This review obviously means a lot to me because I’ve been a teacher at Stoxpoker for so long and I value the relationships I’ve built there. (I also know that if they hated the book, they’d have said so!) Here is the review that was posted tonight by nomo4life:

I confess, when I heard that Dusty “Leatherass” Schmidt was writing a poker book I thought it was going to be just another typical poker textbook. In a day and age where these formulaic texts teaching the basics of continuation betting, what constitutes a premium starting hand seem to pop up as often as a new woman in Tiger Woods’s love life, I was the first to be a skeptic in this latest release. 

After conducting my podcast interview with Dusty, which can be found athttp://www.stoxpoker.com/podcasts or in the iTunes store (search Stoxpoker Podcast), I found myself consumed with excitement. I had previously read the book that Dusty used for inspiration, Harvey Penick’s Little Red Book, and was an absolute fan of the format. Alas, I received my copy from the man they call Leatherass and I devoured it in less than 24 hours. 

Treat your Poker Like a Business didn’t disappoint. I found myself immediately absorbed by the text. Coupled with my business-school mindset, I found the approach that the author used to explain the meticulous aspects of the game of poker as quite eye-opening. From the reference of bankroll as ‘inventory’ to the likening of tables to selecting a ‘business site’ I found myself consumed with every next paragraph. 

The range and focus of the various aspects of the game of poker from mental challenges, lifestyle challenges, and technical challenges really invoked a true sense of Dusty’s complete grasp of every aspect of life as a professional poker player. His guest authors contributed invaluable additions and Dusty’s narrative recounts of his experiences were truly inspiring. 

While the book certainly shared its focus beyond the technical aspects of when to bet or when to fold, it still holds a great deal of value in its strategy section. Dusty highlighted some important concepts that are rarely, if ever, mentioned in previous poker literature. His plays included simple yet illustrative examples to hammer the principles of each lesson. 

The books biggest strength is also one of its only weaknesses. As mentioned before, the book was unique in its format in that it was structured as a series of short essays. While the format is certainly unorthodox by poker book standards and very effective, I would have liked to see a few more sample hands in some of the strategy sections. Sheer volume of examples is certainly not very important in illustrating concepts, but emphasizing the lessons with more hand examples would have been a great enhancement of this incredible book. 

All in all Dusty continues to show that he sets the highest standard for himself. Whether it be a mouse, 7-iron, or pen in his hand – the man clearly pours his sweat and full-effort in all that he sets his mind to and shows an uncanny ability to succeed. Even if this be the lone publication that we see from Dusty, the poker community and enthusiastic learners of the game have been treated to a text that has set the poker-book benchmark for the future.

Hey everyone,

Thank you so much for this incredible past week. We didn’t anticipate nearly as much traffic to dustyschmidt.net as we received, and some bugs were the result. We really apologize for any inconvenience or frustration we may have caused you as you attempted to order the book. I PROMISE you were are working around the clock to get these fixed.

Now that we’ve added an e-book, I also thought it would be a good idea to post our piracy policy in this blog. Our pdf download comes with as few restrictions as possible, so you can read it on your desktop, laptop or phone. We think this provides you with the best possible user experience. But this does open us up for piracy, so we wanted to post our rules here:

Dear Readers,

We sincerely appreciate your visiting DustySchmidt.net. Your support of our books is invaluable.

We’d also like you to know that Imagine Media, which publishes Dusty Schmidt’s books, is tough on piracy. We give you our eBooks in a format that allows you to easily read them without the interference of passwords, licenses or cumbersome software. While this improves the reader experience, it does put us at risk for our content to be stolen and re-purposed in an unauthorized fashion.

You should know that each eBook we sell has a unique word embedded within the text. No two books are alike. In the event we discover one of our books  has been illegally distributed, we can trace it back to its original owner and that person will be pursued to the fullest extent of the law.

A tremendous amount of time has been spent writing these books, and their content is copyrighted. We are proud to be able to provide you Dusty Schmidt’s books at a cost far beneath any similar publication we know of. We at Imagine Media hope to continue this gesture long into the future.

Should you have any questions or comments, please email us at info@dustyschmidt.net.

Thank you, and we hope you enjoy Dusty’s books!

The following is an excerpt from my new book, “Treat Your Poker Like A Business,” which you can purchase on this site. This segment comes from my chapter on hard-and-fast strategies to ground yourself in as you embark on making your poker dreams a reality:

As some may have noticed on Facebook post I made, I was trying to draw attention to homelessness this week by playing poker out on the streets in below freezing temperatures with all of the profits (on the condition I don’t leave the streets until I make at least $10,000) money going to a place called Transitions Project in Portland, Ore.

Transitions project is a place that provides shelter, but mainly seeks to transition people back to where they are striving to be. I like that concept because there are of course many people who don’t want to help themselves. So Transitions is there for everyone, but primarily focuses on people who are striving to return as a productive member of society.

I was nearly homeless myself at one point about 5 years ago, so this is pretty near and dear to my heart.

The past 2 days I went out on the streets wearing a jillion layers of clothes. On the first day the temperature was 15 degrees and the windchill was 8. No joke. Unfortunately I only played for an hour or so because I couldn’t get my computer to hold a charge. The battery was insta draining because of the severe cold. So I spent the rest of the day trying to get all of the equipment I needed to come out the next day.

I got a several back up batteries that were supposed to be able to be effective in extreme cold. So I went back out there today and the batteries still didn’t work very well. They didn’t insta drain, but out of the 12 hours they were supposed to last, I only got 2 hours out of them. Sigh… I did make $1,000 though which is a start.

The reason why I wanted to play out in the streets was because it was a good way to draw attention to the poverty issue. I composed a letter that my friend and I passed out to anyone who was passing by. I also had signs telling people to “Pay It Forward.” I think the concept of paying it forward http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pay_it_forward is the solution to the world’s problems. If you could get everyone to agree to simply pay it forward, all of the problems would be solved. Getting everyone to do it is of course the hard part.

I am not going to just give up though. If anyone has any suggestions on how I can do this, please let me know. Assuming it is not doable in severe weather conditions, I may have to go to a plan B. I have some pretty cool plan B’s that will also draw some attention to the concept of paying it forward. So if this doesn’t work, it’s not a huge deal because my other ideas are pretty strong. I will definitely keep you guys posted.

If anyone has any suggestions or comments, please let me know. Thanks.

Hi everyone,

As some of you know, I’m launching my “House of Cards” effort this week. For one week, all of my earnings will go to feed, clothe and shelter the homeless in my hometown of Portland, Ore., where today it’s a warm 17 degrees outside.  My hope is that by next year, this program will grow to include multiple poker pros doing the same thing. I also hope that within 12 months time, we’ll be buying and refurbishing houses for deserving but down-on-their-luck families in Detroit and New Orleans.

Starting today I’ll be playing at a location near Pioneer Square (tough to multi-table with frozen fingers, I must admit). We’ll be passing out some literature alerting people to the concept behind what I’m doing, which I call “playing it forward.” Here are some excerpts:

For most of my life, I unfortunately didn’t spend a whole lot of energy thinking about the situations of others.  This is not to say I was a bad person or that I didn’t care about others, but rather I had my work cut out for me to get my own life in order.  I grew up in an abusive family situation and had my own set of health issues that nearly lead me to an early grave.  At 23 year years old I suffered a heart attack that nearly took my life.  Shortly afterwards, due to lack of support from my family as well as mounting medical costs, I found myself down to my last $1,000.  My rent was due in a few days as well as several past due bills.  With no time to find a job to pay my bills in time and faced with being thrown out onto the streets, I took a shot at playing poker in an attempt to earn enough money to pay my bills and keep a roof over my head.  While this is not the method I would recommend for people in my situation, I was truly fortunate that I was able to not only earn enough money to pay my bills, but to turn poker into a career.

I was one of the very few fortunate ones who caught a break.  I am here today to tell you that I will never forget where I came from and want to “pay forward” the good fortune I have had over my nearly 5 years of playing poker professionally.

Over the past few years as I have been fortunate enough to have some success in poker, my attention has turned to doing my part to help make the world a better place.  What I have noticed is that for many, simply waking up each day and trying their best isn’t enough.  How do I know this?  Before I nearly found myself on the streets, I was no different than I am today.  I was a hard working and highly motivated person who dreamt big with a work ethic to back it up.  But due to a variety of issues culminating with a heart attack in 2004, I nearly found myself on the streets.  So I know from personal experience that giving it your best may sometimes just not be good enough.

So what I have been dedicating myself to is leveraging my poker success to create real change in people’s lives.  President Obama called on every one of us to be the best we can be — to be the change that we seek — and I intend to live up to that challenge.

As someone who believes in Christ, I cannot ignore this passage: “Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves, for the rights of all who are destitute. Speak up and judge fairly; defend the rights of the poor and needy.” -Proverbs 31:8-9.

The term “pay it forward” is simply the best concept I have ever known.   The concept was popularized by Robert Heinlein in his book Between Planets, published in 1951:

The banker reached into the folds of his gown, pulled out a single credit note. “But eat first — a full belly steadies the judgment. Do me the honor of accepting this.” Don’s pride said no; his stomach said YES! He took the money and said, “Uh, thanks! That’s awfully kind of you. I’ll pay it back, first chance.” No, the banker said. “Instead, pay it forward to some other brother who needs it.”

What if we all paid it forward starting today?  What might the world look like?  To borrow a quote from John Lennon, “just imagine for a moment.”

With all of the money I make during the time I am out on the streets playing poker, I will donate 100% of my winnings to causes concerning the health and well being of those less fortunate than myself.  I will not leave the streets no matter how cold or rainy it gets until I have made at least $10,000 that I can use to “pay it forward” to the homeless.  Nothing breaks my heart any more than to see someone who despite his best effort has found himself on the street facing a long, cold winter season ahead.

I would like to encourage everyone to “pay it forward” this winter and hopefully beyond.  Give it a try.

Just got a great review for ‘Treat Your Poker Like A Business’ from Poker News. I’m very grateful to Barry Carter, who took the time to write the piece. He writes:

This is the ideal companion for winning recreational players and aspiring professionals to fine tune their game and iron out leaks. Despite the advanced target audience this is actually, deliberately, a very simple and short book. A lot of the advice is stuff you can apply immediately to your game, practical common sense advice that for some strange reason has been vastly overlooked by most of the poker literature already out there.

There is a strategy section. Rather than focussing on the massive pots, how to play aces and all the other things most poker strategy books concentrate on, once again Treat Your Poker Like a Business is much more straightforward and practical. All of the strategy in this book concentrates on the scenarios that come around every 10 minutes, rather than the massive pots that often play themselves. Rather than set over set cooler hands, the strategy section concentrates on common situation like being out of position with a small pair post flop facing a continuation bet and being in position with a open ended straight draw.

I’ve had a chance to speak with some other poker journalists and they’ve given me similar responses. Today’s been a good day!

Welcome to dustyschmidt.net. Today is a momentous one for me because it represents the debut of my new book, Treat Your Poker Like A Business. I’ve been working on this book since this summer, and you can’t imagine how good it feels to get it out into the world.

I’ve always been an avid reader – in fact, I won a contest when I was a kid to see how many books the students at my school could read in a summer. Since then, I’ve become a book collector, and always dreamed about having a book of my own to put on my shelf. Writing a book is a rigorous process, and at times you think it will never end. But, as Steve Martin once said about his first book, I think I did pretty well considering all I started with were blank pieces of paper.

I’m really proud of Treat Your Poker Like A Business. It’s a simple, straightforward read, and it really represents the way that I organize my poker thoughts. As you’ll read, poker really set me free by giving me financial independence, and I think it can do the same for you.

I wrote in the book that poker players today are like ballplayers were 50 years ago, playing in front of packed stadiums and making $10,000 a year. The difference today is that athletes have learned to monetize their abilities, with some making more than the owners do. Training sites, books, etc., have all made poker players better, but they haven’t necessarily taught us how to make money. This book fills a gap in the market, picking up where traditional poker education leaves off. At the very least, I’m proud to have written a book that is unlike any I’ve seen before.

I’m going to be posting excerpts from the book on this blog, and will be creating original posts as well. These will include my thoughts on poker strategy, business, and life in general. This blog will give me a great forum for communicating with other poker players, and I genuinely look forward to the dialogue. Also, if you want to email me, please send to dusty@dustyschmidt.net. I look forward to it!

Dusty