The Psychology of Poker

by Alan N. Schoonmaker

Poker demands many skills and strategies. To be successful, you must be able to master all of them and then apply them at the appropriate times. They include proper hand selection, bluffing, semi-bluffing, understanding tells and telegraphs, and reading hands. These skills do not come easily since they require unnatural actions. You cannot win just by "doing what comes naturally," Dr. Schoonmaker is concerned "only with the way that psychological factors affect your own and your opponents' ability to play properly. For example, have you ever wondered why some players seem extremely aggressive while others are passive? Why some are tight and others loose? Furthermore, have you ever wondered why some tactics seem to come naturally to you while others don't? This text will answer many of these questions. It will explain why you and your opponents play the way you do. The author also suggests strategic adjustments that you should make to improve your results against different types of players, and he suggests personal adjustments that will help you to play better and enjoy the game more.

Genres: Psychology, Nonfiction, Games

359 pages, Paperback

First published April 30, 2000

About the author

Alan Schoonmaker earned his Ph.D. in industrial psychology at U of California, Berkeley. He taught and did research at UCLA, Carnegie-Mellon, and Belgium's Catholic University of Louvain. After running management development at Merrill Lynch, he worked as a consultant in twenty-nine countries on all six continents. His clients included the world's largest corporations such as IBM, Mobil, GE, GM, and Chase Manhattan. The annual sales of his clients exceed one trillion dollars.

Reviews

[Gerard Byrne]

Another must read and reread to help your game.

[Curtis Rother]

this is a fundamentals book. It's not going to teach you how to be a master player, however the author is relatable and the book is easy to read.

[Tony]

Good but not a must read, except of the appendix. Back there, for each of the four types of poker players, Schoonmaker has two solid pages on the characteristics of each type. He tells you how to beat, what styles of play work against each player. He also devotes two pages per style to help you improve, depending your poker type.

Read this book if you know your poker odds but need help understanding how to read players.

[Joe]

In the end, poker really is a mind game.

[Kasperh]

I really want to read this book.