JV'S KILLER POKER:
AWARENESS

BY: John Vorhaus

The trouble is, most of you don't know yourself. You don't have a furking clue about you. This gap - the gap between who you are and who you think you are - is counterproductive in most situations, but it's absolutely crippling in poker. Why? Goodness, need you even ask? It's impossible to think clearly, and therefore profitably, about the game if you don't know what's going on around you. And you can't know what's going on around you if you don't know what's going on inside you.

And that's what we call awareness.

Perhaps you challenge my assumption. Good for you. You're thinking independently, and that's a big fat chunk of awareness right there. Perhaps you're thinking about all the really terrifically devastating players you know who play really terrifically devastating poker without seeming to know themselves at all. Some people, after all - in poker and in elsewhere - are just natural geniuses at what they do, whether they know what they're doing or not. A player may be so instinctively brilliant that s/he needs nothing more than instinct to triumph.

But that's not you, and it's not me either. I know that you're not a genius because if you were, you wouldn't waste time reading about and thinking about your game, you'd just be off effortlessly triumphing and having a wonderful life. And I know that I'm not a genius because I'm honest enough to see myself as I truly am: the sum of my strengths and limitations, neither so capable as I dream to be nor so feeble as I fear.

And that's what we call awareness.

To quote the sage, "If you have the capacity to change your mind, you have already achieved higher consciousness." If your brain has enough flexibility to adopt and incorporate new ideas, you are an aware human being. You know what's going on. But look around the table. Look at all your foes, and marvel at the utter lack of awareness they routinely bring to their game.

Seat one calls for a deck change. She simply can't grasp the concept that changing the deck will never, ever change her luck.

Seat two bets on the river in glib denial of the fact that the only hands that can call him are the ones that can beat him.

Seat three is so busy sweating his football bets that he doesn't notice a raise from a rock and calls a huge bet with a crap hand.

Seat four misreads her hand. She thinks she's suited but she's not.

Seat five is on tilt, so badly on tilt that he can't even distinguish a good hand from a bad one, and further can't even recognize that tragic incapacity.

Seat six is drunk. 'Nuff said.

Seat seven answers her cell phone in the middle of the hand and accidentally exposes her cards.

Seat eight is on a modest rush, and now degrades his play with an undeservedly inflated sense of his own self-worth.

Seat nine is you, though, and your laser-like attentiveness takes in all of this in an instant. You process and filter this information effectively and use it to maximum advantage. And that's what we call awareness.

It's so simple. Poker is so furking simple. If you just have more awareness than the mopes you play against, you're bound to beat them in the end. And building awareness is easy. Much easier than you might think.

First, be aware of awareness. Make it an issue in your life and in your poker play. Recognize that there's a thing beyond pot odds and card odds, a thing beyond image and tells, a thing beyond luck and skill, an inner power that energizes and guides and propels you. This thing is awareness, the simple ability to see things as they are, colored neither by undue hubris or unjustified fear.

Next, practice awareness. Work at articulating your thoughts and observations more fully and completely. If you see someone's shoulders sag, and you know that this means she missed her draw, don't be content to let that knowledge just slide through you. Describe to yourself what just happened in words inside your mind: "Her shoulders sagged, and I take this to mean that she missed her draw. As a result, I will now pay closer attention to those saggy shoulders and look for chances to exploit this information." That's a more detailed, and thus more useful, description of the discovery you just made.

Finally, clear your mind. Remove all the garbage before you play. (And if you can't remove the garbage, don't play!) Elide thoughts of good luck or bad luck. Tune out the inner voices which send messages of disapproval or distraction. Forget the past and ignore the future. Exist only in this moment, and know that this is the only moment in which you exist.

Take these simple steps and you'll find yourself swiftly improving and enhancing your awareness. You'll be a better player, obviously, because you'll be more efficient and capable in your play. But surprise, you'll be a better human being too, because awareness pays so many dividends outside the realm of poker. You'll know when and how you are happy or sad, and you'll know precisely why. You'll know which of your actions are constructive or destructive. You'll work more productively toward your goals, for you will see your goals - along with everything else - a lot more clearly. You'll have the capacity to give love and receive it, for you will be a genuine person with an open heart and an open mind, and will find yourself attracted to, and attractive to, people of similarly open hearts and minds.

And that's what we call awareness.

(John Vorhaus is author of the KILLER POKER series and News Ambassador for UltimateBet.com.)