There are quite a lot of books written on the subject of the psychology of poker, but none better than Alan N Schoonmaker’s Psychology of Poker. This book really gets into why players play like they do, and suggests various ways to overcome them, as well as enhancing your own game along the way.
Schoonmaker is superbly qualified to write on the subject of poker. He acquired his PhD in industrial psychology at the University of California and wrote for many years on the subject of psychology for Poker Digest. He is an online player himself, although only at modest stakes as he says “maximizing my profits is much less important to me than relaxing and learning about people”. Alan can be found playing the lower limits of the online tables, where he claims to meet more maniacs, more rocks, more oddballs and more “deluded experts” which make his game more interesting.
In the book, Schoonmaker highlights that the important role of poker psychology is to make us understand why we do what we do. He elaborates on this perfectly in his series of “Styles Grids” and makes it one of his key goals to determine what our internal motivations are for playing poker, and why we succeed or fail. He questions whether we have the “right stuff” to make it in the world of poker and asks whether it is our need for socialization, rather than competition, which drives us to the virtual poker rooms each evening. The insight into egotisms and rationality is spellbinding without being full of psychoactive phraseology, and Schoonmaker breaks down poker players’ psyche into the “eight principals of poker”, allowing each reader to explore their reasons for playing poker without the need to be judgmental.
Ultimately we are all somewhere between Tight Passive and Loose Aggressive poker players, but our development before the dawn of the Internet has a huge influence on the way in which we play poker. A recommended read!
The Psychology of Poker can be purchased from Amazon or a variety of online booksellers.
Paperback: 330 pages
Publisher: Two Plus Two Pub.; 1 edition (May 2000)
ISBN-13: 978-1880685259
Read more about Psychology of Poker on Amazon
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