Passing The Test But Failing the Class



Teach an old DOGMA New Tricks.

An Ace and A Race...

Paper or Plastic-Cash verses Chips

When you lose, you lose money, when you win, you lose respect for money. Yet too much respect for money makes you a bad player.... I must be a great player because I have lost total respect for money- and now I know why.



I treat cash game chips like tournament chips... I thought making the change from limit to NLH was apples to oranges, well, so is live cash verses tournament, where you have an infinite verses finite amount of chips to work with. On any given Friday night, people come to gamble in a cash game and they will call you down with ace high..

RAISE or FOLD- If you call, you are accepting someone else's odds.

Doyle's Super System says AK is his best hand...because it's easy to let it go. It is after all, a drawing hand, not a made one. In position, I'll almost always make a continuation bet, if the flop is low ball, and hardly ever check.

Being normal. It is the ideal aim of the unsuccessful and unimaginative. Ask your mother. Normal is the setting on her washing machine. Normal isn't a virtue. It denotes a lack of poker courage. You have to be Madonna, constantly reinventing yourself. Otherwise, it’s a vast, conforming suburb of the soul. You don’t want to be normal. Normal people spend their lives avoiding tense situation, Poker Playahs spend their lives getting into them. The whole upshot of NLH is that it be a perpetual crisis that you create. The Phish is the last one to know it is in the ocean. Phush swim in it. Players surf on it. Failure to plan creates crisis in RL (Real Life) In NLH, planning for crisis eliminates failure.


This is a Poker Mini-Satori- You abhor monotony and constancy, equating them, in your mind, with death. Seek upheaval, drama, and change.God may play dice with the universe,, but this ain’t no metaphysical crap shoot, it’s NLH. If you want to have “fun” then spin the wheel of fortune, phone a friend, buy a vowel, and get voted off the island. Deal or No Deal. If you want an “experience”, play NLH. It’s not a sport, it’s a concussion! Good NLH poker is not a "A-ha" experience, it is more of a "holy-shit" experience.


Suited And Booted

When I started playing NLH, the two expressions I said constantly, were, "I don't believe it!" and "...but they were suited". I stopped saying the last one, but it is still unbelievable, like losing with Quads to a straight flush online...that hurts-ouch!"- Ed Reif

Most playahs are experience rich and technique poor. Everything has been said before, but since nobody listens we have to keep going back and beginning all over again. Someday, this blog will start to read like one long typographical error, and you come away thinking, “From now on, I'll connect the dots my own way”. 'It’s like football - if you don't wear a helmet and pads, you're going to get hurt.. This blog is your equipment. It is a contact sport, and the more contact you have with other players, the more you will win.


You simply can’t play a solid, safe game. Anyone who plays poker within their means suffers from a lack of imagination. You have to get in there and gamble.. Aggression makes you money. And the trouble with NLH is, if you don't risk anything, you risk even more. Poker very simply, rewards aggression. Aggression is the main source of energy for the NL playah.. NLH is about aggression and domination- it’s a playah’s only redeeming qualities. When everything seems under control, you're just not going fast enough. Due to the effect of community cards, hold'em is a game of "domination. A hand is dominated if it has 3 or fewer outs against another, like AQ against AK.


The price of aggression, however, is not cheap. You have to be willing to lose in order to win. Aggression causes trouble. The trouble is you must use extreme self-discipline. If you cannot obey yourself you will be commanded by someone else’s play You cannot control the luck factor, but skill is something over which you have control, and you have the power to gain yet greater skill by becoming a Playah. A playah is just looking for opportunities, not guarantees. Don’t get me wrong. This isn’t amateur hour, this is gambling. All of life is risk exercise. It’s the only way to live more freely and interesting. Dream with your eyes open.


Aggression causes pressure and pressure makes diamonds and diamonds last forever--- It creates the mutant ability to do the impossible, win consistently at NLH. You deserve to win consistently, and the minute you settle for less than you deserve, you get even less than you settled for. But you don’t get what you deserve in poker, you get what you negotiate, and you better be good at negotiating risk.

In NLH, betting is far better than calling. That’s aggression. When you bet, you can win if you have the better hand or if your opponent folds. If you call, you can only win if you have your opponent beaten. If you bet, you determine the bet size. You determine the pot odds. If you call, you are accepting someone else's odds.

If you bet, you force people to pay you off when you have a good hand. If you are a caller, you have to hope someone else will willingly pay you off. The importance of aggression is why tight-passive players can win a lot more at Limit than No-Limit. If you were arrested for aggression would there be enough evidence for the poker police to convict you?

The gambling world is a kind of gambling kindergarten where millions of bewildered infants are trying to spell "Poker" with the wrong blocks.. You got “T” testosterone, that’s good, you’re gonna want that. You got “A”, aggression , that's even better. You're gonna want and need that too.

You can’t spell danger without anger, and every NLH needs to feel dangerous.But any two year old kid can throw a fit! NLH is about controlling that aggression , harnessing that aggression into a series of wins. Only people who die very young learn all they really need to know in kindergarten.

The antidote to anger is patience, and as we already know: infinite patience brings immediate results to your game. Yet the opposite of patience is aggression. We have this paradox. We are learning that NLH is more subtle and multiple than conventional 'either-or' limits have allowed. Our imaginations have some catching up to do. The power not of positive thinking but paradoxical thinking. The nearer you are to paradox, the nearer you are to beating the game. A Playah Passes The Test But Fails The Class---It's time for New AmeriCON Poker:

The Power Of New Americon Poker—the language of betting, a slang that rolls up its sleeves, spits in the street, screams strength possibly more than any other and gets the work done. Tells Don’t Tell – People Do with the language of their betting. Poker is a game of partial information and the language of betting "last in" is information dominance.Making a bet that leaves no option available to the opponent other than to call is asymmetrical warfare. It disarms their can of whoop ass-- deep stack arsenal. Hands which are ok to try and re-steal from a loose aggressive player are frequently horrible hands to call that final bet with. No one likes calling big all-ins with hands like 88 or A-10 regardless of how sure they are that a player is stealing from them.

The Power of New Americon Poker is about being the last in the pot. It too can be an extremely effective way of accumulating chips in spite of your hole cards, not because of them. Lights Out Poker is about playing 'in the dark': betting that your opponents DON'T have the cards rather than that they do.

Growth Hacks for The Rec Player ♠️♦️♣️♥️

Crypto: The Ultimate Bluff Economy

The "Bro Economy" is driven by day traders, crypto junkies, and sports bettors chasing volatile gains. Fueled by FOMO, they favor thrill over strategy—creating opportunities for those who can exploit the chaos.

The Cult of The Amateur

If you play a hand as if you could see your opponents' cards, they lose; if you don't, they gain.

Poker Rewards (Selective) Aggression

Risk is a Feature, Not a Bug: Mastering Uncertainty – just as innovation thrives on calculated risk. Knowing when to push forward and when to fold is the key to long-term success.

The Leap Strategy

Risk isn't chaos—it's clarity in disguise. Push boundaries, embrace the fallout, and refine your aim after every leap.

Building The Plane While Flying It

Fail Forward: The Art of Rapid Experimentation – Poker, like startups, is about building the plane while flying—making strategic moves, adjusting in real time, and learning from every hand dealt.

When Bad Things Happen To Good Starting Hands

Variance shapes vision. The best players don't just survive bad beats—they evolve through them.

Bad Beats Are Overhead; Chips, The Cost of Doing Business

Risk isn't part of the game; it IS the game. Losses are investments, and every chip in play is the price of staying in the game.

Mental Edge Ops ♣️♥️♠️♦️💡

The Odds of Thinking

Conventional Wisdom is a Bluff waiting To Be Called.

Set the Speed Limit – Fear Speeds Things Up

Your Brain's Bouncer-What Gets through The Velvet Rope?

Losing Holdem ASAP

Tilt isn't just a crack—it's a call to recalibrate. Master your mind, and watch the field unravel.

The IN To My Sane

The loop traps the unaware. Break patterns, bend probabilities, and redefine sanity in high-stakes play.

Outcome Independence Mindset

Thinking in bets means trading urgency for edge. Burn momentum on impulse, you lose. Stack it with patience, you scale.

Stop the Spiral

Feedback loops fuel losses. Cut the noise before the noise cuts your bankroll.

Radical Abundance: A Force Multiplier

Shift from managing limits to engineering limitless possibilities, and play not with scarcity, but with strategy, design, and vision.

Infinite Patience Brings Immediate Results

The more hands you win, the more money you lose: playing too many hands boosts short-term wins but increases risks that harm long-term profits.

Energy Shapes Strategy

Flow attracts focus. Bring intentional energy to your game, and watch your connections solidify.

ABC Poker

The Alphabet Crisis: Analog Poker In A Digital World

The Meta Stack ♣️♥️♦️♠️☁️

Rewire, Reignite

You Can't Teach An Old Dogma New Tricks. Conventional Wisdom is a Bluff waiting To Be Called.

Be the Glitch

Unpredictability isn't randomness—it's controlled chaos. Become a shadow in their playbook. Don't be the system—be the error

Tranquility Base: The Ego Has Landed

Read the tells. Control the ego. Summon your alter ego and play like you're not even from Earth. This is next-level poker.

Decision Science

Turn every guess into a calculated gamble. Probability doesn't just inform decisions—it dominates them.

Adapt to Dominate

Solvers shape the meta, but true mastery lies in adaptation. Stay sharp, stay evergreen.

ABC Poker: Risk Smart, Play Sharp

ABC poker is about controlled aggression—high stakes, but strict discipline.

Poker Courage: Micro Bravery

Courage isn't about grand gestures—it's about the small, decisive actions that build confidence and define champions.

Failure Is Data Not Drama

Turn setbacks into insights. Fail better, learn faster.

Wise And Otherwise: A Game Of Partial Information

There are exactly two things that determine how our lives turn out: the quality of our decisions and luck.

Night Vision: Playing in The Dark

Not having an expectation to win is liberating. Every search begins with beginner's luck.

Level-Up Lore ♦️♠️♥️♣️

Moonshots & Margins

Big ideas don't just need bankroll—they need fold equity. Think beyond limits, and scale with intention.

Luck Is Probability Taken Personally

We confuse luck with skill, misjudge outcomes, and fall for biases. Leverage setbacks, adjust strategies and use pressure as fuel for creative breakthroughs.

The Truth About Lying

Less "I" More Lie: Junk Words and The Secret Lives of Pronouns.

Range Craft

There are exactly two things that determine how our lives turn out: the quality of our decisions and luck.

The Loophole: Manufacturing Focus

Players follow mental "apps"—predictable patterns. Disrupting those gives you the real edge.

Gut vs Grid

Solvers crack numbers, but instincts crack aces. Trust what machines can't compute.

Cognitive Gravity Is Your Cryptonite

Put the SUPER in Superman. Take the Poker Crash Course For your Black Box 3 lb-Universe-Brain

GTO For The Feel Player

Beyond Opponents: It's Not About Them. It's About The Game Itself.