ABOUT TREAT YOUR POKER LIKE A BUSINESS
Dusty “Leatherass” Schmidt is known as the definitive “grinder,” with a legendary ability to focus during marathon online sessions. But this isn’t the ability to which he attributes his success. Instead, Schmidt says his multi-million dollar achievements are due to his ability to apply old-fashioned business concepts to the game of poker.
Five years into his career, Schmidt’s resumé is legendary: Nearly 7 million hands and 10,000 hours played. Mind-blowing win rates spanning massive sample sizes. $3 million won in cash games exclusively. Never had a losing month. Unbeknownst to Schmidt, combining poker and business was revolutionary (and somewhat controversial) in a poker world fueled largely by bravado. With Treat Your Poker Like A Business, Schmidt teaches other online players to monetize their abilities as he did. “All of the poker books and training sites have made poker players’ games better,” Schmidt writes. “But they haven’t necessarily taught them to make money.” Schmidt teaches readers how to manage bankroll, rationalize variance, play more tables, move up in stakes, avoid tilt, create new sources of revenue, and — most importantly — become more profitable.
Schmidt’s book also has a section on strategy which contains some of the most important tips in print, and places a special emphasis on the situations poker players most often find themselves in. Rather than focusing on massive pots, how to play aces, Treat Your Poker Like A Business is much more straightforward and practical. The book concentrates on scenarios that come around every few minutes, rather than the huge pots that often play themselves. The strategy section concentrates on common situations like being out of position with a small pair post-flop, facing a continuation bet and being in position with an open-ended straight draw.
Just as Moneyball did for baseball, Treat Your Poker Like A Business is poised to have a seismic impact on how poker is played, viewed and analyzed.
ABOUT DUSTY SCHMIDT
Dusty Schmidt has played nearly 7 million hands of online poker over more than 10,000 hours during his five-year career. He’s won over $3 million during that period, and has never experienced a losing month. In 2007, he achieved Poker Stars’ SuperNova Elite status in just eight months while playing high-stakes cash games exclusively. Schmidt posted the world’s highest win rate in both 5/10 NL and 10/20 NL in both 2007 and 2008. In a four-month period between Nov. 2007 and Feb. 2008, Schmidt won in excess of $600,000 in high-stakes cash games. He is now a highly respected instructor at DragTheBar.com, and plays as high as 25/50 NL.
As a young man, Schmidt was a top-ranked golfer. He broke two of Tiger Woods’ junior records, and was the leading money winner on the Golden States Tour when, at age 23, he suffered a career-ending heart attack. Schmidt returned to golf in 2009, winning medalist honors in qualifying for the Oregon Amateur Championship. Later that year, Schmidt famously represented himself in federal court in his suit against the United States Golf Association, which controversially stripped him of his amateur status, in part due to his poker profession. Schmidt is now a volunteer assistant coach for the University of Oregon’s men’s golf team, working under his good friend, head coach Casey Martin.
Schmidt is also a successful author and entrepreneur. In 2009, he published Treat Your Poker Like A Business, a compendium of his thoughts on managing poker according to time-honored business principles. The book received phenomenal reviews worldwide, and continues to enjoy robust sales. Schmidt is co-founder of Imagine Media, which publishes numerous poker titles each year, and the creator of 10thGreen.com, the first social network for golfers. He is also a lead instructor at DragTheBar.com. His story has been featured in Sports Illustrated, Card Player, Poker News, Golf Magazine, Fairways and Greens, Golf Week,Golf World and the Portland Oregonian, as well as on ESPN, cnn.com, wallstreetjournal.com, forbes.com, fortune.com, espn.com, golfdigest.com and golf.com, among many others. He recently founded the House of Cards Project, a philanthropic effort to provide food and shelter to disadvantaged families. His life story will be told in the book “Raise: The Impossibly True Tale of Dusty Schmidt,” to be released later in 2010. He lives in Portland, Ore., with his wife, Nicole, and daughter, Lennon.
