Mindful Poker the Latest Key to Success

How to train and enhance your poker mindset.

Poker is a simple game to learn, but near-impossible to master. Those who do master the game eventually find, as the years go by, that new skill sets are superseding their once-effective tactics. A classic game with ever-evolving strategies, no one has ever stayed on top for more than a decade or two.

In its earliest days, when rounders like Doyle “Texas Dolly” Brunson and Crandell “Dandy” Addington ran the felt in Vegas, it was their unparalleled knowledge of the game and keen ability to predict the tendencies of their less experienced opponents that gave them an edge. As more players ranked up to their level, Texas Hold’em became a game of pure mathematics and psychology.

Now, it’s not just about knowing the math, or infiltrating the inner workings of an opponent’s brain. It’s about training yourself to be a more mindful poker player. It’s about developing superior focus and concentration, and combining all of the skills that have evolved over the years into a finely honed, supremely sharp, mindful poker strategy.

How to Train and Enhance Your Poker Mindset

There are several methods today’s highest earning poker players swear by to increase their mental prowess on the live and virtual felt. The goal of each method is to enhance brain function, focus, memory, and counter the inevitable stresses of the game.

Hypnotherapy

Fedor Holz, a 25-year-old German high-roller with tens of millions in cashes, swears by immersive hypno-therapeutic mindset coaching, utilizing soothing audio and visualization to train the mind and deliver optimum results. It’s brought him so much success, that he launched his own application, Primed Mind, hosted by his personal hypno-therapist, Elliot Roe.

It’s certainly worked for him. At just 23, the high-roller prodigy accumulated over $16.7 million in cashes in just 11 months, between summer 2015-16. He’s currently boasting a $32.5 million career, ranked 4^th on the all-time money list, and has officially retired from professional poker. He still plays, but only part time.

Meditation

Other big-name pros, including Canadian poker phenom Daniel Negreanu, laud mindfulness mediation as the best thing since sliced bread. Negreanu wrote in 2015 that the “science behind the value of meditation…relates really well to the game of poker”. He notes its efficiency in “keeping calm in stressful situations, letting go of bad beats, (and) being present and in the moment”.

Simple breathing techniques can be used on the felt to relive the effects of a bad beat. Negreanu says 3 to 5 deep breathes have saved him more than once from the disasters of tilt. Even that simplified version of meditation can be extremely beneficial in improving your poker mindset.

Herbal Tea

As simple as this sounds, merely consuming a healthy portion of various herbal teas can increase a poker player’s brain function and concentration. Studies show that green tea can reduce stress and anxiety, while increasing alertness and brain function. Gotu Kola is another stress reviler said to enhance memory and intellect. Rosemary tea is enjoyed by poker players for its ability to improve memory and concentration.

Fitness

There’s no arguing that a healthy workout regimen has a multitude of physical and mental benefits. Canada’s femme fatale of the felt, Kristen Bicknell, says she can hardly function without going to the gym. Missing 2-3 days in a row has a profound effect on her poker mindset. Bicknell tries to get in a workout before every live tournament, and swears that it promotes better concentration and focus.