Here’s a little guest post for you guys . . .

Pretty often a new poker room comes around and threatens the grip that previously established poker rooms have on the online poker industry. More often than not, they fizzle out, never to be heard of again. One online poker room that seems to be here to stay, though, is Littlewoods poker online.

While Littlewoods poker is still relatively small compared to some of its major competitors, it makes up for this shortcoming with great signup bonuses, great customer service, an excellent software platform, and extremely easy deposit and withdrawal methods.

If you have already visited all the poker news sites, taken part in a poker school, and have been following your favorite poker blog religiously and are ready to make the jump into online poker, Littlewoods Poker is worth giving a shot.

Littlewoods Poker offers great sign up bonuses. Not only do you get entry into a special freeroll tournament for new players when you sign up, you also get a 100% deposit bonus on your initial deposit.

Freerolls are excellent opportunits for who is looking a free seat to the next EPO. Even though this is relatively standard in the online gaming industry, the easier bonus release rules make this a great deal.

Tommy Angelo is a legend among the poker community. He has been playing longer than I have been alive.

He coaches people how to tilt less and become tiltless. He runs his own coaching program and blog over at his website.

I first came in contact with Tommy about 3-4 years ago I think. I contacted him after I went berserk at the poker table and realized that I needed more tiltlessness in my life.

Here’s the interview, enjoy!

Henri: I remember when I first discovered poker. One of my friends had made $500 and I instantly thought “If he can then I can” and I started reading books and everything I could get my hands on. How did you find poker?

Tommy: I started playing poker with my older brothers when I was five years old. That was in 1963. I started playing for money when I was 14. At age 17 was the first time I ever heard the phrase “professional poker player,” and I knew I wanted to be one. 13 years later, my dream came true. Two months later I was flat broke.

Henri: There are many reasons people turn pro, most of today’s online players seem to just fall into it. One day they’re making $10,000/month and they decide that it is awesome and they should try going pro, but what made you go pro, was it when you reached a certain amount of income or something else?

Tommy: I became I pro because I was so insanely addicted to poker that there was literally nothing else I wanted to do. And if I was going to do nothing but play poker, well, I was going to have to win, or else. So because of obsession and necessity, I learned how to win.

Henri: I know you’ve been playing poker for almost 20 years now, that’s almost as long as I’ve been alive! I know I’ve learned a thing or two from playing poker, so my question is.. Have you learned anything during all these years?

Tommy: Just to get the numbers straight, I went pro about 20 years ago. I played for money for 15 years before that! Yes, I have learned the most important thing to work on now and forever is playing my best all the time, no matter what it takes. If I do my best, then not only do I enjoy the game optimally, and make the most money possible, but I also have no regrets, no matter what happens.

Henri: Did you ever go broke or have to work in some weird places? What kind of jobs have you worked in your life. Did you enjoy them? What did you learn from them?

Tommy: I was either broke or on the verge of broke my first five years as a pro. I haven’t worked a regular job since I went pro. Thought I have had a variety of small income streams, such as parking cars in my yard on Ohio State University home football games (that was six days per year, back when I lived in Ohio). And writing poker articles. And, well I guess that’s it. These days, I hardly play anymore. Between doing poker coaching, and book sales, I’m making plenty of money, and I love those activities, obviously, or else I wouldn’t be doing them!

I have a new major project out right now. It’s called “The Eightfold Path to Poker Enlightenment.” It’s an 8-part poker video series. You can see it at DeucesCracked.com. You can read the details about in this blog post.

Henri: And an important question I almost forgot. We all know Eckhart Tolle (the author of Power of Now) likes cats, but do you have any pets and do you think that they are secretly manipulating us?

Tommy: I have two cats, Max and Emma, and they rule my mind and body. I am powerless before them.

Henri: There’s something strange about cats. They’re tricky. I like it. Onto the next question. Have you ever been so sick of poker that you just wanted to kill something cute? What did you do during those times? Did you take a break or just plow through it?

Tommy:
1) Yes.
2) Damaged myself instead.
3) Both.

Most of my running bad “breaks” were really three-day depressions. I’d just read and sleep and watch movies and not answer the phone. And there were times I plowed through. I’ve been through every kind of bad streak so many times that just about every which way of handling it, and not handling, has occurred.

Henri: You’re well known for your tiltless coaching program, where you help poker players reduce their tilt issues. If you could sum up the best advice ever on how to reduce tilt into a few sentences, what would you say?

Tommy: Meditate every morning. Tune your instrument. Then use your mindfulness skills during your sessions and on your breaks. I just made a page at my site for people looking to get started. TommyAngelo.com/meditation101.html

Henri: If someone is thinking about going pro, what would you say to them?

Tommy: Go for it.

Henri: You’ve started making a new series on the poker training site DeucesCracked called “The Eightfold Path to Poker Enlightenment”, do you have any plans to produce future videos and what will they be about (if you can disclose that)

Tommy: There are still a couple months of intensive work left to be done on the video series. After that, I am going to take a break from major projects for a few months. I have no specific plans yet as to what my next project will be. I might write a book with the same name as the video series. As to videos, I have no plans to make more, and no plans not to. My general plan is to start my next major project, whatever it is, in January 2010.

Henri: Did you ever study at college or get any “higher” education?

Tommy: I went to Ohio State University for one year. I left college to play bridge. I was definitely one of the higher people there.

Henri: What did you want to be when you grew up?

Tommy: An astronaut.

Henri: Many poker players say that being broke is an interesting feeling, you feel free. Have you ever been completely no-pennies-in-your-pocket broke? What was it like?

Tommy: Yes. It totally sucked. I did not feel free because I was broke. I felt shackled. However! It was worth all the pain, because the freedom I DID feel, the freedom of waking up everyday with no one relying on me and me relying on no one else, was absolutely priceless.

Henri: What is one of the awesomest things you’ve ever experienced at the poker table or related to poker?

Tommy: This was at a home game back in Ohio. It was like a casino game, with a house dealer and all that. Everyone knew everyone. This old-ish guy went into a red-faced vein-bulging rage over losing hand after hand. He stormed to the bathroom while blaring, “I’m going to go blow my fucking brains out.” He went into the bathroom, and we heard a gunshot go off. Nobody got up. A minute later, he came out, even more angry if you can imagine that, because no one had come to see if he was still alive.

Henri: You’ve been coaching tilting players for quite some time now. Are there any general patterns you see in people that you would like to share, like not quitting enough, not breathing etc..

Tommy: The most pervasive tilt-causing pattern, and this is in all people, not just poker players, is that we think and think and think and think, about what happened, and what will happen, and we have all this negative mental crap that get stirred up by our judgments and reactions, and if we would just stop, like, now, and just listen, and look around, and take some calming breaths, and give our discursive thoughts a chance to slow down and even stop, for just a second, if we would do just that one thing, multiple times throughout the day, our overall tilt factor would go down in direct proportion to the amount of stopping we do.

Henri: And lastly, why do you love the game of poker?

Tommy: Because it is boundless. Because it has a thousand faces. Because it tests every aspect of humanity, and it allows every skill and every trait to flower. Poker is the ultimate game because it molds itself to each person. As to playing it, I love it because, well, I don’t know why. I just know that I do.

Henri: That’s a wrap! I hope you guys enjoyed it. I know I did!

I just got back from Nicaragua.  Sunny weather, warm water, big clean waves – everything a surfer could ask for.

Flying out of Miami, my Dad and I arrived in Managua, and took a bumpy, dusty ride to the Surf Sanctuary about 3 hrs to the south.

The friendly American owners greeted us on our arrival.

We ate a delicious fresh-cooked meal and enjoyed the brand-new accomodations with pool table, AC, and internet.

I hoped to play poker during my stay, but the central american internet was good for email and chat but not stable enuogh for poker.

After dinner we took the short ride to the beach to check out the waves.

Stoked!

Dad, while playing pool, befriended a group of cheerful brazilian surfers.  The next morning we all drove north to Popoyo.

Popoyo is a fun, rippable wave, both lefts and rights.  Bigger sets would roll through periodically.

The tide rose and softened up the smaller waves.  We had a blast!

After lunch, the brazilians took us to an un-named surf spot they dubbed “little popoyo.”  The wave broke off a large outcropping of lava rock!  I kept my distance from the rock, but the brazilians would charge waves mere meters from the cliff.

Little popoyo breaks slowly, yielding big open faces for carves and cutbacks.   Lots of fun.

Surfed out, we ate a delicious dinner of locally grown chicken, vegetables, rice and beans at Surf Sanctuary, and crashed for the night.  Stay tuned for part 2!

I just saw the first episode of Tommy Angelo’s series The Eightfold Path to Poker Enlightenment. It is all about the non-betting aspects of poker and it is awesome!

I have been in contact with Tommy Angelo for about 4 years I think. I started getting coaching and talking to him when I was playing Limit Hold’em and he helped me discover why I was tilting and what I could do to stop!

In these episodes he goes through a lot of material that is in his book Elements of Poker, but he also talks about other things that are interesting to hear, at least for me!

It’s on DeucesCracked, where their thing is to make series, each series consists of seasons, each season consists of 8 episodes, and each series is about different topics.

One could be about how to beat low-limit NLHE and one could be about how to become a poker budddha, and that’s what Tommy’s series is all about!

I highly recommend that you check out not only Tommy’s series but all the stuff on DeucesCracked if you want to become a poker player who kills your poker game or any new poker room!

If you can’t find Tommy’s video, just type “Tommy Angelo” in the Find box at the top. You can try DC for free (for 7 days), until then you can see small preview of each video, until you sign-up.

About a year ago I started slacking off. I thought I could just auto-pilot my way to profit, and I was right, I could, but not without consequences.

My winrate started going downhill because I wasn’t keeping up with what was going on at the poker table.

I wasn’t paying attention to my opponents and I wasn’t REALLY studying the game.

Sure, I was getting coaching and watching poker videos at deucescracked, but I wasn’t really paying attention or even caring.

And that’s when I hit a pretty bad downswing and it has taken me awhile to get back on track. I lost focus and started to focus on the money more than the strategic aspect of the game.

It’s funny because it happens in cycles. I have soon been playing poker full-time for five years, and I can only laugh at myself because I go through the same cycles over and over.

I play well and I win a bunch of gold, then I’m like “this is so easy, I’m going to play more tables and own people even more.”

After that I usually hit a downswing and I am oblivious to why it has happened. Cards do matter, but often enough my play has deteriorated and I have no one but myself to blame.

I then whine to everyone I know about how unlucky I am and how I am the unluckiest guy in the world and why me. I consider doing animal sacrifices for the poker gods, but always decide against it.

That’s usually how the cycle goes for me. The animal sacrifice thing is usually rock bottom for me, and that is when I get a coach and slap myself in the face.

Lessons Learned

1 – Don’t play 8 tables and think you can play ABC poker and own people.

2 – DON’T whine to your friends, because it is a waste of energy and your friends will want to do bad things to you.

3 – Pay attention while you play and really THINK about every decision.

4 – Try to figure out your opponents thought process. If they show a weirdly played hand, think about why they’re playing it that way. What is their reasoning? Can you learn anything about them that you can later use to crush their soul?

5 – Do other stuff! Don’t take poker so seriously, poker has variance and you’ll get destroyed by poker if you take it too seriously. Get a hobby, girlfriend, dog, meditate or whatever you want.

Photo taken by Craig Dennis.