Psychology of Poker

Alan Schoonmaker is a great psychologist with Ph.D. degree. He works as a science consultant at the popular poker forum (2+2). Alan used to work at Carnegie-Mellon University and Belgium's Catholic University of Louvain.

Alan Schoonmaker is the author of five books on industrial psychology. In 2005, he wrote the book about the importance of psychology in poker which has become a real best seller. Like other books of Alan, "Psychology of Poker" is dedicated to study the types of poker players and finding an attitude to them.

Alan Schoonmaker, unlike most of the poker authors, is playing at the low stakes. He explains it by his wish to study the types of people playing poker rather then getting profit. Alan claims that playing at the lower stakes is much more interesting as there are much more “maniacs”, “rocks”, “calling stations” and “pseudo-experts”. This book will help you to understand the psychology of ordinary players, who are not that different from you.

"Psychology of Poker" by Alan Schoonmaker will help you realize the external side of the game: why do people make this or that decisions, why do some people play aggressively and the others are passive, how to change your strategy against different opponents to win more and so on. Knowledge of these things will help you to use them against the opponents and thus to get the maximum benefit from the game.

In the process of reading of the book you will study yourself in the first place. After that you will be able to gain profit using your strong sides and weaknesses. By studying yourself, you will learn to analyze your opponents and categorize them depending on their actions. In the end the author tells about how to change your playing style in the most inconvenient way for your opponents.

"Psychology of Poker" by Alan Schoonmaker Is divided into 8 parts:

• From the first part of the book you will know about the right approach to the game of poker. You will answer to yourself on such questions as “Why do I play?” and “Am I playing right?”. You will also define your motives to play.
• The second part is called “The right skills”. With the help of it you will find out how good are your poker skills. In the process of reading you will learn to avoid fooling yourself, hold your emotions and improve your skills. You will also know how important it is to watch your opponents do and 'read' their tells. The author offers you to find out which games are better for you (MTT, SNG, short tables, long tables and so on).
• The third part is called “Styles and ratings”. You will see a diagram of playing styles in it. You will learn how to categorize players depending on their actions and make decisions after you’ve evaluated the player. You will also know about the psychology of bluff and about how to write notes on the players correctly, as well as evaluate your own game and skills.
• You will know about the types of players and the correct play against the different types of players from the parts 4, 5, 6 and 7. You will get to know how to choose the best seat at the table if you know types of the players at that table. The knowledge you will gain in these parts will help you to show your A-game (the best possible game) against the opponents who play in similar styles.
• The final part is about all the factors which can hinder you in poker development. After you will know about possible problems, it will be easier for you to avoid them.

At the end of the book "Psychology of Poker" you will find different tests corresponding to the table of contents. With the help of these tests you will define your weak and strong sides and also realize what types of poker games you should stick to achieve maximum results.

• Author: Alan Schoonmaker
• Type of poker: Applicable to all varieties of online poker
• Level: Beginner
• Year of publishing: 2005
• Number of pages: 231
• Language: English