Really excited about the article in today’s Oregonian. Thank you to reporter Helen Jung, who took an interest in the story and came down to meet me. We’ve all been blessed this holiday season, be it by friends, family … whomever or whatever. Remember to pay it forward in your own unique way, be it large or small.

To use a poker analogy, we’re all to often conscious of our “bad variance,” and not of “good variance.” This is what leads to tilt. But if we take the time to realize the times we’ve been lucky, then the unlucky times become palatable. Take a look around and be aware of the good fortune around you. You’ll be amazed how taking account of what you already have will improve your quality of life. Then pay it forward …

Hi everyone,

As you may know, I’ve been working hard on a program called House of Cards. Last week, I played out on the (very cold) streets of Portland to raise awareness for homelessness. I donated everything I made last week — about $21,000 —to homeless causes by way of Portland’s Transitions Project. The money will go toward renting apartments for three people for six months, food, job counseling, resume/cover letter writing, personal counseling, professional clothing, and Internet access.

I think the “pay it forward” concept is just about the best I’ve ever heard. I simply want these three people to do good work for three other people, who’ll carry the message forward, and so on.

The Portland Mercury was kind enough to do a video blog with me this weekend. I hope you’ll give it a look.

Hey everyone,

Been joining my friend Munchrs for a 3-week forum over at CardsChat. Great discussion there and some great questions so far. Please give it a look!

FROM TREAT YOUR POKER LIKE A BUSINESS

Here are ways to maximize your practice time:

•Watch videos actively: Go to Stoxpoker and CardRunners, which are by far the most reputable teaching sites on the Internet. Watch videos from the coaches who specialize in the game you want to master. Diligently take notes while you’re watching. I’ve noticed people watching videos who are treating it as though they’re just putting in time. They’re like those students who show their faces in college and take C-minuses. That might get you your diploma, but it won’t get you anywhere in poker. You’ll get eaten alive. You need to hang on to every word these coaches are saying.

•Simplify: Now what do you do with your notes? You review them, and simplify them when you go to play. In reality, you can only focus on one or two ideas when you’re playing. When you can get everything mentioned by the coach ingrained in your game, you move on, but not before. It’s like a golfer who reads an article and tries to implement eight swing thoughts his next time on the course. Good luck! More than likely, his swing will look like a guy falling out of a tree.

I once had a guy write to me who said, “Hey Leatherass, when are you going to do a new video? You haven’t done one in a couple weeks.” I wrote back and said, “I have a new video coming out in a week or two, but in the meantime I have 70 other videos on the site that can tide you over until my next release.”

“I watched those, too,” he wrote.

“How long have you been a member,” I asked.

“Two months,” he replied.

Don’t get me wrong, I felt extremely flattered that he watched more than one of my videos a day for two months. My best friends don’t even want to spend that much time with me. But there’s no way he could have digested even 20 percent of what I told him, let alone be able to implement it. It’s much better to take notes and slowly install what you’ve learned.

*Use forums effectively: One of my most common bits of advice is to suggest people study the situations they most commonly struggle with. That’s one thing that Tiger Woods does better than anyone: attack his weaknesses. He’s extremely honest with himself about where he’s falling short, and he practices that weakness until it’s a strength. These are commonalities among all greats, regardless of their field: they are unfailingly honest with themselves, and they address the areas where they’re coming up short.

If you look at 90 percent of forum posts, they’ll focus on these “cooler situations,” like a hand where they got set over-setted. I’ve got news for you: I’m going broke there. Phil Ivey and Doyle Brunson are going broke there. You are most definitely going broke there.

Instead, you should be focusing on the fact that you flopped middle pair or a draw on 50 percent of the pots you played, you had somebody betting at you, and you didn’t know what to do. You’re continually making that error. Most players make a dozen or so small mistakes every hour, and that is what’s holding them back from what they can be.

After every session, you should write down the smaller situations that bothered you, then post those things in the forums. Keep your eyes peeled for the response. Sure, you’ll get some jackasses who will poke fun at you, but who cares? You’re in the business of making money. If you wanted to make friends you’d be on Match.com. Don’t worry about the dummies.

*Organize groups: You should get people together who share your passion. I’m still in daily contact with my original group. They’re some of the best players around today, and we still email each other hand questions and get opinions. We live in Southern California, Northern California, New York, South Carolina and Oregon. That’s the beauty of the Internet.

If you really want to improve, go into the forums on Stoxpoker or Cardrunners and write a heartfelt letter to the community. Say, “I’m not very good, but I work really hard and I want to get better and learn. Who’s interested in joining me in an email chain, or IM group, or conference call twice a week?”  You can cover more ground working as a group. One guy can watch one of my videos, another can watch Jared Tendler’s, another can watch Nick Grudzien’s, etc. You distill those videos down to their core two or three ideas, and pass the knowledge around.

You might end up improving and making some great friends — at least I did. Having that communication makes it a more exciting and less-lonely endeavor. You have a buddy system where you’re dragging each other up and working like a team. It’s not a long shot by any means that you could get this up and going. Trust me, if you pour your soul out there, you’re going to get more back than the sound of crickets chirping.

FROM CH. 8 OF “TREAT YOUR POKER LIKE A BUSINESS” — Managing Your Bankroll

Let’s talk about money as inventory.

If you owned a widget business, you’d want to have enough widgets in your warehouse that you could fulfill a big order. Money is the inventory that allows you to sit down at a table when a fish is there and the odds are in your favor. Without that inventory, all else is moot.

My family’s toy business is a good example of ineffective inventory management. My dad would only keep 400 cap guns on hand because he wanted to keep our inventory low for the purposes of overhead. But once a month, someone would call to buy 1,000 cap guns in one shot, and we’d either have to turn that person down or turn something around really quickly. Most often we missed out on the sale. Similarly, if you’re cashing out your bankroll all the time, you could potentially not have the inventory to play a poor player when he sits down at a table, especially in the case of a fish who has decided to move up in stakes. That’s a big sale on which you’ve missed out. It’s found money, basically, and you don’t want to miss out on the opportunity to pick it up.

Maybe your regular game is a $100 buy in, and you saw a mega-fish in the lobby for a $200 game. Now he’s got $400 down and the seat next to him is open. You could have position on him. But without the inventory, you’ve missed out on a big sale.

If you keep a constant-but-inadequate bankroll, you will go broke — of this I am 100 percent certain. Spending pieces of your accumulating bankroll because a long losing streak seems unlikely is a recipe for total disaster.

I’ve known many a winning poker player to go broke. They may start with $5,000, win $100,000 in three months, spend $80,000 and lose back $25,000. Now they’re broke despite having won $80,000.

I have a good friend who’s notorious for this. He’s been trying to be a pro for five years. But he has a few kids, and every time he wins $1,000, he says, “Wow, I could pay for my daughter’s music lessons or my son’s summer camp with this.” So he hits the “cash out” button, and he’s back to where he was at the beginning of the day.

True, he can pretend that day didn’t exist and start fresh tomorrow, and that theoretically works for the days he wins. But if you do that every time you win, and take your licks when you lose, you end up broke.

You need to ask yourself, “What’s my ultimate goal here?” Your goal is to make as much money as possible playing poker. You need the bankroll to play at the stakes for which you’re aiming. You need a six-figure bankroll to play at the high stakes, so if you only have $1,000 in your account, you have a long way to go. It’s a step-by-step progression.

You obviously don’t want to over-do it. You don’t want $50,000 in your poker account and $50 in your savings account. But you give yourself the best chance to succeed by having enough inventory to make the big sale when one comes along. Finding a balance that works for your situation is essential.

You want enough so your career can gradually progress up the stakes. If you have a comfortable balance in your poker account, you can more easily justify taking shots at higher-stakes games. If you cash out and are always on a short bankroll, it’s easy to fall into a scenario where you say, “There’s a great shot for me at the bigger games …,” and you deposit money from your savings online. Now you have your real-life money in there, and if feels like you’re losing a lot more than just the ups and downs you need to withstand as a poker pro.

When can you feel comfortable cashing out? There’s no perfect answer for everybody, because everyone’s financial picture is different. You might have extenuating circumstances where you really need the money, which is totally understandable.

Again, we get back to looking at this as a business. Statistics say that most businesses don’t make money for five years. We don’t want that, of course, so let’s reduce that figure to one year. We won’t expect our poker business to make money for one year, so for that period, you will not take money out of your poker account. This allows you to comfortably progress through the limits as your skills dictate.

As a conservative estimate, you want to have 100 buy-ins in your bankroll at all times. If you’re playing $100 buy-ins, you want to have $5,000 in your account. This is a minimum. A more aggressive coach might tell you 20 buy-ins is sufficient. But I’m conservative, because I like to have plenty of money in my account in case I see somebody I like at a higher-stakes table.  It also gives me a peace of mind similar to someone who just paid off his home.  Is it the best way to invest your money?  Probably not, but peace of mind should be a huge factor in your decision because you can only really play your best when you are comfortable.

Now let’s say you’re winning handily at your present limit. If you’ve been winning consistently, it’s time to think about moving up. You can think about moving up once you have 200 buy ins, but I would definitely encourage you to begin taking shots at higher limits once you have reached 100 buy ins for your normal limits.

I suspect many poker professionals will disagree with my conservative bankroll suggestions.  Make no mistake about it, this is some of the most conservative advice you will ever hear.  But I tell you this as someone who’s never had a losing month, never gone broke, and is one of the all-time money winners in online poker: I have never taken a shot at a limit for which I didn’t have at least 100 buy-ins.

EXCERPT FROM TREAT YOUR POKER LIKE A BUSINESS

SETTING STUDYING GOALS — AND LIMITS

A proper ratio for playing-to-studying is 80/20. For every four hours you spend playing, you should spend one studying. Many conscientious players ask me, “In the beginning, shouldn’t I be studying 80 percent of the time and playing 20 percent?” While these people have good intentions, I think they’re wrong. It’s like spending 80 percent of your time at the driving range and 20 percent playing golf. At the end of the day, golf is about getting the ball in the hole, which is something you can only learn to do by playing. Actual time at the tables gets your attention because it’s for real money. Poker is ultimately about beating your opponents. Winning is its own skill, one that you can only learn by competing.

Naturally this advice pertains to the more experienced player. At the outset of your poker career, a greater allotment of hours toward studying is obviously in order. My thinking is simply that as you get your footing poker-wise, studying time should recede in favor of time at the tables.

EXCERPT FROM TREAT YOUR POKER LIKE A BUSINESS

Today’s excerpt has to do with committing yourself to just one game as you start your poker business:

“One-trick pony” is typically a derogatory term, but that’s not the case in poker.

I’d advise you to dedicate yourself to just one game. Otherwise, you’ll find yourself spread out over limit, no limit, Omaha, tournaments, etc., all with mediocre results. It’ll take much longer to get good if you’re too diversified — you might as well be trying to achieve simultaneous success in baseball, soccer and hockey. It’s better to be a one-trick pony, especially at the beginning. That’s how winning decisions become automatic.

Amazing night! I’ve come across two positive reviews for Treat Your Poker Like A Business. This one, by M. Rhodes, is posted on onlinepoker.net:

As Dusty ‘Leatherass’ Schmidt explains about his first poker book offering, “My intent is to deliver to you in one book what I had to take years out of my life to learn.”

‘Treat Your Poker Like a Business’ aims to teach the reader how to develop a professional approach to the game, both on and off the felts. As such, the book is mostly aimed towards players who may already be moderately successful at poker and looking to take their game to a different level.

The book contains 60 chapters, with advice on a whole range of subject areas from  winning strategies, profitable times to play, to software and record keeping.

Schmidt has also recruited the talents of various colleagues to help with certain areas of study, including 5 chapters from mental game coach Jared Tendler who lays out the importance of discipline, goal setting, focus, concentration and dealing with tilt. Schmidt’s own wife even contributes a chapter on ‘Having A Successful Relationship’ which imaginatively sets out ways to balance social and family life within a relationship with a poker professional.

In strategy terms, Schmidt has deliberately tried to present advice on the frequently occurring situations which contribute a steady flow of income to your hourly rate, as opposed to highlighting occasional big pot situations which are often more straightforward to play. In this regard, Schmidt offers some invaluable advice on common situation such as being out of position and facing a continuation bet post flop holding a small pair, and how to play your draws from various positions.

As the title suggests, the book is full of poker business analogies and is packed with practical and easy to follow advice which is designed to provide, in simple terms, the necessary “building blocks for success as an online poker player.” At $39.99, this book is at the lower end of the online poker book price range and is a must buy for all aspiring professionals and players already enjoying a measure of success.

This post on CardsChat really fired me up! Munchrs writes, “I just bought (Treat Your Poker Like A Business) and it is absolutely fantastic. Easily the best poker book I’ve ever read.” Made my night … here’s the link.

Hi everyone,

Today’s excerpt from “Treat Your Poker Like A Business” pertains to revising your concept of success. This piece is actually written by Jared Tendler, a performance coach for both poker players and golfers. As you probably know by now, Jared has had an immense impact on my life, professionally and personally. I invited him to contribute a few chapters to the book, and he did a brilliant job. Here’s one Jared calls, “A New Set of Results.” I particularly like his line, “Removing emotion from poker is not an option”:

Being overly influenced by results can cause a rollercoaster of  emotion that seems perfectly aligned with your graph. Knowledge of variance isn’t enough to stop the emotional ups and downs that some say is just a fact of poker. This chaos is maddening, confounding, and downright vicious. It takes some to the brink, while others go over. 

Desperate to break this cycle, players use strategies that numb, detach or desensitize them to the emotion tied to money or results. 

Still, removing emotion from poker is not an option. In fact, it’s a colossal mistake that fails to consider the real problem, and may cause unforeseen and potentially long-term damage. Dusty was a master at avoiding, but the rage buried within him eventually became hard to ignore. With a growing pile of broken computer equipment in his closet, he knew something had to 
change or he might bust out of the game. 

Breaking this habit really wasn’t that hard. It just required a smallchange in how he viewed results. Results provide feedback so you know how you’re doing. Without feedback, learning is impossible. It’s not whether you need results. It’s which ones to consider. 

To most people, the word “results” means something tangible, like money, wins and losses, win rate, hourly rate or any other statistics that are easy to calculate. While clearly important, to break out of this cycle, as Dusty did, requires a set of results that measures skill and improvement. 

In the long run, it’s the quality of your mindset, emotions, focus, strategy and others that produce your profit, so evaluating your game along these lines matters more than short-term money. Focusing on these factors doesn’t remove the importance of money, but it does broaden the definition of results to include: 

• How well you played overall 
• Quality of your thinking 
• Quality of decisions 
• Number and size of mistakes 
• Quality of focus (“The Zone,” autopilot, distractions, boredom) 
• Length of time spent focused and playing well 
• Length of the session 
• Ability to manage emotions, focus and thinking 
• Ability to work through a tough mental or emotional spot 

Take these or others that are important to you, and after each session take a few minutes to review and write out how you performed. At first they will be hard to measure, but with 
practice you’ll get better. Before the next session, taking a few minutes to focus on the factors you’re measuring ensures you’ll care about more than just money. 

For Dusty, recognizing the quality of his decision making, focus, and emotional stability was especially important on days when he lost money. It gave him a broader measure of the results from the day, which taken with progress previously made along these lines, made losses seem temporary. The victory of the day wasn’t measured by profit, but by the quality of play. 

By shifting Dusty’s focus to skill and improvement, two-outers and coolers hurt much less, and his overall play improved. He is one of hundreds of players I’ve worked with directly or through my videos who have made significant improvement. I realize this may seem too good to be true, but the progress is real. It does take work, but if you try it for a month, I know you’ll at least 
make some progress.