World-class coach and author, Tommy Angelo is considered a modern master of poker's mental game, and has helped pros and rec players alike achieve less tilt and more focus.
Tommy Angelo's 2007 Elements of Poker is already a classic. After decades of experience as a player and a coach, Angelo identified 144 of poker's 'elements' — stuff like A-Game, Tilt, Bankroll, Position, Running Good and Running Bad, Awareness, and much more. Witty and wise, stern and compassionate, Angelo's book is a reassuring guide for a challenging game.
Angelo recently revised and narrated an audiobook version of Elements. At seven hours and seventeen minutes, there's plenty of valuable material to (re)discover. Despite the absence of conceptual charts and illustrations — all available on his website — the audiobook is as accessible and relevant as ever.
As Angelo's readers already well know, Elements of Poker is less about playing poker than about how to be a poker player.
Mental Game and Performance
Larry Phillips's Zen and the Art of Poker, Jared Tendler's The Mental Game of Poker, Fedor Holz's Primed Mind app, Elliot Roe's The Mindset Advantage podcast — these are only a few resources within a vast area called 'the mental game.' In a way, Tommy Angelo is the mental game's kindly godfather. He's indispensable. And so is his concept of reciprocality.
'In the world of reciprocality,' Angelo says, 'it's not what you do that matters most, and it's not what they do. It's both. Reciprocality is any difference between you and your opponents that affects your bottom line. Reciprocality says that when you and your opponents would do the same thing in a given situation, no money moves, and when you do something different, it does.'
Here's an example of a reciprocal analysis. Someone raises under the gun, and you reraise from the big blind with two aces. Your opponent reraises. You shove. Your opponent calls with two queens, and you win a big pot. Now that this hypothetical hand is over, trade places with your opponent. Imagine how you'd play two queens in his position. Imagine how he'd play two aces in your position. Then compare the imagined result to what actually happened, and you'll a sense of who really won the hand, in theory.
Reciprocality is less a strategy than a mindset, an attempt to cultivate your best self. There's Quitting Reciprocality (Element #8), Tilt Reciprocality (#23), Betting Reciprocality (#27), Position Reciprocality (#30), and Information Reciprocality (#53). Reciprocality extends beyond the felt, as well, to wellness and routine.
The ultimate goal is to slay tilt, play painless poker, and achieve a condition that Angelo calls 'bliscipline' — namely, '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.
Ethics and Etiquette
You're at the showdown. Action is on the big blind to either show or muck his hand. But he does neither. What should you do?
'When a player hesitates during his turn at the showdown,' Angelo says, 'it creates a space that exists outside the natural order of things, and therefore outside the rules. This is where the fastroll lives, in the land of ethics and etiquette, where the floorman has no jurisdiction.'
The fastroll — when a player shows his hand out of turn on purpose — is a courtesy. It's never wrong to fastroll. In certain situations, though, it can be deemed to be very wrong not to fastroll. But when? It depends.
Much of poker lives, like the fastroll, in the land of ethics and etiquette. Slowfolding, fastgrabbing, and fastrolling — all 'Tommyisms' Angelo coined — are only the beginning. When should you seat change? When should you show a bluff? When should you speak (or stay silent) during a hand? When should you correct a dealer's mistake? When should you call the floor?
Instead of giving firm 'answers,' Angelo offers tentative advice. He accepts that poker, like life, is filled with unknowing. 'The main thing to realize,' Angelo says, 'is that no matter how good you get, you will always have a gray area. The gray is not part of you. It is part of the game.'
Metagame Strategy
You're about to enter a limit hold 'em game in which you must post a big blind to get a hand. This rule gives you two choices: (1) play your first hand from the natural big blind position, or (2) play your first hand from behind the button, after posting a big blind from there. Which way is better?
At first, Angelo posted from behind the button. He often found himself aggressively raising or reraising in order pressure out-of-position players or to make the blinds fold. 'Here I am reraising before the flop,' Angelo says, 'with some hand that I would have mucked without a memory had I not posted behind the button. When instead, I could have been sitting there in the blinds, comfortably cultivating a snug image that I would exploit later.'
The problem was that aggression caused instability and tilt. Angelo realized that the difference between starting in the big blind and posting behind was too huge for him to see. 'It's the difference between passive and aggressive,' he explains. 'It's the difference between tight and loose. It's the difference between jumping in and settling in. It's the difference between being afraid and being feared.' Now he patiently waits for the natural big blind.
Always thoughtful and attentive, Angelo considers other at-the-table topics as well such as when to chop, when to quit, when to seat change, how to check, how to shuffle chips, and even how to move chips from one seat to another. He also considers where to play, when to move up in stakes, how much cash to bring to the casino (your 'pocket bankroll'), and when to go pro. Nothing, it seems, escapes Angelo's consideration.
In-game Strategy
Tommy Angelo Poker Free
Action folds to you in the hijack, and — wait a minute. Why is the hijack called 'the hijack'? (It's another Tommyism, by the way.)
Okay, so you have eight-six suited in the hijack. What should you do?
With Element #111, Angelo presents the Universal Starting-Hand Chart, with which 'you can work on your A-game and your C-game at the same time,' Angelo says. 'By asking yourself where you should draw your starting-hand lines, you refine your A-game. And by deciding to fold certain hands in certain situations no matter what, you raise your C-level.'
Certain fundamentals, like a structured thought process or the value of position, never change. 'Acting last is like taking a drink of water,' Angelo says elsewhere. 'We don't have to understand why it's good for us to know that it is. And the benefits are unaffected by our understanding of them.'
Elements Of Poker
Position is so important that, for Angelo, it becomes one of two major characters in the book. With each appearance, readers come to appreciate position's charms and its value.
The other major character in Elements of Poker? 'It's you,' Angelo says. 'It's your individualism, and your path of poker from weak to strong, from fearful to fearless. This book is about trusting yourself and becoming your own player.'
Elements of Poker is newly available in audiobook form for Amazon, iTunes, or Audible. Learn more about EOP at Tommy Angelo’s website.
Ben Saxton is a teacher and a writer from upstate New York who has played small stakes poker, both live and online, since the early 2000s. Ben lives in New Orleans and covers poker on the Gulf Coast.
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Editor's note: Coinciding with the release of the audio-book version of Tommy Angelo's classic Elements of Poker, the poker author, coach and player shares one of his most illuminating 'elements' — the one defining tilt (and its many kinds).
'To win at poker, you have to be very good at losing.'~me
During the first few years of my poker-playing career, I played almost entirely in home games that were almost entirely loose and reckless. All I had to do to win was play tight, which I had learned how to do. The trouble was, I had also learned how to tilt.
I was a great tilter. I knew all the different kinds. I could do steaming tilt, simmering tilt, too loose tilt, too tight tilt, too aggressive tilt, too passive tilt, playing too high tilt, playing too long tilt, playing too tired tilt, entitlement tilt, annoyed tilt, injustice tilt, frustration tilt, sloppy tilt, revenge tilt, underfunded tilt, overfunded tilt, shame tilt, distracted tilt, scared tilt, envy tilt, this-is-the-worst-pizza-I've-ever-had tilt, I-just-got-showed-a-bluff tilt, and of course, the classics: I-gotta-get-even tilt, and I-only-have-so-much-time-to-lose-this-money tilt, also known as demolition tilt.
I'd tilt, and I'd look back on my tiltings, and I started seeing cycles, and then cycles within the cycles, and before long, I started to see my entire poker future as a ceaseless fluctuation between tight and tilt. I figured if I ever went broke at poker, it wouldn't be because my best wasn't good enough to keep me afloat. It'd be because my worst was bad enough to sink me.
A big day in my career was the day I realized that tomorrow I would still be a tilter. That there would be no quick fix. That any headway I made would be gradual. I realized that if I could somehow put progressively longer periods of time between my tiltings, and if I could somehow have them be progressively not quite as bad as the last time, then I'd have a chance to get some wind under my wings, and when I did, I'd soar indefinitely. Less often, less severe. Less often, less severe. That's what I kept telling myself.
It is now fifteen years and thirty thousand hours of poker later. In that time I have gathered myself, and my thoughts…
On Tilt
Tilt has many causes and kinds, but it has only one effect. It makes us play bad. It makes us do things we wouldn't do if we were at our very best. And that's how I want to define it, exactly like that. Tilt is any deviation from your A-game and your A-mindset, however slight or fleeting.
There are two reasons to define tilt in this way. One is standardization. All A-games are identical. Anyone who is playing his A-game is making the best decisions he knows how, and his mind is as right as it ever is. That's what A-game is. It's our best. And we all have it. So by defining tilt from the top down, we can draw a line for any player that cleanly divides his tilt from his non-tilt.
The other reason is that we aren't just playing with words here. We are using them as shovels to dig for gold. And by using the word tilt to focus on our best, instead of our worst, we hit a lode: Tilt is non A-game. Tilt is anything less than your utmost. Tilt is suboptimalness. Defining tilt in this way, everyone tilts. It's just a matter of how often, how long, and how bad.
And so we arrive at the three dimensions of tilt: frequency, duration, and depth. How often do you deviate from your A-game? How long does it last? And how far below your A-game do you go? Revisit those questions.
Tilt is all about you. If you think you should have taken the day off, or if you think you should have played at different stakes, or if you think you made a bad raise, then you tilted. Only you know when you knew better.
World-class coach and author, Tommy Angelo is considered a modern master of poker's mental game, and has helped pros and rec players alike achieve less tilt and more focus. Called 'the seminal poker text of the 21st century' by The London Times, Angelo's Elements of Poker has revolutionized how serious players approach the game. His latest book, Painless Poker, already a bestseller, can be found on Amazon.com. Connect with Tommy on Twitter @TheTommyAngelo, and visit his website: tommyangelo.com.
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