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Poker has changed. Twenty years ago, a player with solid fundamentals and basic discipline could win consistently. The games were soft, information was scarce, and most players made obvious mistakes. Today, that world no longer exists. Training sites, solvers, tracking software, and hand history databases have democratized poker knowledge. The technical gap between winning and losing players has narrowed dramatically. Everyone knows what a continuation bet is. Everyone understands pot odds. Ever
**Estimated Reading Time:** 45 minutes
**What You'll Learn:**
- Why emotional control, not technical skill, separates winning players from everyone else - How to systematically eliminate tilt, fear, and confidence problems - The Adult Learning Model and how it accelerates skill development - Practical strategies for managing your mental game in real time - How to build stable motivation and confidence that survive downswings
**Who This Book Is For:**
This book is for poker players who have studied strategy, memorized ranges, and put in thousands of hands, yet still find themselves making decisions they know are wrong. It is for the player who can analyze a hand perfectly after the session but cannot execute that analysis in the heat of the moment. It is for anyone who has ever tilted away a week's worth of profit in twenty minutes, felt paralyzed moving up in stakes, or questioned whether they have what it takes to succeed.
If you have ever felt that your emotions are the enemy of your results, this book will show you a different path.
Poker has changed. Twenty years ago, a player with solid fundamentals and basic discipline could win consistently. The games were soft, information was scarce, and most players made obvious mistakes. Today, that world no longer exists. Training sites, solvers, tracking software, and hand history databases have democratized poker knowledge. The technical gap between winning and losing players has narrowed dramatically. Everyone knows what a continuation bet is. Everyone understands pot odds. Everyone has studied range construction. So where does the edge come from now? The answer, increasingly, is the mental game. Not in the vague, motivational-poster sense of "believe in yourself" or "stay positive." The mental game is a set of concrete, learnable skills that determine whether you can execute what you already know. It is the difference between knowing the right play and making the right play when the pressure is on, when the bad beats are piling up, when fear creeps in, when your confidence is shaken. Jared Tendler wrote this book because he saw a gap in how poker players approached improvement. Players would spend hundreds of hours studying strategy but almost no time studying themselves. They would review hand histories but never review their emotional reactions. They would analyze opponents' tendencies but remain blind to their own patterns of tilt, fear, and self-sabotage. Tendler's background made him uniquely qualified to address this gap. As a mental game coach with a master's degree in counseling psychology, he worked with professional poker players, athletes, and traders. He saw the same patterns repeat across disciplines. High performers hit invisible ceilings not because of technical limitations but because of mental game flaws they…
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Get the complete summary in the appMental game problems are skill problems, not personality flaws.
Emotions are signals to be interpreted, not enemies to be suppressed.
Tilt is any emotional deviation from optimal play, and it follows a predictable progression.
Injecting logic is your real-time defense against tilt: recognize, breathe, inject, review, repeat, quit if needed.
Fear is accumulated uncertainty. Identify the specific uncertainties and address them directly.
Stable motivation comes from clear goals and values, not from short-term results.
"The Mental Game of Poker" is a strong fit if you want practical ideas around money & finance, psychology, self help, especially themes like mental game problems are skill problems, not personality flaws; emotions are signals to be interpreted, not enemies to be suppressed. The MinuteRead summary distills these concepts into a focused read, whether you're deciding whether to buy the book or applying its lessons at work.
Jared Tendler, MS, LMHC , is a renowned expert in performance psychology, specializing in how mental game impacts performance across various fields. With over 16 years of experience, he has coached world champion poker players, professional athletes, and financial traders. Tendler holds a master's degree in Counseling Psychology and is a licensed mental health counselor. He has authored three acclaimed books, including "The Mental Game of Poker" series and "The Mental Game of Trading." Tendler h…
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