The Nature of Poker (Week 6) – Chip Counting

For much of his career, Chip Reese was regarded by the poker community as the best all-round cash game player. He was Doyle Brunson’s closest friend and the big man was devastated when Chip died suddenly in 2007. Almost every day for thirty years they had played against each other in Bobby’s room in the…

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The Nature of Poker (Week 6) – Presence

At the heart of the debate that is central to one’s choices as to how you approach poker whether you are more mathematical or employ a variety of other more human skills as well is Presence. Presence in some ways can be regarded as the foundation and touchstone of reading situations and people at poker…

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The Nature of Poker (Week #4) – Underdog Mindset 

Being present for what is actually happening is always at the heart of everyone’s best performances. It is a myth both pervasive and understandable in equal measure that doing the “Phil Helmuth” and acting like one is the greatest ever player is an attitude that will work best for you as a player. It is…

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The Nature of Poker (Week #3) – Peripheral Vision

This is one of my favourite times of the year for watching sports. As time has passed I have come to regard the American Football playoffs season with its “win or go home” cliff edge as riveting viewing. As an 11-year-old I was introduced to “British Bulldog “ at school. A brilliant game that starts…

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The Nature of Poker (Week #2)

Who are you ? I mean who are you as a poker player? It probably has a lot to do with who you are as a person as well. In poker as in life, it is easy to lose our objectivity and be out of touch with how things are. This can happen as a…

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The Nature of Poker (Week #1)

This is the first in a 52-week series of articles (possibly some videos) for 2023. What is the nature of Poker? We all share a love (or sometimes hate ) of poker but what is it, how is it, and how does it work? If we were to take a step back and explain it…

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Hilarious Paddy Power Ad With Andy Black

Poker got the ‘famous’ Paddy Power advertising treatment this week with the launch of an advert featuring Irish Poker Tour’s Festival Ambassador, Andy Black. In his perfect deadpan style, Andy shows what life as a ‘professional poker player is like. Ahead of the Paddy Power Irish Poker Festival, we met with Irish Poker Legend, Andy…

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Awaken the Poker Player Within

“Now come on Andy, fuck off with this!” Poker players aren’t going to go for an event for fifty minutes where you get them to play silly games, you get them to learn from others speaking about how they play their best and you turn them into a tribe !!!! And loads of other surprise…

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Speed Coaching – Andy Black

About 4/5 Years ago I was playing the WSOP Europe Main Event in Rozodov (Finishing about 12th I think ) while doing a bit of commentary with our Great Leader Fintan Gavin and doing on-the-spot coaching with a whole variety of players ….so I was very busy. For some of the people I coached, it…

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