would be in my mindset article “getting lucky”. My brother naturally attracts luck.

Some people have told me that they´re always the first ones to get bugged with the most stupid shit. Today I´d advise them right away to think about WHY they attract these kinds of people. We would go through certain characteristics that attract lazy bums to bug them. My first guess would be that they´re not good at saying no and give in rather quickly. Giving in quickly and never saying “NO” naturally attracts lots of beggars.

Law of attraction with different sexes

I remember the time when I used to call some girls “bitchy” who weren’t nice and polite to everybody. Today I realize that very few of them are bitchy deep down. Hot girls attract lots of guys. Now assume you´re getting invited to a date 25 times a day. After a while it’s going to piss you off as shit and you have to find some way to get rid of all the people that you DON’T want to attract. Often being bitchy is the way to go. Some really bitchy girls can be THE cool shit.

One very interesting thing is also that we often attract/are attracted by the same kind of girl. People say that to me and I’ve been able to see it through close friends as well. Now if you didn’t like certain traits of your (ex)girlfriend, think critically WHY you attracted them. I love this exercise. It’s a great way to reflect and change things.

How to attract a winner gen

More positively, are you attracting winners?
What in your life, what in your mindset prevents you from attracting massive and abundant wealth (not limited to monetary wealth)? What would you have to change in order to attract what you want?

One way to achieve this is to adapt traits of those who’ve done it. And often this is mistaken as being “not natural” and “bending yourself”. Fuck, it’s not! That’s pride gone wrong. If you´re born with limited moving ability in your fingers you CAN change this. Go and play piano and in a few years people will wonder how you can move your fingers so fast and “naturally”. What if you were born with limited social skills? Yes, you can also change this. To give a little hint, I am talking about myself.

What if you have limited poker skills? How can you attract the ability to win at poker? What about adapting traits from those who´ve proven over time to be winners at this game? I really believe it is that easy.

One “way too simple to be true ” success story

You want a brag story? Here we go. One year ago, a friend of mine was broke. And had a bit of debt due to playing poker habits. We were good friends at that time already, he wasn’t beating poker, since he was studying at university and just fooling around while playing. I hated to see him lose money, while knowing that it can be so easy to satisfy your playing needs (I personally don’t have them) and at the same time MAKE money.
I offered to teach him everything, if he promised me to NEVER be a retard again and gamble. Now all he did was do what I told him to do. Ok, it’s not exactly that easy, but pretty much that easy. Have to admit that guy is pretty damn smart as well, but not completely rational when it comes to playing. 10 months later, out of the last 4 days he´s made over 10k, two times, PER DAY. Has he done anything magical? NO. But what we did was remove every part and tuned him into receiving the wavelength of success.

Conclusion

Now if I tell you to buy PTR hand histories or Kaspersky pure security (see on the right side bar), I bet at least 50% of you suspect some mean money making monster to stand behind those offers. Don´t let anybody fool you into buying things you don´t need. But HAVING A SCARED MINDSET IS NOT ATTRACTING WINNINGS.

In contrast to the movie, let’s demystify the “law of attraction”. Look at it simply in the way “you´ll get what you attract”. If you sow wind, you´ll harvest a storm. There is “variance” in life that might confuse us into thinking it’s random. But I don´t believe it is. Most of the time, you´ll get exactly what you attract.

Every person has their own reality in which they live. Some people´s realities are more congruent with each other, some are less.  One example where you can test another person´s reality is when talking about opportunities and chances in life. Some of my friends’ reality is “in order to do xy, you need this, and that, and here is why this can´t work out, and you better watch out that… “. My reality is “you can do it if you want”.

In most my old school friends’ realities there is no such thing as being your own boss in your twenties. For them this is for movies and for “people with rich parents”. Read the Rich Dad Poor Dad book. I´ve said in other posts that I´m very rational and grounded.  When I say that your reality and the way you think has influence on you, it is not some magic vibes puzzle. If ...]]> Today I´m really excited. I feel like I´m getting closer to where I want to be. Reading a lot in my apartment here in Tel Aviv and I feel that whenever you´re about to take the next step in your poker life, it’s also the time to look back.

1)  My reality of what is possible totally changed

Every person has their own reality in which they live. Some people´s realities are more congruent with each other, some are less.  One example where you can test another person´s reality is when talking about opportunities and chances in life. Some of my friends’ reality is “in order to do xy, you need this, and that, and here is why this can´t work out, and you better watch out that… “. My reality is “you can do it if you want”.

In most my old school friends’ realities there is no such thing as being your own boss in your twenties. For them this is for movies and for “people with rich parents”. Read the Rich Dad Poor Dad book. I´ve said in other posts that I´m very rational and grounded.  When I say that your reality and the way you think has influence on you, it is not some magic vibes puzzle. If you don´t believe in hitting big, you will never hit big. If you don´t believe in miracles, miracles will never happen. This is also the reason why religious people witness many miracles. They expect it. Whether or not it is fiction or not, this article is not about “absolute truth”. I want to emphasize how strongly one´s reality can shape a person.

2) Travelling shaped my personality

When I used to be in school there were not many chances to travel.  Have been many times to USA (grew up in Germany), and a few countries in Europe. But besides USA, I´ve never been in another country longer than 2 weeks. Ok, most people under 18 haven´t. But  always had the urge to move around the world and “see everything”. Gave myself a rule to try to stay at least one month in most places. Sometimes it was shorter, but usually I stayed around 3 months in one country. Every time I saw a new country and got to know different kinds of people, some of my views had to be re-evaluated. People who travel and have travelled talk a different language. It’s weird, almost like you have an own code of conduct. The way you talk and view life is different. One main impact it has on people is making them more open minded and actually less politically correct!

You´ll see me making racist jokes all over. Jews, Blacks, Hispanics, Arabs and especially whimpy French “men”! Ok, to be honest, I´ve always been like that. But deep down I love them and as my Russian great grandma would say: “Everybody is an idiot in their own way”.

3) Poker taught me things about myself

Those of us who have played for a decent amount of time and have experienced the emotional battles can understand best what I´m going to share. I´ve always been an extremely rational person. But at bad times I was taught how vulnerable I am. I was taught about my ego, and learned how to deal with my emotions. I HAD to learn it, because the other option was joining the 99% of people who lose money at this game. There are very few spots where you get the gun pulled into your mouth over and over.

There is the big psychological component in poker. Beginners and spectators will not even realize the magnitude. When I used to start playing and reading stuff like “you, yourself are your biggest opponent”, I was just laughing and thinking those were people who had some deep issues.

Being a great player is about knowing yourself. It’s knowing about your strengths and weaknesses and actually dealing with them. I like to punch you if you just gave me the “it’s obvious smile”. It is, and then it isn´t. I know too many great players who are the living nightmare for most opponents on the table. But they´re broke. Flat broke.

One reason is because they fail to internalize and study their flaws that are presented to them in black & white.
Poker is such a great teacher of life. If you accept the lessons, poker is one of the best teachers.

4) Views on money

The biggest purchase in my life

The irony of life. I grew up as a big nit. Conservative with money. I never bought candy and up to this day I do not eat candy (I only like good chocolate and enjoy eating big “real” meals). I got 50 cents per week since I was in first grade.  Bought myself a watch for 140 after a long time of saving (you do the math). I´ve dreamed about this watch for over a year. It had a universal remote control built in. Ultra high tech at that time. I told nobody, only my best friend about it. Believe me, I had a million years of fun with this watch. Made people believe in ghosts, go nuts and believe I´m some sort of magic entity.

One time at the German chess championships my buddy and myself became celebrities in a 5 star hotel, because they thought we were able to hack into the system and manipulate everything. Changing channels to some love tele-novelas in a sports bar that was filled with men. Creating curse concerts. And of course nobody would suppose it’s that 10ish year old innocent guy, “adjusting the time” on his watch.  Do the math, I saved up like 80 on my own. The rest was a gift from grandparents.

When we watched educational movies in school that were boring, I changed the channel. One time the video recorder “went crazy” (quote from the technician). They bought new equipment… *cough*. Haven´t told them up to this day ;). Could go on forever and ever. If you think I got tired of it… no. I think it a took couple years before I passed on opportunities.

One amazing function was that the clock could also save new infrared signals. So many remote controls work with infrared. My grandma´s garage… ok, you have to know, I can be pretty silly… I hope she can sleep at night. Yeah, what were we talking about?! This money thing.

Talking about money

The irony of all is that the less money you have, the more important it seems to be. Today I don´t care as much. Not because the pockets are full. I often get accused that “you can only talk like this because you got some dough. Some of us have to earn it the hard way”. That’s flat out WRONG. It is rather BECAUSE people have the scared mindset, it makes them captivated by money. Since they´re captivated by it, they think it’s evil. It’s this vicious circle filled with self-fulfilling prophecies.

Talking about money is like talking about sex in public for most people. And in a way I don´t like to talk about money too much (besides in my blog lol), because it doesn´t interest me too much.

In my opinion we often fail to realize that money is just money. Money isn´t evil. What we make and how we use it determines what it will become. I love earning money, because it enables me to do what I love. I also love playing with it. Today I love spending. Money isn´t sacred. After all, it’s just paper.

The rich are usually the most generous

Also something that I´ve realized. Yes it’s true, many rich people can afford to be generous. Still I feel the poker attitude is a different one. In order to become rich, you usually have to give first, not only in regards to money, as a general principle. If you want many great friends, BE a great friend first.
If you want to make money, what’s the first step? You have to OFFER FIRST something BEFORE receiving. People who are poor TAKE FIRST and GIVE LATER. This is the most simple strategy yet only few apply. And this is exactly what I´m doing here as well.

So in my eyes, it is no accident that rich people on average are more generous. Because being generous is the reason WHY they became rich in the first place.

5) Es ist alles nur ein Spiel (German for: It is all only a game)

In highschool one of my favorite lines was “It’s all only a game”, and we´re here to enjoy it. Part of the game can be to be serious. And actually I´m pretty good at this part. But over time many things that you thought were so important and serious turn out to be a big hoax. A joke. A game. Read my Mindset post on Stoicism.

Jesus once said that we should look at the flowers. They don´t worry what they wear, they don´t worry about anything, but they´re still taken care of. Whether it’s your job, spouse, kids, don´t take things too seriously. Nothing is as bad as it seems. Even losing arms and legs.

Being too serious and worried is just another form of arrogance and egoism. Yes, I mean exactly this. If you´re too serious about protecting somebody from whatever it is you´re basically stating;

- you think you have more power than you really have (arrogance)
- you´re helping them not for their own good, but because of your own possessiveness
That’s why it’s so freaking laughable why the same ultra Christians who “lay the world in god’s hand and trust him with their lives” are the most over protective people on the planet. Makes no sense.

And whenever you state something like I do, you can set your timer, expecting to hear in less than a minute about the awesome analogy with the 3 year old baby that you have to protect and watch out for. One of those great ways to pretend the exception is the rule ;)

In writing this article I´ve been very much influenced by my visit to Jerusalem, a big center for the three monotheistic religions. It’s not a secret that their relationship among them isn´t exactly guided by love and respect. Will share my experience probably in some other post, but for now I simply want to state that people take themselves and their crap waaaaaay too importantly. The orthodox Jews more so than anybody else. Or the Israeli security at the airport. They were extremely nice and helpful to me, but what would happen if all the people down there would stop to take themselves so overly seriously?!

Nick Vujicic is a true inspiration. I often have the fear of getting injured badly and in the worst case, becoming physically disabled. That doesn´t stop me from doing risky things I “shouldn´t” be doing. In a quiet moment the fear is still there.

A typical problem with the poker mindset

In my mind, I know that whatever you do, it all depends on your poker attitude. And every messed up situation can be turned around. You can´t change the past. And some things that I/you/we have done in the past can have a strong impact on our future – both ways. But I´m sure you´ve also heard, read and listened to some big “turn around” stories. Americans in general love those stories. Often though, it seems like you have to “be there” in order to truly understand it.

Although I know this “theory” in my head, I still haven´t eliminated my fear completely. My mindset right now is that it would simply suck to be disabled. I mean, fuck it, I couldn´t do so many things that I love to do (many that involve sports & travelling). So when watching this video, I immediately felt sorry for the guy. I felt bad for him. I felt he needs special ...]]> A true inspiration

Nick Vujicic is a true inspiration. I often have the fear of getting injured badly and in the worst case, becoming physically disabled. That doesn´t stop me from doing risky things I “shouldn´t” be doing. In a quiet moment the fear is still there.

A typical problem with the poker mindset

In my mind, I know that whatever you do, it all depends on your poker attitude. And every messed up situation can be turned around. You can´t change the past. And some things that I/you/we have done in the past can have a strong impact on our future – both ways. But I´m sure you´ve also heard, read and listened to some big “turn around” stories. Americans in general love those stories. Often though, it seems like you have to “be there” in order to truly understand it.

Although I know this “theory” in my head, I still haven´t eliminated my fear completely. My mindset right now is that it would simply suck to be disabled. I mean, fuck it, I couldn´t do so many things that I love to do (many that involve sports & travelling). So when watching this video, I immediately felt sorry for the guy. I felt bad for him. I felt he needs special love. Who else is feeling this way?

Why I think my last 3 sentences are laughable

Look. It’s ridiculous. Thinking a bit more about it, most likely Nick is feeling bad for most of US. Yeah, he’s got no legs, so what? Arms? Oh wait, you need arms to play golf. Oh wait! Feeling bad for him would assume that he has a terrible life. Doesn´t seem to be the case. That guy rocks. He´s turning the game around. I love that. His whole live screams “FU nature, eat that shit”. I don´t know how he´s doing with the ladies, but it wouldn´t shock me at all if they´re standing in line for him.

After watching this video, you have to ask yourself if you have ANY, and I mean ANY reason to not believe that you can “do it”. I don´t know what it is. But this guy should be living proof of your “limiting beliefs”.

Limiting Beliefs

What is a limiting belief? A limiting belief is a belief, set by yourself (consciously or subconsciously) or socially conditioned, that is an obstacle. A self protecting obstacle that is very risk averse.

When it comes to dating, a limiting belief would be like “oh, she is with her friends, can´t talk to her”. Another one would be “oh, I don´t know the language perfectly”. Simply wrong. Try it out, you can have some of the most thrilling experiences.

One of my most unforgettable dates ever

Let me share from my personal life. It’s pretty much exactly one year ago. Lived in St. Petersburg, Russia.  I´ve done a bit of Rosetta Stone, but my Russian was terrible. And not one of those understatements where people say “ah, I ´m not good at it”. I knew enough to survive and while living there, learnt  more. So one day, taking the Metro from Приморская (Primorskaya) to Гостиный двор ( Gostiny Dvor) station, then a beautiful Russian girl, tall, light brown hair, and deep strong shining eyes sat down. Looked in her eyes and I knew she has something. What can I say, she was very Russian (if you know me, I have a weakness for Russian girls).  I was busy reading a book. But our eyes caught each other. Slight smiles.

asdflkasjdflkjsalfasfkjlasdfkl

You probably know the feeling. Should I? Should I not? But I don´t even know how to speak 3 sentences correctly. So we kept going, I read my book, but inside I knew what I had to do. It started to boil. And most of us have that “intuition”. I knew I would hate myself for the rest of the day if I didn’t talk to her. I remember going through situations like this in the past. And I´m sure you also have PLENTY of them. And every time I followed my guts I´ve never regretted it. No, it didn’t always work out. Actually, more often, it didn´t. But I´ve never regretted it. Still, there is this sort of resistance and one has to overcome it every single time. You can practise and get better at it, but the devil inside of you who wants to stop you is always going to be there. At the time, inside the metro, thoughts were shooting through my brain. I knew it could be over at any time. I was freaking nervous. Looking for her to stand up, so I´d notice when she would leave. Game on. Next station it was going to happen. She got up and I didn´t stand up. The metro slowed down and soon it was all over. The door opened, she was going out. I already had mind visions of how I´m so going to regret not talking to her. The sounds of the doors closing were already flowing to my ears. When something said. NO. Fuck. Damn, you freaking idiot. Nice excuse. Only because you don´t know Russian?! Really? Something powerful awakened. Not going to lose the battle without fighting. After all, I have NO French blood, so why behave like it? Stood up, went out, she was already turning around. With my best broken Russian I basically said Stop! Stay there! Took a second. Looked in her eyes. And told her … haha, that’s my secret! We talked, walked through the whole metro station (they are BIG and beautiful in Russia) although her English was equally terrible. But she had a cute little dictionary with her (gotta be prepared when a German comes along). We talked, laughed, then I had to leave. She wrote her number on a салфетка (something like a tissue, but not a tissue, dunno how to explain). Won´t go into further detail, but it was better than any movie could make it! Day after we had exciting and most fun dates (describing the evening in the city would take another 2 pages), watching the bridges over the Neva river going down.

I wanted to share this, because limiting beliefs can be so empowering. And they even get reinforced because most of the time it “doesn’t work out”. And that’s true, it’s trying and falling down, standing up, falling down, falling down, falling down, standing up. It’s the name of the game. Get used to it.  But without trying you´ll always keep falling. Keep in mind that “the fastest way to improve is to double your failings” (founder of IBM).

When it comes to business/poker a limiting belief would be “I will never be able to beat high stakes”. Or “having your own company is too risky”. Think about the difference between two people: One says “I know I can create abundant wealth and help others simultaneously no matter where I come from”. Whereas the other person says “only children from rich families can do this”.

Nothing can tear you down once you have a Poker Mindset

Nick Vujicic is a great example, a motivation and inspiration. Every time you think you “can´t do it”. Every time you think you´re too ugly, too stupid. Every time you play like a donkey. Every time you look at the 300lbs inside. Don´t let it stop you. If missing arms and legs can´t stop somebody, isn´t it pretty laughable when you look at most of your “problems”?

I´m in love with that guy

I don´t know what exactly it is. You know, usually I don´t like fluff videos about “finding new energy”, getting strength and all of it mixed with some nice sounding fluff. I can´t tell you how I can´t stand it.
But this is real. Not some good sounding words. It is HIM. His creativeness. How he plays drums. Gosh, he can turn all clubs upside down.

You know you can do it. Don´t make excuses for yourself.

Visit his Website

I´ve already written a bit about this in my posts “How do you make money at poker” and “How big is your edge?”. It is fairly self evident WHY game selecting is crucial to your bottom line. Nevertheless it amazes me again and again how unprofessional many players are when it comes to game selection.

I have literally no clue why there are ethical debates about data mining or using tracking software at all. Some people say you gain an unfair advantage over the competition. To be more precise, over the amateur, since every pro uses tracking software these days. But well, we can lead this argument ad absurdum pretty fast. If you say not everybody has the same chance, I can predict a long, dark and stoney road that you´ll have to go down. You shouldn´t play poker or open a competitive business at all, because not everybody is born with the same intelligence. Yes, this might sound absurd, but all those debates about “not having an equal ...]]> Right after adding Pokertableratings as a partners, it’s probably the right time to go into more depth why game selection and data mining is so important these days.

How to game select like a professional

I´ve already written a bit about this in my posts “How do you make money at poker” and “How big is your edge?”. It is fairly self evident WHY game selecting is crucial to your bottom line. Nevertheless it amazes me again and again how unprofessional many players are when it comes to game selection.

Debate about the ethics of data mining

I have literally no clue why there are ethical debates about data mining or using tracking software at all. Some people say you gain an unfair advantage over the competition. To be more precise, over the amateur, since every pro uses tracking software these days.

But well, we can lead this argument ad absurdum pretty fast. If you say not everybody has the same chance, I can predict a long, dark and stoney road that you´ll have to go down. You shouldn´t play poker or open a competitive business at all, because not everybody is born with the same intelligence. Yes, this might sound absurd, but all those debates about “not having an equal chance” are just – in good poker slang – tilting. I don´t mean it cynically when I say that life is neither fair nor just. It simply IS that way and we can either accept it and make the best out of it or become miserable. This however is a choice EVERYBODY can make (more about this topic in my post “Mindset #1 – Stoicism). Also, everybody can buy software and everybody can educate themselves. It’s a choice.

Poker is a game & fight for information

When I used to play professionally, I was big into data mining. Tried to do it myself, but found out after a while that it’s a big hassle. So a couple of friends of mine and myself hired a guy to data mine the hands that we needed. I´m sure he sold it to others as well. I don´t know exactly how much we paid, but it was probably around $300/month. Sounds a lot, but we had very specific needs and for him mining 100 of the hands we needed was as time consuming as mining 100k hands for others. Now here´s the deal, we knew EVERYTHING and had a big information advantage over everybody else. This was at the time when I was moving up the limits. I knew the next day who the new fish were on the site. Not to brag, but think I´m very good when it comes to squeezing out the extra edge. It’s not like others couldn´t have done it. But it wasn´t as easy to get it as it is today. And like always, some people will not take advantage of opportunities.

The advantage of buying & having datamined hands

Knowing how a fish plays can have a huge impact, especially in the first hands, when you should be playing rather carefully in order to avoid being hit’n'runned. With regs it’s also a big help, because if you´re not up for a big battle, but like to play weaker regulars, it is very helpful to know who the 10BB winners are, and who the 1BB winners are.

After a time I stopped to data mine. I felt my edge was too big. Ok, I´m kidding! But I did stop data mining when I basically knew everybody and at the same time, the higher you play, the smaller the overall player pool gets anyways.  This was when I played Heads UP poker. After pokertableratings appeared, more people were going to have access easier to the same information I already had for a long time.

I really have no clue at all why any smart reg would not use that info. If you play fairly often and 24 tables, you probably have a lot of hands. But even then (I have done it myself), sample sizes can´t be big enough.

How to use datamining to your advantage

When playing 6max I can not imagine why any professional would not data mine or get himself the hands. It’s a big advantage, because most players are still too lazy to take this step.

On the other side, you´re also kind of pressured to get into buying hands yourself, because the edge your opponents get is too significant. You can see that I am right about this point, by simply looking how many people complain about Pokertableratings (PTR). I´m a vicitm myself, because a lot of people wouldn’t even play 10 hands with you, unless you were extremely bad.

Personally I´m glad that I don´t have to deal with technical stuff of that nature anymore. I even hated to configure and install Poker Tracker and later holdem manager. But, I did have a professional attitude and despite not liking it, I tortured myself to set up and configure myself a decent environment. It was a duty, not a pleasure. Now I expect you to take advantage of services like Pokertableratings. It’s sad that I have to point this out, but I´m not giving the advice because I advertise them. This obviously doesn’t hurt, but I´ve done data mining & buyin hands for years. I´ve practised what I preach.

One great thing that I was always able to rely on was the laziness of my competition. And no matter how tough games will get, this is one variable that you can also always rely on. People will always be careless. People will always wait.

Case study on flaws in people´s mindset: Bluefirepoker

One funny example I remember was when bluefirepoker.com opened their doors and Phil Gelfand was talking on 2+2 about a signup fee that might get waived half a year later. It’s ridiculous. A guy who has made over 6 Million the year before offers public coaching and people are honestly thinking about not signing up because there could be a $100 signup fee. ARE YOU FUCKING SERIOUS ??? I mean, really, how shortsighted can one be?! In danger that you think I´m a prick, but I honestly believe this is one of the reasons why some people will “not make it”.

No, it’s not like you have to buy $3500 in coaching programs. It’s not about that. You don´t even need to join any training site. You can do fine without them too. It’s the mindset behind “omg I´m not paying $100″, although the product is worth a thousand times more.

Poker is all about the information, and having the info half a year later is almost as appealing as buying meat that’s half a year old in the supermarket for half price.

Whether or not you think it’s worth buyin is a different story. But the fact that many posters didn’t even think that it could increase their edge was pretty telling.

Stuff like that makes me emotional in a way that I simply can´t understand how ignorant some people can be. Shouldn’t even care, and when not in a mentor-like position like right now, I also didn´t care.  I was glad and wished they put up a $500 signup fee, just to make sure I´m one of the only ones who will buy the product. Anyways, let’s end the rant. Guess my message got across ;).

Anyways, lets get the quick fix out there:

Step 1)

Get yourself a tracking program (I advise holdem manager, but if you prefer something else, I´m not stopping you).

Step 2)

Buy datamined hands. I´d advise you to buy at pokertableratings.com (by clicking on the banner, you will automatically get forwarded to the site. You´ll also receive an extra discount there – old price will be crossed out). Prices are insanely cheap (as I am writing). I used to pay triple the price for a quarter of the hands. I don´t know what PTR´s policy on sharing DBs is, but if it’s allowed, share them with friends. Think twice though about sharing them with regs who wouldn´t buy them on their own.

Step 3)

Import the hands, possibly buy a tool like table scanner or spadeye (www.spadeit.com).

Step 4)

Pick the right tables. If you have software to table select for you, use that. Otherwise just try out and leave if you don´t like the table.

There are many ways to sell your product. Let’s say you own a poker site and want players. You can get in contact with affiliates and propose some offers. Let’s say you give them 50% of the profit that the affiliate brings to the site (some affiliates get way over 65% at some sites). I´ll not confuse you with terms like net margin, net win, revenue share. So for simplicity´s sake, I´ll call it Rakeback.

Being competitive

Now in order to be attractive to players, the affiliate also has to pass on some percentage to their players. The more sophisticated the players are, the more they have to pass on in order to not lose them to another competitor. Often this can be as high as 48%, leaving the affiliate with a bare 2% margin. Well, if you have a high volume player that´s raking 5k/month, $100 isn´t that bad over all – every month we speak – without having to do anything for it. Assume you have a couple of those players. Simple math will draw a powerful conclusion. Since everybody wants more though, it’s not enough to keep status quo. There´s a big market and a highly competitive and free market is paradise on ...]]> The advantages of Socialist Affiliating

There are many ways to sell your product. Let’s say you own a poker site and want players. You can get in contact with affiliates and propose some offers. Let’s say you give them 50% of the profit that the affiliate brings to the site (some affiliates get way over 65% at some sites). I´ll not confuse you with terms like net margin, net win, revenue share. So for simplicity´s sake, I´ll call it Rakeback.

Being competitive

Now in order to be attractive to players, the affiliate also has to pass on some percentage to their players. The more sophisticated the players are, the more they have to pass on in order to not lose them to another competitor. Often this can be as high as 48%, leaving the affiliate with a bare 2% margin. Well, if you have a high volume player that´s raking 5k/month, $100 isn´t that bad over all – every month we speak – without having to do anything for it.

Assume you have a couple of those players. Simple math will draw a powerful conclusion. Since everybody wants more though, it’s not enough to keep status quo. There´s a big market and a highly competitive and free market is paradise on earth for any customer. Sounds great?

When the competition starts to wound everybody

Well, there´s a downside to it. Soon the affiliates will be forced to ask the site for a better deal, because due to competition, they can no longer profitably advertise players . After all, why would they invest hard work, if they´re going to lose them next week, because there is a better offer out there. So what ends up happening is that the poker blog site will increase the % for affiliate. But this is a very short term solution and actually the beginning of a downwards spiral. The fire is extinguished, but the problem isn’t solved. You´ve just cut the weed, but you didn´t go down to the root. Thus, soon enough, the same problem will occur, but stronger. Very roughly, this is what has been happening on Ipoker lately.
One other negative side effect is that only the biggest affiliates can compete for players. Small affiliates couldn´t afford to survive and were muscled out by the big boys.

The tragic result: Nobody is profiting anymore. Even the players are suffering, because there are not enough fish. Ipoker will have to do some homework to get this fixed.

Introducing the concept of Socialist Affiliating

There is a better way to do it. Many sites practise it and I´ll be so free and peg it “socialist affiliating”.

If I had to describe it in one line, I´d say
“every PLAYER gets the same maximum percentage, no matter what” .

Please do NOT confuse this with every affiliate getting the same %. Affiliates with a higher turnover deserve a better deal. The socialist part of this method is that the poker site sets a maximum on what affiliates can pass on to players, which has two positive effects:

1) Affiliates and poker site keep a margin, that let’s them pursue a healthy business

AND

2) Small affiliates will also feel safe when advertising new player. By safe, I mean, they don´t have to worry about losing the player, because they are by contract not allowed to give more than a certain percentage to players.

This again, benefits the site, too, because they will get more players. Many poker sites actually do business this way, because they think long term. On Full Tilt, Ultimate Bet, Absolute Poker, Bodog, Cake network (sites like doyles room and power poker belong there, too), PKR, Everleaf (victory poker) socialist affiliating is reality.

How I affiliate and use socialist affiliating

I personally work together with PokerAffiliateSolutions. The great thing is that they are also “socialist”. (Oh, just to make this clear in case there is confusion, you can probably only find a handful more libertarian-minded people in the world than myself.)
Socialist meaning, they work together with the major sites, but protect affiliates and sub-affiliates (like myself), by guaranteeing the best deals and big rake races.
I wouldn´t be able to run and advertise my own site Rakeback.IncreaseYourPokerIQ.com with integrity to professionals, if I couldn´t promise my readers and players that they will get the best deal available through me. This is also the reason why I will advise you not to get Ipoker deals through my rakeback site. Everything else, yes. But not Ipoker. Why? Because I know there are way better deals out there than what affiliates can offer officially.

Some starting questions:

a) Name some people out of your social circle/family/environment that love to complain. Do you like being around them? Chances are you don´t.

b) Who are the people in your your environment who always have problems and don´t get things done. Are those people also the same who believe to get “unlucky” all the time ?

c) And then do you know those freaking luckboxes that you want to punch in the face, because it seems like they seem to run good for their whole life? And everything they touch turns into gold? It could be that they are fooled by randomness By the way, this book is an absolute must, if you don´t know it already. Back on topic, yes they CAN just be lucky in poker, but how does it help you in practical terms? Does it make you feel better about yourself? Or does it decrease his level of achievements if he was just hit by the positive side of variance? Actually I think there is partly a method to the madness…

How to become the “lucky” one in 3 steps

1) Have the mindset of being privileged

I´m not talking about fooling yourself. And it’s not like you can ...]]> Poker Mindset Series Overview

Some starting questions:

a) Name some people out of your social circle/family/environment that love to complain. Do you like being around them? Chances are you don´t.

b) Who are the people in your your environment who always have problems and don´t get things done. Are those people also the same who believe to get “unlucky” all the time ?

c) And then do you know those freaking luckboxes that you want to punch in the face, because it seems like they seem to run good for their whole life? And everything they touch turns into gold? It could be that they are fooled by randomness

By the way, this book is an absolute must, if you don´t know it already. Back on topic, yes they CAN just be lucky in poker, but how does it help you in practical terms? Does it make you feel better about yourself? Or does it decrease his level of achievements if he was just hit by the positive side of variance? Actually I think there is partly a method to the madness…

How to become the “lucky” one in 3 steps

1) Have the mindset of being privileged

I´m not talking about fooling yourself. And it’s not like you can change this in one day. It’s probably some core confidence in yourself that builds up over time.

2) Actively imagine, envision your goal

It’s so funny. Since I was a very little kid, among my siblings I´ve always been the one who worked. I was in 5th grade, earning myself some extra change through hard work. And then this little asdfkajslf 8) aka my little brother would make almost as much as I did. I probably worked hard in the garden. And he went shopping with my mom, got new shoes and would randomly find shitloads (it’s all relative of course!) of money either lying on the street or at the cashier in a parking garage, where people would often forget to take their change. Our mom first didn’t believe him, and she thought he might be a long finger (=thief), until she witnessed it with her own eyes over and over again.
Needless to say, nobody else would be able to find change. It was something magical about him.
And if there was no change, his natural smile made every employee in most stores want to give him candy over and over again. Most of the time, he didn´t even have to ask for it! That guy, let me tell you, has some serious game haha! It’s a natural gift, which I don´t possess.

Long story. I´m not only telling you this to show what a cool brother I have. This little kid (at that time) had the most positive mindset you could think of. He was expecting to find money. That was the difference to me. Now I do NOT believe in magic or some new agey fluff. I still believe that when walking to a payment machine, chances are same in % if you´ll find money or not. The difference between him and me is that he developed intuition and motivation, while I didn´t care to much about looking behind every door for change. He constantly put himself into spots where he could get lucky. And then he probably ran good in addition to that. And then the power of self affirmation comes into play, where he actually believes to be the lucky one, which reinforces and quadruples the effect.

Now let’s translate this mindset to poker. When Phil Ivey pushes 5bet pushes 25o all-in preflop and everybody folds, some say he´s just lucky. I used to think that way. Now I just believe that he has trained his intuition and instincts incredibly well and knows when and when not to pull the trigger.
There are people out there who constantly put themselves into spots where they can get lucky. They are motivated. They got the fire and the will. Watch some youtube videos of Jamie Gold, when he won the world series of poker. It is widely assumed that he probably can´t even win online NL50 games. But at this main event, he KNEW he was the chosen one. Whatever he did, it worked. He could pull off the most retarded and obvious bluffs. His opponents would fold. It was like magic around him. Yes, he ran good. So what? But he expected it and it made him play better and outplay the competition. He paralyzed the whole table and made them paranoid. And the one time they play back, he got the nuts again…

3) Constantly put yourself in the right spot

Believing that you got what it takes. Envisioning how it would be. The first two steps. But they lead to nowhere if you don´t give yourself the chance to “get lucky”. It’s a numbers game. Some will always run better than others. But the main difference between most people is that one group never gives themselves a chance to get lucky, while the other constantly does exactly the opposite.
One might misinterpret my post and start buying lottery tickets. By being “lucky” I mean – speaking through analogies – putting your money in with a 80-20 equity edge, but managing to win it, thus, “getting lucky” by 20%. Doing the right +EV move and holding up. Outside the poker table this could mean having a cool business idea. The business idea and starting it is usually +EV, although only 10% survive. This means, it can hit even the best idea. But if you constantly put yourself in such a spot, one time, you´ll fly, far, and skyrocket high.

Other parts of the Poker Mindset Series:

• Poker Mindset #1 – Stoicism
• Poker Mindset #2 – Nobody owes you anything
• Poker Mindset #4 – Torture yourself
• Poker Mindset #5 – Libertarian view on politics and life