Last year, I got a text from a friend that read: 'Wow this is the most insane fold ever.'
Attached was a link titled 'Sickest Poker Hand of 2025'.
I clicked. And laughed. Because the player I was looking at on my phone was my client, Mihai Niste – a longtime online winner.
He'd come to me to work on exactly this: making big folds under pressure that he knew were correct, but could never quite pull the trigger on when he was the one playing.
Watch the hand below.
The hand is, of course, cool. He makes a great play. One that a lot of people would argue for from their desk or couch, but could never actually make in real time.
And that’s often the difference. The difference between players who win and the very biggest winners.
Not knowledge. Not being able to tell someone else to do it. But being able to do it when it counts.
Sort through the mental noise
To be able to do it when you’re feeling all the big emotions of fear and anger and whatever else is pumping through you – to be able to sort through all the mental noise that breaks out every time you’re having those big emotions.
To be able to be okay right in that moment. Then play how you’ve trained yourself to play.
Very few can do it, which tends to be why they win the most.
This is what being present does for you, and it’s why I believe every player should prioritize getting into this state above all else.
Because if you can tell someone else what the winning play is, but then can’t make that play when you’re in the chair, what's the point of all that studying?
Jason Su is the author of The Joy of Poker and coaches many of the world’s top poker players on how to perform their best when it matters most.
Learn more with Jason on YouTube and through what some say is 'the best newsletter in poker,' which you can access for free at pokerwithpresence.com.
