Like the rest of life, poker is full of very basic advice that doesn’t help anyone because it tends to ignore a huge piece of the puzzle, thus making the situation far worse when you use it.
One great example: “Put your phone away when you play.”
On the surface, it sounds like great advice. If you’re always on your phone watching TV or a movie or texting your group chat about how bad that guy in seat four is, it means you’re not as focused on the game as you could be.
You'll miss out on information. Information that in theory would let you win more.
So of course, the solution is to put the phone away. But to quote college football broadcast legend Lee Corso: 'Not so fast, my friend.'
Your phone isn’t the real problem
Because there’s a reason you want — or, probably more accurately, need — that phone when you’re at the table: you suck at being by yourself. You suck at existing in quiet. You suck at having nothing to do.
And because you suck at all of these things and are wholly incapable of being yourself and feeling good and enjoying yourself while these things are true, you need that phone to be on and right in front of you.
So what happens when you take it away?
Well, it’s just you in your worst situation — left all alone, with no idea how to be okay and have a good time, which of course is going to make it impossible to focus, execute, and win as much as you could.
It’s not about the phone.
The phone is a convenient scapegoat, and until you know that you can feel okay being bored, that you can have fun and be at your best without it, you’re probably far better off financially to just keep that thing going until you can stay present in the midst of nothing much going on.
The poker skill that brings in the money
That last part is a skill. The skill that brings in the money. One that very few people have nowadays, including many of the people who religiously put their phone away when playing a session.
If you can do it, you can beat them.
Because you will stay engaged and focused where they can’t, and this will be, in the end, how you pick up on a key detail that they miss and make the play that makes the difference that day.
Do this day after day, and the money and trophies will start to add up quickly.
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.
