Elements of Poker (Paperback)

(A review of "Elements of Poker" -- written by Tim Peters -- first published in Card Player Magazine, February 13 2008.)

To discover what we really need in a new poker book, let's first examine what we really don't need. A list of starting hands. A reminder that "tight is right." How to play a flush draw in limit. I could go on.

So what do we need? We need Tommy Angelo's excellent new book that covers 144 "elements" of poker (the title, no doubt, harks to The Elements of Style by Strunk and White). We need to develop our own selection of starting hands, by position; he provides a chart. We need to learn to play "mum poker," which "is not about not talking. It's about not talking about certain things, namely, poker things." We need to learn about "the path of leak resistance" (say, avoiding the pits: "When a poker player plugs the leak, or tries to, he walks the path of leak resistance"). We even need to learn how to fold: not what to fold, but how to fold: you "fastfold" when "you muck your hand as soon as you know you are beat" because (a) it's courteous and (b) it reduces your information outflow.

"Fastfold" is one of the many words and terms Angelo has coined (and his great verbal dexterity makes the book a pleasure to read; lively, entertaining, and interesting as well as instructive). He credits himself with the creation of the word "hijack" for the seat one to the right of the cutoff (because a raised from that seat "hijacked" Angelo from the button). Another one I particularly relished was "bliscipline," a combination of bliss and discipline: "when you are at the table and you are so totally in control of yourself and so totally at peace in the situation that no matter what happens next, you'll still have plenty of resolve in reserve."

"Bliscipline" is what you need to survive and win at poker; bliscipline is what you need to achieve--another Angelo-ism--"tiltlessness." While I still believe the definite work on tilt is Zen the Art of Poker by Larry Phillips (see my review in Card Player, April 25, 2007), Angelo is the new poet of tilt, which he defines as "any deviation from your A-game and your A-mindset, however slight or fleeting." Everybody tilts; "To make money from tilt, you don't need to be tiltless. But you do have to tilt less."

Tilt less; win more. How? "To win at poker, you have to be very good at losing." And that requires practice. Learn to become "hopeless" ("if I am hopeful that I will win, it is inevitable that I will sometimes be disappointed"). Recognize that poker is the "mother fluctuater" (which is "why it's best to not give a fluc"). Understand that the "gray area"--that huge swath of poker where you simply don't know what to do--is just another part of the game. Do not "resist reality": "Extreme resistance is extreme pain."

And we need to learn how to breathe (i.e., mindfully: "to elevate your calmness"). It sounds like New Age claptrap, but Angelo has made me a believer in the power of controlled, conscious breathing, which helps you step away from bad beats and losses: "By eliminating the past, and eliminating the future, we give ourselves this present." Very Zen, but, I think, very true--and very helpful (if you put it to work).

Elements of Poker does offer some traditional strategic on limit, no-limit, and tournament poker. Angelo is eloquently persuasive, for example, about the supreme importance of position, and there's a good section on the "dollar value" of your stack/position in tournament poker. But read this book for its understanding of the more subtle "elements of poker." Then read it again.

First, I played a lifetime of poker. Then I taught poker for a few years which caused an accumulation of curriculum. Then I fleshed out the parts of my teaching that I thought would be the most helpful to the most players most often, punctuated it with winks and smiles, and put a binding on it.

I wrote this book for everyone who plays poker or knows anyone who plays poker or even knows how to spell poker. I wrote it for anyone who wants a better A-game, and a better C-game. I tried to make "Elements of Poker" a book that speaks to every player, if not today, then maybe tomorrow.

- Tommy Angelo