Back To The Trap House

Off Topic Cudi reference: These are the things that make me smile knowin this blunt might burn a while. I keep myself so lifted I am accustomed to new heights.

Breakthrough performance: Johnny would break through at the HPT poker tour this past year taking 90K for 2nd place up in black hawk. As we drove back from the gym we got into the discussion about what "clicked" for him.  He mentioned things like he hadn't tilited in like 6 weeks. You know how you get scared when you don't play for a while thinking you've lost it? Thats not present in him anymore. He's never worried he will lose it. He has a permanent confidence.

Why is that? Well he has put himself in the position anyone who wants to beat this game should. He surrounded himself with the brightest and best poker minds and because of that he is constantly getting the most fresh and innovative information straight from the horses mouth.

Johnny no doubt put in the work to get where he's at. You have to first and foremost. But the most important thing is that he now thinks and breathes poker. This, I believe, is the true difference and the most important thing you need to do to become a profitable player. Other parts of your life will suffer similar to a workaholic CEO who no longer has a family. It doesn't have to be that extreme but still.....

If you read his posts you will notice how much he talks about how much time he puts away from the table. He's a true student of the game. For every hour of play he matches or exceeds it with study. A true poker head and something we should all strive to become.

These guys never ever stop playing poker! They play poker when they eat their cereal, watch Jersey shore and listent to hip hop. Whats the EV of listening to a tribe called quest? Is it better to listent to Young Jeezy or Kid Cudi while playing tournamnets? They play poker when they talk to their parents, hit on girls and choose the fastest way to get to the Broncos game.

Poker is a mind set, a lifestyle that you need to fight to achieve. The only way to do this is through intense preperation. Why does it look so effortless for some players and others struggle on a day to day basis? Prep. Thats it.

Why do players run like GOD all the way up? Sure survivorship bias plays a part but its all in the prep.

Look at something as cliche as referencing the great Michael Jordan. Yeah he could fly or whatever but why did he have so much trouble early on? How many players have been compared to MJ ever since he came into the game? The same types of players with the same or even better skill set? How come they have failed where MJ has succeeded? How many intelligent people do you know who suck at poker? The smartest man in the world never finished college, all he could get were bouncer jobs at bars and has 1000's of skeptics for his new theory on the universe (Although I don't believe college is a good measure of much of anything anymore). He couldn't beat this game. He could understand it but he can't beat it because maybe he doesn't understand that one missing ingredient of life. That seceret they don't tell you about on infomercials. Intense hard work.

But no one wants to do that. You can't buy hard work off an infomercial just like you can't sit there while your abs vibrate until you get a 6 pack while drinking a beer....

I've never read MJ's his bio or whatever but I would bet that everything he does on a daily basis revolves around how to become a better basketball player. What should I not eat for breakfast? What should I eat? Should I be fucking right now? Juanita knows first hand no sex during the season because while studies say that you can't prove sex hurts performance MJ believed it hurt HIS performance. No one wants to hear about how they can't fuck or drink...

Be a Poker Head. Its about what you're comfortable with, plugging your own leaks. To MJ, sex during the season was a leak that he needed to plug. What are your own personal leaks? Maybe you aren't quite comfortable pulling that high variance +EV play just yet. But thats ok.

I have all the makings of a good winning player. I have had flashes of success with failure after failure. I have been coach backed, bust, lived with poker players, talked to high stakes bad asses, up in commers and hopeless busters. Why have I failed where others have succeeded? Because while I told myself I was putting in the study I really wasn't. I was lying to myself and it cost me lots and lots of EV.

Read any posting by AEJONES. Read his blog and what will you find? In one posting he mentioned how he was weighing the EV of driving home from the beach one way compared to another. While friends and family argued in the car about it he knew that it was EV neutral. Both ways you run into traffic and equal travel times. None of the people in the car would listen so he kept his mouth shut instead because they didn't see what he saw. He was obsessed. A Poker Head.

Become a poker head and become a profitable player. Or you could also just be a mindless auto piloting multi tabling robot. They aren't poker players....

I don't know about you guys but when I first started it was the aura of being a hustler that brought me to this game. The cool that went along with being a pro gambler, shooting angles at every opportunity possible. I didn't want to be a mindless button clicker. Thats not very fun and its kind of boring. I've tried it.....

Poker Head. Thats what I want to be. A Poker Head

Its the players that really take the time to learn the ins and outs of the game that become legendary. Do you want to be legendary? Even if you don't you can still be pretty damn good at this game if you just sit back and find the equity..