Professional Texas Holdem Poker Player Stress Relief - The Home Poker Room Solution

Anyone who has ever played Texas Holdem poker online, in casinos or even at home with friends feels pressure when engaged in playing a big hand. Your heart beats a little faster and a knot forms in your stomach. Depending on the size of the wagers or the size of the pot, your muscles might tense up, hands may start to tremble and you may even begin to perspire. These physical symptoms occur in novice and intermediate players when involved in relatively small pots. Imagine the pressures that professional poker players experience while playing high stakes poker games where huge amounts of money are at stake. Add to this scenario television coverage or a large live audience where your every decision and move is being analyzed and second guessed by the audience and the commentators. At stake is not just a large amount of money, but also your reputation as a poker player. Now that's pressure!

In the early days of televised professional Texas Holdem poker, players were fitted with heart monitoring devices that allowed their heart rates to be displayed throughout a poker tournament. It was amazing to watch how heart rates of these professional players soared as the cards were turned and the players tried to maintain a calm and relaxed facade. It was not uncommon to see heart rates soar from the low 70's beats per minute to 140 beats per minute and higher. In the course of a high stakes or a high profile poker tournament, the professional poker player undergoes these types of stresses repeatedly throughout long days over the course of several days. The physical and mental pressures are enormous. Human beings cannot continue to experience these extreme pressures for a prolonged period of time without potential threats to their physical health. Poker players require down time between events to relax and get away from the pressure.

Like any other professional athlete, the professional poker player needs to continue to practice his or her trade even during down time to keep their skills sharp. Professional golfers may return to their home course and play some "friendly golf" with their friends. Pro basketball players take the opportunity to play a little one-on-one or three-on-three for "burgers" with their buddies at the school yard. Athletes in all sports have similar outlets that allow them to engage in their sport at a fun level but with sufficient motivation to work on their skills and to even try to develop something new.
A home poker game room offers professional poker players the same sort of fun and relaxed environment to play a little "fun" poker with friends. It provides the opportunity for face-to-face interaction buddies where the pro players can work on their poker persona and on controlling the physical manifestations of the stress that they encounter during high stake and high stress poker. Building a fun, comfortable home poker room with the necessary equipment and proper decor to create the right mood and atmosphere requires good planning and the best professional quality poker supplies.

The first major component of a first class poker room is the poker table. This table needs to be a full size, casino grade table with all the amenities that are necessary to ensure optimum player comfort. Padded arm rests and a padded table top with casino quality speed felt would be mandatory comfort considerations. Proper lighting is important to ensure that eye strain and eye fatigue do not become factors that will affect the comfort needs of players during prolonged periods of poker play. The chairs selected must also be capable of providing optimum support and comfort for extended periods of time.

Top quality clay poker chips and playing cards are required to ensure a professional mood and atmosphere. To keep the poker game running smoothly with blind and ante increases occurring automatically and on time, a quality timing system is required. Finally, the home poker room decor should have a decorative theme that creates a comfortable, inviting setting. In this environment the interaction can be fun and relaxed but with enough structure and atmosphere to provide good competition.

A well planned poker room with professional quality poker supplies can be a great environment for the professional poker players to relax and recharge their batteries between big events. It can be equally valuable to novice and intermediate poker players who may aspire to greater things, to improve their poker skills and strategies in a low-risk but professional quality environment.

Share:

Read More

Poker Training Lesson No 1 - Listen to Poker Stories

I have found there are definitely options for poker training whilst listening and learning from opponents, especially when they're sharing their poker stories. I know it often gets monotonous listening to the same old voices bragging about their talents or degrading other opponents play. How often do you come across a poker player that wants to tell you how close they got to winning, but just got lost to a bad beat? Or even poor play from another opponent.
You should not simply consider this idle chatter... this is poker training.
These poker stories are an extremely valuable opportunity for you to learn about your opponents. Whoever is telling the story is actually divulging information that you can use against them. They are providing information such as:
what hands they like to play
 the value they think certain hands are worth
 what they might consider a good fold or a poor fold
 what they consider is an acceptable raise
 what may put them on tilt
 what they believe is bad play
 how they react to other players actions
 and much much more....
Can you see this information is gold, it's a read, these are poker tells on your opponents. They may be friends or strangers, and regardless whether you get the opportunity to use this information on that particular opponent, you should store these poker stories in your 'poker vault'. Your poker training is to develop this vault to gather a vast range of knowledge of poker personalities and perspectives. You can and will start to see patterns develop amongst players and this is often formed through conformity, players reading similar books and players swapping methods and telling each other what they believe is correct.
BUT do not start to believe everyone will act the same. This is the beauty of Poker, no one player can define the correct or right way to play.
Every hand is like a fingerprint, they are all different. WHY? Because human emotion is involved. Any poker hand may and will be influenced by so many different reasons, such as past hands, reactions to opponents, chip stacks, limiting beliefs or even something unforeseen like a fight with a girlfriend at home the night before. You can never play the same hand the same way twice. How can you tell? How do you know? What sort of poker training can help you learn these things? Well the answer isn't in the cards, it's in listening to your opponents and the poker stories they so often want to openly share with you. All you have to do is ask the whole table, "what's the worst beat anyone has ever seen?" I guarantee, someone will pipe up and open the flood gates of  sit back, listen and enjoy and remember to take mental notes of what is said. And if you want to take it to the next level, watch if the other players are listening too. Ask yourself if anyone else is listening the way you are, are they that 'switched on', are they learning as much as you, are they someone to look out for too. You will always learn more from listening than talking, which reminds me of another one of my favorite quotes from the past US president, Richard Nixon:
"I learned that the people who have the cards are usually the ones who talk the least and the softest; those who are bluffing tend to talk loudly and give themselves away"
I have found this to be oh so true. The loudest are often the worse talented players (provided their volume is not deliberately to annoy or intimidate).
Can you imagine there is more to learning about poker than just reading books. Poker training and information can be gained from a whole range of sources. Listening to poker stories is just one of these techniques, but they don't just have to be poker stories, they can be any type of stories. A story told by an individual has a personal spin to the story, therefore that person will give you insight into how they want to tell the story. How they recall the story, thus you learn more about them and how they think. Live poker is about knowing people and how they act and react in different situations. The day you stop learning about people is the day you will stop improving your poker game.
Take it from me, any poker player at any level can always learn from this type of poker training, go forth and listen and you might just learn something. Good luck.
If you enjoyed this article be sure to visit the Poker Power blog as we have many more posts like this one designed to help you improve your poker skills and become a better poker player. I look forward to you stopping by.

Share:

Read More