By
DP388 |
Published
Jun 26 2006, 09:05 PM
Zen and the Art of Pokerby Larry W. PhillipsLet me first state that I’m not some deep thinking Zen Buddhist follower. I’m a regular guy who enjoys learning about ways to take my poker game to the next level. I first became aware of the concept of using Zen principles to improve your poker game by reading an article Howard Lederer posted on his website. Soon thereafter, in another message board someone made a post asking what the best poker books out there were and it was mentioned by quite a few people to pick up
Zen and the Art of Poker by Larry Phillips. I went ahead and ordered it from Amazon because it seemed like a pretty easy read (only 175 pages) with some interesting concepts.
Some of those concepts really opened my eyes and helped me build a solid foundation for understanding the mental side of poker. Where most poker books concentrate on strategy and the cards,
Zen and the Art of Poker really helps you look inside yourself to improve your game both emotionally and psychologically. When I’m really in the zone, I’m approaching the game emotionally neutral and completely detached from the results. This book has helped me learn about achieving this emotionless state as well as other key principles that you can apply to poker and beyond.
Some of the key concepts covered in the book include:
· Fitting yourself into the flow of the game
· Using inaction as a weapon
· Mastering yourself, not the game
· Dealing with losses, errors and failure
· Playing on instinct
One of the most important lessons I learned was playing on instinct. This is a sample of one of the many nuggets.
”As an exercise, try turning off your thinking mechanism from time to time and going by your instincts alone….Playing by instinct is going to be wrong at times but doing it on a regular basis will purify the process…Your instinct will improve, until what is in your mind will gradually come into alignment with the true nature of what is going on in the game.”
As far as the readability of the book goes, you don’t have to read it cover to cover. Most of concepts are independent and you can start reading at any point. So, if you’ve read all the great poker strategy books and are looking for a way to take your game to a new level, I would definitely pick up a copy.
To buy this book on Amazon.com click here :
Zen and the Art of Poker