Are You Playing to Play, or Playing to Win?

In the real world, the moment you believe you are entitled to something is exactly when you are ripe to lose it to someone who is fighting harder.

The fundamental rule of engagement is that any force can defeat any other force—if it can define the battle. If we get to set the turf, if we get to set the competitive criteria for winning, why would we ever lose? The answer, depressingly enough, is because we don’t do it right. Sometimes it is because we misunderstand either our own strengths and

Mastery is always a struggle for balance. How much time do you devote to the craft, and how much to yourself? And can you really do one without the other? I have a dual goal here. My poker journey—but also the larger journey that the poker is meant to lead to. They can’t be separated. And as I’m learning, the craft of poker certainly cannot be mast

I try to think of a time in the last week when I showed down a bluff with pride, confidently flipping over my cards when someone called my final bet even though I knew I held nothing, and I come up short. “Good players are going to realize if the min cash is important to you,” Erik says. “And they’re going to take advantage of that. They’ll really