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How much money can you win at poker? It makes no difference if you are a professional poker player, a novice, or have never played poker before[ 3 ] ... the following 120 Advanced Concepts of Poker can guide any man or woman to unlimited winnings. How much you win depends on how fully and how many of these concepts you choose to apply.
Definitions of the broadest aspects of poker (i.e., the game, odds, betting, players, emotions, and concepts) are given in the following pages as contextual descriptions. Definitions of specific words or phrases used in poker are given in the Glossary in Appendix C.
The object of poker is to win maximum money. Poker is not a card game; poker is a game of deception, manipulation, and money management. Cards are merely the tools for manipulating opponents and money. From the smallest penny-ante game to the largest table stake game, all money eventually goes to the good player. His key weapons are his mind and a license to use unlimited deception.
Poker is unique among money-making situations. In business, for example, opportunities to apply the proper business concepts are limited in number. The financial outcome, therefore, cannot be certain. But, in poker, while chance may influence each separate hand, the opportunities (hands) are so numerous that chance or "luck" becomes insignificant and success becomes certain. Application of the proper poker concepts assures financial success.
Poker concepts are best illustrated by players in actual game situations. The following players are the nucleus of a weekly Monday night game:
Although other men play in this game from time to time, most of the poker situations in this book are illustrated with these five players.
"Four in the morning," Quintin Merck grunts at the dark-whiskered men still sitting around the rectangular poker table. It is not a real poker table, not the kind with trays for money and a green felt top ... it is the dining room table at Scotty Nichols' house. They have played here every Monday night for the past six years.
Layers of gray smoke mushroom around the overhead cluster of electric bulbs that light a leather table mat covered with $10 and $20 bills. The largest pile of money is in front of John Finn, a twenty-eight-year-old social worker -- so everyone thought.
In the sticky summer heat, the men slouch in squeaking wooden chairs. Only John Finn appears alert. The tall black-haired man slips on his glasses and hooks the gold rims around his ears. His dark eyes move from player to player.
On his left sits Sid Bennett, a thirty-five-year-old paving contractor. His large smiling head flops in a semicircle as straight yellow hair falls over his forehead and nearly touches his faded blue eyes. He's in a daze, John says to himself. Look at him grin.
On John's right sits Ted Fehr, a thirty-year-old gambler and restaurant owner. He coils a $50 bill around his skinny fingers while waiting for the next hand. Beneath a knotted mat of red hair, his freckled face wrinkles. Then his bloodshot eyes sag as he watches John Finn's arm hook around the huge pot. "The biggest pot of the night," he moans, "and look who wins it. You . . ."
John interrupts. "Wake up, Professor, it's your deal."
With a growling noise, Professor Merck deals. John watches the deck and sees the bottom card plus two other cards flash. He then studies Quintin Merck's green eyes ... they are watering from the cigarette smoke curling over his mustache and into his leathery face. Wearing a sweaty beret and an opened polo shirt, the wiry fifty-five-year-old college professor hunches over the table. Suddenly he looks up and frowns at John Finn.
Without flinching, John refocuses his eyes and looks into the kitchen. Then his eyes return to the game .. . he studies Scotty Nichols. The plump forty-two-year-old stockbroker slumps half dozing in his chair. His mouth droops to expose a cluster of gold-capped teeth. His thick glasses magnify his eyes into brown globes that float in circles between each squeezing blink. A tie droops from the frayed collar of his scorched white shirt.
They're all valuable to me, John Finn tells himself as his dark eyes draw into slits.
There are good poker players and poor poker players. Most players fall in between these two extremes. The good player works hard to maintain maximum edge odds. He never compromises his advantage for the sake of others. He shares his abilities and earnings with no one. The poor player is usually lazy and generally lacks discipline. Unlike those in the non poker world, the poor poker player cannot live off the advantages or earnings of others.
The ability to play good poker does not correlate with intelligence or the ability to play games such as bridge or chess. And, ironically, poker is a game of neither skill nor luck, but rather, is a game of discipline, aggression, and effort. The good player subjugates his impulses and motivates all his actions toward meeting the objective of poker, which is to win maximum money. He never gives anything away or helps others without the motive of eventual profit. The good player thinks ahead and plans his moves in advance. He disciplines himself and maintains an emotional consistency. He objectively analyzes the game as well as each individual player, hand, and bet; he then adapts to any situation. The good player continuously expands his prowess by soaking up the experience of every play made by each player.
Good poker players are rare, and their paths seldom cross. In fact, most players have never encountered a good player. In the rare event that two good players are in the same game, their effective control is diluted and their edge odds are reduced by each other's presence. A good player searches for weaknesses in his opponents, but two good players do not waste time trying to analyze each other. They more profitably direct their mental effort toward studying the game and the other players.
The strategy of the good player often depends on creating impulse reactions in his opponents. Often, therefore, the best move against a good player is to act oppositely to initial impulses. For example, when undecided about calling a good player and the impulse is to fold, the best move may be to call or even raise.
2. Other Players(4)
The other players supply income to the good player. They are working for him and are his assets. He treats them with care and respect. He plans his actions to extract maximum money from them.
The differences in attitude between the good player and other players are listed in Table 1.
| Situation | Mystical Feelings of Most Poor Players | Objective Attitudes of Good Players |
| Poker game | A relaxing mental diversion to escape reality. | A mental discipline requiring full focus on reality. |
| Evaluation of a play | Winning the pot is most important. | Playing the hand properly is most important. |
| Winner or loser | Play according to winnings or losses. | Never be influenced by winnings or losses. |
| Streaks of luck | Chances or odds are influenced by previous events. Luck runs in cycles. | Past means nothing except for the psychological effects it has on other players. Luck is an illusion. |
| Wild games | Such games are not real poker and require little skill. "Good" poker players will not play these games. | Complex or wild games require more skill and offer greater advantages to the good player. |
| Ante increase | Attitudes are mixed. | An increased ante encourages looser play and works against tight players. |
| Table stakes | Winner has an advantage when he takes money off the table. | The good player has more advantage with maximum money on the table. |
| No-limit poker | A dangerous game for pros only. | Requires more aggressiveness and bluffing. Gives the good player greater advantages. |
| Play past time limit | Chances of winning decrease. | Advantages for the good player increase as opponents get tired and careless. |
| Violation of rules | Enforce rules equally. | Interpret rules consistently and equitably. but enforce rules less rigidly against weak players. |
| Change in sequence of cards while dealing | The run of cards is broken--misdeal. | Makes no difference--keep on playing. |
| Opponents' errors such as betting out of turn | Scold or penalize the culprit. | Usually benefits the good player. Encourage sloppy and loose play. |
| Cheater | Throw him out of game. | If he is a regular loser, say nothing and let him play. |
| Good player | Welcome him. | Get him out of game. |
The major enemy of poker players is their rationalization for their failure to think. They continually find excuses for their self-imposed weaknesses and their lack of self-control. Their losses are directly proportional to their mental laziness.
Many poor players evade thinking by letting their minds sink into irrational fogs. Their belief in luck short-circuits their minds by excusing them from their responsibility to think. Belief in luck is a great mystical rationalization for the refusal to think.
In method of thought, good players are right and poor players are wrong.
John Finn uses the mystical attitudes of his opponents to extract more money from them. In his black notebook, he has a chart that summarizes everyone's attitude:
| Situation | Mystical Attitude | Objective Attitude |
| Evaluation of a play | Quintin, Scotty, Sid, Ted | John |
| Winner or loser | Scotty, Sid, Ted | John, Quintin |
| Streaks of luck | Scotty, Sid, Ted | John, Quintin |
| Wild games | Quintin, Scotty, Ted | John, Sid |
| Play past time limit | Scotty, Sid | John, Quintin, Ted |
| Violation of rules | Quintin, Ted | John, Sid, Scotty |
| Cheaters | Scotty, Ted | John, Quintin, Sid |
Players respond emotionally to various experiences during the game. The good player uses those emotional reactions to his financial advantage. Some typical reactions and their causes are listed in Table 2.
| Emotional Reactions | Causes of Reactions |
| Playing loose to recover losses Playing tight to minimize losses | A losing streak |
| Playing loose to push good luck Playing tight to protect winnings | A winning streak |
| Extending a "rush" or "streak of good luck" by playing recklessly | Winning a big hand or several consecutive hands . . . or having a "hot streak." |
| Playing poorly to avenge a loss or to retaliate for injured feelings | Losing a big hand or having feelings or pride hurt |
| Acting comical or silly | Fear, nervousness, lack of confidence, or desire for diversion |
| Becoming prone to impulsive actions and mistakes | Fear, nervousness, or desperation |
| Losing concentration and decreasing awareness of situation | Fear, laziness, fatigue, other problems |
| Losing assertiveness or aggressiveness | Fearing opponents, high stakes, or loss of too much money |
Recognition and control of one's own emotions are difficult and require thinking effort. That is one reason why good poker players are rare.
The good player directs his actions to produce desirable emotions (e.g., pleasure and self-esteem); the poor player lets his emotions produce undesirable actions (e.g., poor concentration and carelessness).
Poker is a unique medium for studying people. Where else can one stare at and intensely observe another person for hours every week?
Poker offers opportunities to study people, often in highly emotional situations. Such opportunities that are probably better than those most psychoanalysts get to study their patients. The observant, good player will soon understand his opponents better than their own families do.
Poker players are often fatigued and under emotional stresses that expose their characters. On another page in John's notebook, he summarizes the emotional characteristics of his opponents as shown on the chart below:
| Player | Prototype Player | Emotional Characteristics |
| Quintin Merck | Sound | Fairly stable and objective. Can be upset when insulted or humiliated. His play then disintegrates. Becomes less objective during late hours as he fatigues. |
| Scotty Nichols | Average | Has inferiority complex and lack of confidence. Plays extremely tight if winning. Loosens up and plays recklessly after suffering a heavy loss or after losing several consecutive hands. |
| Sid Bennett | Wild | Hides lack of confidence with silly behavior. Humor him and keep atmosphere relaxed to bring out his worst. Be careful not to hurt his feelings, or he will sulk and play tight. Goes wild when winning. |
| Ted Fehr | Self-destructive | A compulsive gambler. Lacks self esteem. Wants to punish himself. Wants to lose. Deteriorates easily into a desperate condition. Insensitive to insults. No pride. |
The most common concept for winning at poker has always been to play conservatively (tight) and to play according to the card odds. Most books on poker stress that concept. They usually include some basic techniques as well as some rules for betting, raising, and bluffing. They also present some common ideas about strategy and psychology. But none of those books offers or even considers a maximum-win approach to poker. (Appendix B lists all the known books about poker published since 1872.)
Table 3 identifies and analyzes the fallacies of many common concepts presented in the well-known and classic books on poker.
By applying the common concepts of poker, a player can win moderately in small-stake games that consist mainly of poor players. But in regular high-stake games, continual losses force most poor players to quit or to improve. High-stake games, therefore, often consist of experienced poker players advanced beyond the common concepts. But when a player using the common concepts enters a high-stake game, he usually feels confident that by playing tight he will eventually win over his looser playing opponents. Bewilderment gradually replaces confidence as he continually loses against players whom he considers inferior competition.
| Book | Concept | Failure of Concept |
| Abbott, 1.--1881 Jack Pot Poker | Never lend or borrow money. | Credit is necessary to keep most private high-stake games going week after week. |
| Allen, G. W.--1895 Poker Rules in Rhyme | "It's the game the boys like best Two or three times a week, One man often beats the rest With nothing else but cheek." | Action on objectively thought out plans (not cheek) is needed to win consistently. |
| Blackbridge, J.--1880 The Complete Poker Player | To play for a minimum loss or gain is what a gentleman should hope for. | To play for maximum gain is what the good player strives for. |
| Cady, Alice H.--1895 Poker | Bluffing should be shunned, for only an old player can experiment in this. | Only the weakest players will shun bluffing. |
| Coffin, G. S.--1949 Fortune Poker | Shrewd players in bad luck should call for a new deck of cards to break the cycle. | A sign of a poor player is one who calls for a new deck of cards to break his "bad luck" . . . he fails to understand poker. |
| Crawford, J. R.--1953 How to Be a Consistent Winner | Treat every bet as though it were your first one. Forget the money already in the pot. | Must consider the money in the pot to estimate the potential return on the present bet (Investment Odds). |
| Culbertson, E.--1950 Culbertson's Hoyle | Never raise early unless the purpose is to drive out players. | Raise early to start bluffs, build pots, control betting, keep players in, drop players out--depending on the situation. |
| Curtis, D. A.--1901 The Science of Draw Poker | New-fangled, high-low poker is mental weakness and should soon die out, even among the feeble-minded. | High-low poker requires more skill and offers greater advantages to the good player than does straight poker. |
| Dowling, A. H.--1940 Confessions of a Poker Player | Players acting out of turn should be penalized. | Players acting out of turn generally benefit the good player. Encourage sloppy play in opponents. |
| Encyclopedia Britannica--1965 "Poker" | In high-low seven-card stud, never play for high unless first three cards are trips. | When to play depends on the investment odds, not on fixed dogma. |
| Florence, W. l.--1891 Handbook on Poker | A good player will at times purposely play poorly to vary his game. | The good player never purposely plays poorly. With thinking, he finds infinite ways to vary his game at favorable investment odds. |
| Foster, R. F.--1904 Practical Poker | The compulsory ante is not based on judgment and has been the ruin of the scientific poker player. | The ante helps the loose player and usually benefits the good player. |
| Frey, R. L.--1947 The Complete Hoyle | Never open unless the probability is that you hold the highest hand. | Open without best hand to establish betting position, to defend against a larger bet, or to set up a play at favorable investment odds. |
| Henry, l R.--1890 Poker Boiled Down | Elements of poker success are good luck, good cards, cheek, good temper, and patience. | "Good luck" and good cards have no bearing on poker success . . . all players eventually get the same "luck" and cards. |
| Jacoby, O.--1947 Oswald Jacoby on Poker | The most successful bluffs are likely to be the innocent ones. | The most successful bluffs are likely to be the well thought out and properly executed ones. |
| Keller, l. W.--1887 Draw Poker | Playing poker without money is really an intellectual and scientific game. Playing poker with money becomes mere gambling. | The essence of poker is aggression and money. |
| Morehead, A. H.--1956 New Complete Hoyle | The most widespread mistake is to play long hours in a futile losers' game. | The greatest advantages occur in a game consisting of tired losers . . . they are usually the poor players at their poorest. Also, the losers' game will usually move at a faster pace and with sloppier play. |
| Morehead, A. H.--1967 The Complete Guide to Winning Poker | Many of the finest poker exploits are inspirational and intuitional. | The only fine poker exploits are the ones consciously thought out. |
| Moss, l.--1955 How to Win at Poker | Beware of poor players. Stay out of games in which there are fish. | Poor players are the most profitable opponents. Seek poor players and games in which fish abound. |
| Ostrow, A. A.--1945 The Complete Card Player | Wild-card and high-low poker increase the element of luck so greatly that rules for improving one's play cannot be set down. | The more complex the poker variations, the less the element of "luck" affects the outcome. |
| Philips, H.--1960 Profitable Poker | No sillier resolution is uttered than "Well, I must see it through." | If the pot is large and the final bet is small, the investment odds may heavily favor "seeing it through." |
| Radner, S. H.--1957 The Key to Playing Poker | To assure a night's winnings, sit to the left of loose bettors and to the right of tight players. | The good player usually sits to the right of loose bettors and to the left of tight players. |
| Reese, T. and Watkins, A. T.--1964 Secret of Modern Poker | To win consistently, you must play tight. | To win consistently, you must adapt to the game pace. |
| Rottenberg, 1.--1965 Friday Night Poker | High-stake games are played by grim, salty players. | High-stake games are played by all types of players. |
| Scarne, l.--1965 Scarne on Cards | Do not lend money. It often comes back to break you. | The good player lends money in order to win more money. |
| Schenick, R. C.--1872 Rules for Playing Poker | The dealer has no special advantage. | The dealer has an advantage in draw games . . . and a large advantage in low ball and hold 'em games. |
| Smith, R. A.--1925 Poker to Win | The yellowest, most contemptible form of cheating is welching. | The welcher has lost his money in the game before borrowing; therefore, he has been an asset. |
| Steig, I.--1959 Poker for Fun and Profit | When someone says, "There isn't much to poker," walk away from him; he is a lout. | When someone says, "There isn't much to poker," get him in the game; he will be a valuable loser. |
| Wickstead, J. M.--1938 How to Win at Stud Poker | In poker, fortune favors the brave. | In poker, the objective thinker makes fortune favor him. |
| Winterblossom, H. T.--1875 Draw Poker | The bluffing element in draw poker is fictitious. | The importance of bluffing depends on the stakes, not on the type of game. |
| Yardley, H. O.--1957 Education of a Poker Player | In all my life, I've never lost at over three consecutive sittings. | A good player at theoretical maximum edge odds (an impossible situation) will lose about once every four sessions . . . or lose in four consecutive sittings about once every 250 sessions. Also, the good player never brags about his success--he tries to conceal his success and understate his winnings. |
| General advice in most poker books from 1872 to 1968 | Keep stakes down, hold to a rigid quitting time, play tight and according to the card odds. | The good player drives the stakes up, usually avoids a rigid quitting time, and plays according to the investment odds. |
Scotty Nichols usually plays sensibly. He bets only good hands and is the tightest player in the game. He has studied many books about poker and faithfully follows their techniques and strategy. According to those books, he should be a consistent winner, particularly in this game with its loose and wild players. Why is he a loser? John Finn knows the answer . . . Scotty plays too tight. The pots he wins are usually small, and the pots he loses are often large. Why? Whenever Scotty shows betting strength or even stays in a hand, the other players either fold or stop betting. When he wins, therefore, the pots are smaller than normal. When players do bet against him to make a large pot, they usually hold powerful enough hands to beat him. In other words, Scotty is a tight player who, like the wild player, has not adjusted to the game pace.
A player extracts maximum money from a poker game by using the Advanced Concepts of Poker. Use of those concepts involves--
Objective, planned deception is the strategic basis for the Advanced Concepts of Poker. Unlimited deception is accepted and ethical in poker. John Finn makes full use of this unique license and will do anything -- except cheat -- that brings him an advantage.
The other players in the Monday night game believe they are deceptive. Their deception, however, is generally unimaginative and repetitive ... it seldom fools John Finn. He eventually wins all their money.
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[ 3 ] Complete Beginners: The basic rules and concepts of poker are simple. They can be mastered after a few hours' exposure to any poker game. Beginners, however, should avoid the advice in most other poker books, for as shown in Concept 7 and in the bibliography, their advice is often based on spurious clichés and a faulty understanding of poker that assures one of never becoming a good player.
[ 4 ] The 120 Advanced Concepts of Poker are listed in order by numbers in parentheses following each concept heading.
[ 5 ] the footnote in Concept 82 for a definition of gambling.
[ 6 ] In poker, unattached money in a pot belongs to no one and can be ethically won by any deceptive means, except cheating. But outside of poker, any poker like deception used to take money from an individual (rather than from an ownerless poker pot) would be dishonest or fraudulent.
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