The Psychology Of Poker : Poker-Media

Title: The Psychology of Poker
Author: Alan N. Schoonmaker


The Psychology of Poker, by psychiatrist Dr. Alan N. Schoonmaker, stands out among the masses of other poker literature in that it is one of the first (if only) poker books that revolves mainly around players' individual styles, emotions, and habits.
This rather large book, at over 300 pages, is roughly divided into two sections. The first section, albeit relatively short in length, is worth the price of the book alone. It covers a wide spectrum of poker ideologies, including: "Why Do You Play Poker?", "Reading Hands", "Understanding Tells", "Choosing the Right Games", and "Rating Players" to name just a few.

Schoonmaker repeats the phrase "Accepting responsibility for your own results" several times throughout this section, which essentially tells the reader to accept responsibility for his or her own actions, and not to blame others, luck, or any other factors. This, coupled with another section regarding denial, is perhaps the most important thing a player could ever learn from a book on any competitive game, and as a bonus, Shoonmaker goes into some underlying detail as to why we lie to ourselves.

Schoonmaker also introduces a simple yet remarkably useful tool of which to rate a player's style on. I personally used his rating scale and took advantage of the notes you can easily make on players in online poker.

The second section makes up the vast majority of the book. It is broken up into 4 sub-sections: "The Loose-Aggressive Player", "The Loose-Passive Player", "The Tight-Passive Player", and "The Tight-Aggressive Player". Each sub section explains why those types of players play the way they do, the pro's and con's of each style, how to play against those types of players, and how to improve if you are one of those types of players.

The only minor pitfall the book makes is that it goes a bit too much into the strategies and pro/con's of the four aforementioned playing styles. I would have preferred to read more in regards to the psychology of poker.

Nevertheless, The Psychology of Poker is definitely worth a read, as it boldy goes where no poker author has gone before - into the head's of poker players.

Do you have this book?

unfortunately no :/ i would like to have it