Participate in a New Video Series

Posted by Jared Tendler

I hate that this post is the one to knock Paul off the front page...I'm really excited for his book, and wish him well with it!

As the title says, I'm putting together a new video series that all members are open to participating in. [Btw, for those wondering about the SNE Project videos, I'll be posting an update about it tomorrow.] This isn't just a new series, I'm also trying out a new type of video altogether. Basically each video will be a small collection of Q&A conversations between you and I, in a similar way to the 'Ask Jared' thread only we'll be actually talking (over skype). Here’s how it’ll work:

1) Post your question in this thread. Feel free to provide any background on you or context that will help me understand the intent behind your question. Follow-up questions to any posts in the ‘Ask Jared’ thread are welcome.

2) I’ll choose the ones I think are most relevant for the members.

3) We’ll set-up a call and chat for 10-15minutes.

4) I’ll turn them into videos.

Since you’ll have a chance to ask follow-up questions throughout our chat, my hope is that it’ll be much more dynamic that the forum, while still be interesting enough for a video. Plus, I'll probably add some commentary, powerpoint, etc, to make sure its not just running audio

Simple enough…So what would you like to talk with me about?

Vegas

Posted by Jared Tendler

I’m sitting in the airport a few minutes from heading out to the Vegas for a few days. When I went to the world series a few years ago I was really new to poker and in many ways overwhelmed by how much I was learning. Though my work in poker is very similar to golf, the worlds are completely different. The golf world I knew for 20 years, the poker world I knew peripherally for many years too, but nothing is like being around some of the best in the world for a week.

My first night there I could barely sleep because I had so much crammed into my mind from listening in to conversations with Cottonseed, Dusty, Stosh, Hunter, Bryce, Nick talking poker. There’s a language and culture and I was like a traveling foreigner struggling to keep up. Now being an established member of the community, this trip will take on a whole different life.

As with any trip there’s always the unexpected, and I’ve purposefully left a lot of time open for it…plus it is Vegas. What is planned I’m really looking forward to. Hanging with Dusty, his wife, and getting to meet his beautiful daughter. Meeting clients who I’ve worked with, sometimes for years, for the first time. Other poker related meetings, networking and getting to see some of the friends I made on my London trip.

Those of you who are there, if you see me, stop me and say hi. With so much of my work online, I miss the everyday interactions people have in the offline work world…plus it’s just great to put a face/person with a screen name.

115 Hours!!

Posted by Jared Tendler

I'm amazed. Not shocked, but thoroughly impressed by what Phil Laak pulled off this week playing 115 hours straight of poker.

The subject of sleep deprivation is one that's recently been on my mind since heading over to the Big Game with the intent of helping Dusty play 48 hours straight, so I know well the potential problems that can come from attempting something like this.

From a pure performance and achievement side of things, it reminds me that records are set knowing they'll eventually be broken. The more amazing ones last longer, but the odds are more than likely to be broken rather than not. With so much attention on training and pushing people farther, faster, stronger, better, smarter, etc, it only makes sense that we'll be capable of doing more.

The mental side of performance is obviously where my focus is, but I pay close attention to physical feats too because the mind plays by the same rules as the body when it comes to training, improvement, and performance. The only difference is the stuff - mental or physical - that's being trained. They are also close linked of course - Phil's feat is as much a physical accomplishment as it is a mental one. Being able to have enough energy to keep your head up, and to think over 115 hours is pretty incredible. I wonder if he used any performance enhancing drugs or other substances...

I don't know Phil, or know the details of what he had to fight through mentally to do this, but it's easy to imagine the effort that was needed at critical points in the 115 hour marathon. Those critical points, where he has the choice to stop or push forward are the same that we face in our own way everyday. Some times you can push farther, and others you back off. The important thing is that at the end of the day if you push forward just 1 more time than you backed off - you've accomplished something.

Then overtime all those tiny accomplishments grow into big ones and possibly to make BIG one day jumps. My guess is that Phil had a number of monster marathon sessions that were untended trainings. With all that experience, add in a little motivation, some excitement and he was ready to do something incredible.

*The one potential asterisk in all this is that he did get 5 minutes/hour as a break and he could bank the time to use later. Does anyone know if he used any of the time to sleep? He could have easily banked enough time for a few hours of sleep.

Performance Enhancing Drugs and Poker

Posted by Jared Tendler

My bull **** detector seems to perk up whenever I read or hear about a new study that’s getting attention in the popular press. Many times the research is solid, but often, really too often, the claims made by the study are headline grabbing, misleading and in some cases down right irresponsible. In my first college statistics class my professor required us read a pocket sized book titled, “How to Lie with Statistics” – since then I don’t take much at face value because it is really easy to manipulate data to prove your point.

The research by Nova Southeastern University – in Florida – put out a press release that makes it sounds like 80% of poker players are using drugs to enhance performance. The exact language they use is “drugs and other substances”, but those other substances include Vitamin B12, caffeine, and energy drinks. They also include amphetamines (Ritalin, adderol, etc), weed, coke, so it’s not all fluff, but when you break down the numbers they aren’t nearly as dramatic as the headline makes it sound like.

Taking a closer look at the slide show they put up about their methods – I couldn’t find the research study itself – the 80% number means that 80% used one of these substances:

56% - Caffeine
41% - Energy Drinks
27% - Weed…..For Performance Enhancement??? Lol.
14% - Vitamin B12
11% - Guarana
6% - Coke

They also found that 17% use some kind of amphetamine (Ritalin, Adderall, etc). 38% of which were prescribed by a doctor.

(In that slide show you’ll see different percentages, but that’s because the percentages they use reduce the total number to only those people who reported ANY use of the substances in that particular category, and not as a percentage of the whole group – a common method of manipulating statistics)

Here’s the key statistic, the number that blew my mind when I saw it: 198. That’s the total number of people sampled! A tiny amount when considering the size of the poker population – Btw many polls that you hear people quoting on the news aren’t much better. The real problem I have with the number is the research team didn’t cite it in the press release. Responsible research in my opinion is one where researchers are open about the limitations of the research not just for the academic community (this limitation is cited in the presentation) but for the general public. It’s a responsibility that is taken too lightly and makes me question the motive of the research team.

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Side note – there was research done in the 90’s that proved that in psychological research when the lead researcher thought their thesis was correct before the study was done, the results confirmed their opinion. Which basically says that the opinions of the research team biases the outcome. Ironically another researcher came along to prove this research wrong, proved it to be false, and of course actually proved the first guys’ point brilliantly.
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So what conclusions can we draw from this? That poker players are using drugs to gain a mental edge. If this is news breaking, how did you find this blog?

You may read dramatic responses to this article, I read one imagining poker superstars being whisked to the bathroom for a urine test, but really what has this research proves is absolutely nothing. The 198 people sample volunteered to take it after being solicited on poker forums like this post. The problem with self selected samples – people volunteering to give information – is that people have inherent motives in wanting to share their information. What is there reason – I won’t even being to speculate, but when you combine their motives along with the motives of the researchers – how can we possibly even get close to any certainty?

All research has its limitations. But just as in poker where you all have been able to create certain where unknowns previously existed – it just takes a lot of experience, knowledge and repetition to create certainty or damn near close enough certainty to make a solid decision.

At this point, the research proves nothing, except that perhaps it's something worth studying more. If it that happens the question I'd like to know is how much, if any, are these drugs actually enhancing the player's performance? My biased theory is not much if any.

Trip Report Part 2

Posted by Jared Tendler

As many of you know through Dusty’s blog, we were caught up in the greatest aviation disruption in history, which didn’t work out so well for him being away from his family…but worked out pretty well for me. The first week we were there was jammed with poker stuff, and felt like a resident working in London. Having a second week there gave me an opportunity to be a tourist, see more of the city, meet a cousin-in-law, catch-up with a friend from college and enjoy the London nightlife.

I’m convinced that if Dusty and I hadn’t been scheduled to go to the Isle of Man to visit pokerstars headquarters that our travels would have become chaotic. We had a flight around 8:30 Thursday morning and arrived at the airport only to find the flight was canceled because of a Volcano eruption. He and I didn’t even know what to say, I mean who in their life has even heard of such a thing. We were flying on a small regional airline, and I asked the attendant if all airlines weren’t flying or just theirs. She didn’t know so we went to British Airways to see what there up to – same deal. As we’re walking away Dusty starts laughing his ass off because basically what we were asking them was “Do you have the balls to fly through Volcanic Ash? because this airline isn’t and we’re will to risk it!?!” I mean what a joke that we were even thinking it, but at 7am and Volcano later the brain doesn’t always work so well – I know this better than anyone and mine isn’t immune.

Thankfully we had this flight planned, because there is absolutely no way that either of us would have heard about the Volcano prior to checking out of our hotel to head to the airport the next day for our flight home. The first few days of this were pretty chaotic and I was sitting in a hotel room clicking refresh on my computer for updates, I can only imagine what it was like for people stuck in the airports with no place to go, trying to get back to young kids, travel for weddings, funerals, etc. I had it easy…though I tried to make it complex.

Part of what made it chaotic early on was there wasn’t any reliable information to go on and the most solid indication was it was getting stronger – which it did – but no one knew for how long. I looked into every option for getting home. I even found a ticket on the Queen Mary – the first ship heading to NY. It would have taken a week to cross the ocean, but I figured it was a guaranteed way to return (minus an iceberg) and I could work on my book with a great view. So it was my #1 option until I found a ticket out of Madrid leaving 4 days later. At the time, Madrid was one of 3 airports in Europe open and was the closest... the only problem was getting there. I quickly found out that every bus, ferry and train there was booked solid so it wasn't even an option...though I later learned from an old work friend that her brother paid 3k to a cabbie in Paris to drive him to Madrid. So I wasn’t entirely out of options, just reasonable ones.

Turns out that my uncle’s nephew on the other side of my family has a flat in London with a spare bedroom, so stayed with him and his wife for the rest of the week. It was a perfect spot to enjoy London (do a little work) and wait to find out how long I'd be a English resident.

Now with some time on my hands, I had a chance to meet up with a college friend who I hadn’t seen for several years. The first night after learning I was stuck in London, she invited me to meet up with her friends after they finished up dinner – I show up and sitting next to her are 5 attractive women…fml, lol. I couldn't have thought of a better way to forget about the volcano chaos.

The rest of the week was a lot of fun too. I was able to have client sessions as usual – just a 5hr difference so I was working more at night, which freed me to see the city during the day, hang out with my cousin and his wife, I took a day trip to Sheffield to hang with Barry and work on the book, and hung out more with Dusty.

The day before I left, I honestly didn’t want to leave. London is an amazing city and I could see myself living there. The next morning, like a light switch, I woke up ready to go. I don’t usually get to see my family/friends during the week so it wasn’t much different – since we stayed in touch via skype - but we were flying home on Friday and with the weekend looming, I was ready to be back around everyone.

Jet lag and weird sleep schedule on the trip knocked me on my ass for several days, but it gave me some time to realize what an amazing trip it was. One that makes me even more excited for the WSOP in a few months. Many of the people I met will be out there, and along with the others I already know who will be there, it’ll be a blast.

Trip Report Part 1

Posted by Jared Tendler

A couple weeks old, but for those who are interested here are the highlights my trip to London for the Big Game. It was one of the most fun trips I’ve taken in a long time and the fact that it was a business trip made it even more fun. Though what’s a trip without interesting twists…aside from just a Volcano.

I hadn’t seen Dusty since I was last in Portland to support him during the USGA lawsuit…which was 8 months ago, so it was great to see him as I walked through security. As with other good friends we picked up as though I saw him a week ago.

We got in a couple days early to adjust to the time before the Big Game, and first up on the agenda the day we arrived – after a 4hr nap – was a boxing match that the guys from Matchroom hooked us up with. I had never been and though I don’t really follow boxing much anymore, was psyched to check it out. The main draw was a fight that for 11 rounds was terrible...in part because it turned out Audley Harrison’s shoulder was separated from round – and he was getting dominated throughout the whole fight until this ridiculous knock-out.

The morning before I flew out I got an email from Barry mentioning that we were going to stop by the Bluff Europe Poker Academy to say hi and check out what they have going on. I wasn’t sure what the story was, but I’m always up for networking and thought it would be interesting to check out an event like this, since it’s something that I’m interesting in doing in the future…well the future came fast. As I’m recovering from jet lag I was asked to step in for a presenter who fell ill, and did an impromptu talk on tilt the next day. UK poker icon Neil Channing headlined the event, and it was great to meet him. The event, including my talk was well received, which was great to hear considering I was pretty jetlagged.

That event was also the first time Barry and I met and after 8+ months on skype, meeting in person was exactly the same. Barry was staying at our hotel so we headed back to grab Dusty go for dinner. A dinner that was highlighted by Dusty getting made fun of by the waiter for ordering hot chocolate at a steakhouse, lol…to be fair he had woken up 30 minutes before…afterwards we went back at the hotel bar for a drink figuring we’d have an easy night before the marathon got started. An easy night turned into a night I’ll never forget when Mad Marty Wilson walked in the door.

I had heard his name before, and Barry even mentioned how legendary he and his stories are, but you can’t really imagine what’s it’s like to meet someone like him when there is no one else on the planet like him. Marty had all four of us rapped up in a mass of stories and trivia for hours…so much for an early night.

I was excited about the big game, in part because I’ve never been on around a tv show like this and to have a good buddy of mine on the show, I figured it was bound to be a good time. Since watching the poker action was tough even when I cared the most – when Dusty was on – I spent a lot of random time hanging with Barry and getting to know the others who were involved with the show. Over 48 hours there’s a lot of random time to chat and joke around with them, and they were part of what made the show a ton of fun for me. From the Marko and Ian the PartyPoker social media guys, the guys from Matchroom, Jesse May, Warren from PartyPoker, Daniel and John from WPT magazine, Alex Russo from Bluff who I met earlier at the academy, Nick Ferro – a poker agent with a kindred sprit, several of the players, and of course, Kara Scott and Tatjana Pasalic, who are even friendlier and fun to be around as they are easy on the eyes.

So many people in other lines of work have the opportunity to hang out with people from work, or are meeting people often because of work. I did in my former work lives, and since most of my work right now is me at home with my computer working on the book, DTB or with clients; it was great to actually meet people in person and the people I met by were all just solid people to be around and a lot of fun.

The setting of the show was different that in years past, it’s very likely that you’ll see my mug in random spots in the background yucking it up and paying very little attention to the poker. It was really hard to follow the action unless you were close to the table, and after Dusty was voted off, I was more interested in enjoying myself.

While the original intent was for me to help Dusty grind through playing 48hr straight, he did need a little help finishing off a 24hr commentating session, which is one of the most impressive things I’ve seen in a while. Channing and Viffer played 48hr straight which is an amazing feat - especially with how well Viffer played, but I think Dusty doing commentating for the first time in his life AND doing it for 24hrs straight is more impressive. Needless to say I didn’t see him on Wednesday until 5pm as we headed off to SkyPoker for an interview that helped us avert getting stuck on the Isle of Man because of the Volcano…

PartyPoker Guest Blog

Posted by Jared Tendler

It’s actually more an article than a blog and that’s why I though you might be interested in reading it. It’s titled 6 Reasons Why Psychology Matters in Poker, and while each section is brief, I’m happy to expand on anything you'd like to know more about in this thread or in the psychology forum.

My trip to London was amazing, unpredictable and a lot of fun. There's a lot to share and once I'm done catching up, I'll write a trip report.

The SNE Project Player is…

Posted by Jared Tendler

While there were a number of players who fit a lot of what I was looking for, there was only one who best fit the player I had in mind for this project…Jeff Campbell – DTB screen name is “JCampbell.”

I was looking for a player that had several common mental game problems, who couldn’t yet grind enough hands and is an established winning player. Jeff has all of these while also being a really enthusiastic and likable guy. He’s really excited to work hard for himself and to share openly his experience. He’ll be posting his first of many blogs soon, and will be in the forums answering questions about his experience and at times also answering questions directed to me…something that I think will be great for all of you, because he’ll be able to talk about aspects of my instruction in ways that I can’t.

So all of you know, my instructions to him about blogging was simply for him to be as honest as he wants to. I have no problem with him expressing difficulty, confusion, problems, etc if that’s what he’s going through. It does no one any good to sugar coat any part of this process. It’s going to be hard, and talking about that is one way for him to blow off some steam, make it real for all of you and inform me on what adjustments I need to make to our work.

He and I actually had our first session today, and I have a strong suspicion this series of videos and his interaction with all of you is going to be really helpful.

There is one other thing that all of you need to know. Since he and I are just getting started, at this point it is not possible for him to make SNE this year. It is in large part a timing issue because 3 months have passed and the issues he and I have to work on have significantly affected both the amount and stakes he’s been playing. I had to think critically about this for a few minutes before realizing that everything that Jeff brings to the table here out FAR outweighs the fact that we have to adjust the goal. Since SNE is out of the question, we’ve changed the finish line to be 800k VPPS in 8 months. A pace that is roughly 17k/month above average, still allows this project to still provide a great challenge resulting in a ton of great content to will help all of you and Jeff being ready to make SNE in 2011.

Going to PartyPoker’s Big Game IV

Posted by Jared Tendler

I’m not usually one to jump on the hype for a show that’s getting a ton of press, but since I’m going to be there, I have to talk about it.

It started several weeks ago when Dusty was asked by Jesse May, on The Poker Show, to play in the Big Game and try to play for 48hrs straight. A sick thing to go for and of course there’s no one better than him to make a play at something like this. After a few weeks of details being up in the air, Dusty got confirmation that he was on the show sometime last week and I cleared my scheduled and booked a flight to head over to London with him.

There are a number of reason’s that I’m psyched for this trip and when I found out Isildur committed to playing it only jacked it up even more.

For one, I’m psyched to hang with Dusty. He and I became great friends while I was living in Portland, and haven’t hung out since I moved to NY in June. We talk often enough on the phone, but it’s not the same. So his stop-over comes through NY and then we’ll head on over to the other side of the Atlantic. Our 6pm flight from NY gets in at 6am the next morning so Friday is going to be a struggle unless we’re hopped up on adrenaline, which wouldn’t surprise me.

Another exciting part of trip is that I’m going to have a chance to meet in person a guy I’ve been talking to for 8+ months, and basically 4 days a week the past 3 – Barry Carter. Barry and I got to talking back in August when he contacted me out of the blue with an idea to write a series of articles chronicling getting coaching with me. After that I can’t remember really how we kept chatting – probably a combo of me curious about his progress and us continuing to do some work. In any event we struck up a friendship and around the time I realized that my progress with the book was going no where fast, I asked if he could help out.

Having worked on the book heavily since Jan, we finished a major milestone today with the book and are rolling on quite well. I could never have imagined at the start how important his help would be in getting this mass of content out of my head and presented in an orderly way, but he’s been invaluable. Plus since he’s a poker player first and a writer second, he’s helping to make sure that the book written as you would want it. He and I have gotten to be pretty good friends though all this, which is kind of funny to say about someone I’ve never actually met. So it’ll be great to hang with him there.

One of the great things about the trip as a whole and the Big Game is the unpredictability. There’s a bunch of things that I know of up in the air that could all add to the trip, and I’m certain there’s much more that I can’t even think of. The biggest known wild card is 100% Isildur. It was going to be a great event before his announcement now it has the potential to be unf’nbalievable. Not to mention that the cash game is running for 48hours, it’s sure to make for a lot of entertainment. I wrote an article for Pokernews today that gives a few reasons why. The cliff notes is that it has the potential to be a total train wreck and for those playing a ton of hours will be a battle of ‘C’ games.

By some grace of god I somehow thought to check the expiration date on my passport while watch TV this week. Turned out that it would have expired two days into the trip, so I could leave, but couldn’t come back. Fortunately there’s a passport office 30min from where I live and the process was actually pretty straightforward – minus me being nervous that something was/is going to go wrong with it. Happy to help the government out of debt, I paid a few extra bucks to expedite it, so my fingers are crossed it shows up tomorrow and I can breath a little easier.

4 More Days to Apply for FREE Coaching

Posted by Jared Tendler

This is a quick plug to remind anyone who wasn't aware about the Supernova Elite Project, that you have 4 days left to apply for free coaching with me.

For those not aware of this deal, basically as part of the SN and SNE program that I've started here, I'm going to select one player to receive free coaching with me and then slice up the audio, mix it with some PowerPoint and turn them into instructional videos for everyone else.

The deadline of the end of the day next Monday March 29th is final and no applications will be considered afterward. If you want more info or an application you can visit my website or this thread on DTB.

Two Great Interviews

Posted by Jared Tendler

Last week I had a couple very cool interviews. Each one was unique in its own right, but the common thread was they were really enjoyable for me and I thought the two interviewers, Jeremiah Smith and Jesse May, did great interviews.

On Monday I was on Jeremiah Smith’s PokerRoad show “Cash Plays.” The interview actually got flipped on its head midway through as Jeremiah put his tilt issues on the table and became a client. Funny enough you’ll notice (and he even says it) there a few longish pauses for radio and a couple times where I hesitate because when I’m in sessions I’m used to asking the questions, but were doing this on radio and it’s his show! The show has gotten good reviews so far, in part because I go into some detail about a plan to deal with tilt. So if tilt is an issue for you, you’ll get some free instruction out of listening. Click here to listen.

Then on Friday, I was on The Poker Show with Jesse May. Admittedly I wasn’t aware of his show beforehand, but after listening to a few archived shows of his was very excited to be on. He’s a tough interviewer by asking really interesting probing questions. It was fun being put to the test and felt like I stepped up pretty well. Click here to listen.

I hope you enjoy them as much as I did!

The Value of Vacation

Posted by Jared Tendler

One of the reasons I’m good at my job is that I go through and have gone through many of the same things my clients do. My area of performance has been and is different than yours, but the details of what makes me successful are the same as what makes you.

Of course that means I fall into the same traps that I help many of you get out. The one I recently fell in was forgetting the value of rest, time away from work and maintaining good balance between my work and personal life. After 4 days in Florida last week, I returned to work refreshed and with a stronger perspective on how I want my life to be. It was simple. It was something I share and advocate with many of you – including in my first video and yet it some really important pieces hadn’t quite sunk in for me.

The gap between doing what we say – and not just saying it for others is pretty damm common – and I’ve been unfair in holding myself to a higher standard expecting that I wouldn’t make the same mistakes other people make. I’ve recently been going to physical therapy to rehab a bum ankle and the PT casually mentioned that he should do more of what he’s telling me to do – but doesn’t. I’m not sure he even realized what he said – but ironically enough he looks like he lost some extra weight over the month+ since he said it.

It isn’t just him though; I hear it a lot from people in conversations about a lot of things – my mom telling me not to speed while driving then doing it herself, buddies sharing relationship advice only to make the same mistakes. I’ve overheard strangers giving advice while at the same time admitting they don’t follow it. Plus often times they don’t even realize it – my mom at least gets she’s not a good role model in this regard.

A big reason why this is – it’s f%$#ing hard to improve. There’s a huge difference between knowing something and integrating into something that you do. That fact is a big reason why I have a job and something that I work hard to figure out better ways all the time. But sometimes I forget that I play by the same rules –that what I teach applies to me and forgetting the value in a vacation is a prime example.

Figuring out a good balance for the amount that I work has been a work in progress ever since I ventured out on my own. Shortly after things started to get settled, I got lax about work and coasted. Perhaps because I had worked hard, and wanted some fun, but more so I just didn’t have the skill yet about how to work for myself. How to find a pace to my work that fit my industry and fit how I wanted to live.

I also completely underestimated what it meant to be 100% responsible for all of my time. Even though it was exactly what I wanted, and thought I knew how to do it, I didn’t. I didn’t realize how my I had relied on the structure provide by 18 years of school and 2 years working for a boss. And now it was all on my shoulders.

The bottom line is that as my life grows, priorities do too. In the last 3 months, I dove myself so deep into working on my book that I lost touch with a lot of close people and spent a lot of my free time with my immediate family. Having a new neice around has motivated me to want to spend a lot of time with her. I love my family a lot, and having them as who I was hanging out with most was putting too much pressure on our relationships. I missed my friends and didn’t even realize it. Sure I hung out with a couple of buddies and cousins who live nearby, but for the most part my life was work.

Of course all work and no play makes Jared a boring dude.

I realized that on my trip back and so far this week have done a great job of getting thing back in order. Plus now that I’m done with physical therapy – which took up 3hrs twice a week, I have even more time to get my life properly in order.

Working for myself, plus having lots of projects going on and ideas for the future gives me the option to literally work 24/7. If there’s one thing I’ve learned over the last 5 years is that the more I work, the more I learn the more options I have for my work and the more that I can do in the future. This reminds me a bit of something my professor in college – “college is designed to leave you with more questions than you came with.” The idea is the same – the more I work, the more I learn, the more options become available.

As I say to my clients often – there is always more if you want it. There isn’t some point where you’ll arrive like you’ve won the lottery and be done, unless that’s what you want. Financial stability is a big key for me, as I’m sure it is for many of you. But money doesn’t mean you know how to use that money to create the life that you want. It sure as hell gives you options, but why wait until then to figure out what’s important to you!?!

That was my thought – once I get the book done – then I’ll take some time off. But during my time off – I wondered what kind of a life I’d have left if I stayed on that path when I was done? It wasn’t what I wanted. So I realize now that there are a lot of small things I can do to sustain the rest of my life in the time that I have, so when I do take time off I have a lot to fill that time with – even when that just means an hour at the end of the day.

I’ve seen this pattern show up before and this time is different for a number of reasons. The biggest one is the consequences I’ve felt the past few months in my overall mood and my productivity with work. The inertia of having practically lost a lot of people in my life wore me down and burned me out. I was more tired, less happy and just wasn’t having a lot of fun. Plus in general I was far more aware of how my actions created these problems. The connections are clear. A+B does = feeling like ****.

I told a friend last night that in a way I learned what a lot of people learn when they do actually lose a friend to death – you realize how important they were to your live. In loss we can learn about value. In the loss of my life, I learned more about its value. In the loss of time away I learned more about the value of it too.
I’m glad I’ve written this down, at least for myself. I am certain that I’ll be tested in the future about how I balance my time between work and the rest of my life, and this will be a helpful reminder. I hope it is for you too.

Exciting First Day

Posted by Jared Tendler

Today is an exciting day. Not only is it my first day here at Dragthebar.com it’s also the day that my new SN/SNE program is released. The combination of the two has me fired up even though the weather in NY today is dreary.

Coming to DTB, is something that is really well timed in my career. It gives me the ability to work in an environment with a lot of flexibility and room to expand how I deliver unique content to all of you. That starts with the SN/SNE program, and I have plenty more in the works.

My goal here at DTB is to create the home for poker psychology. The program I’ve refined over the past couple years from my study and work with poker players is in the final stages of being complete. A program that has helped thousands already to eliminate tilt, reduce fear/anxiety, improve confidence motivation and focus, deal with the realities of variance, play more hours and tables, and actually improve their poker skill, has again been improved.

What makes the program so unique is that it puts clear logic and strategy to the mental game - words that aren’t often used when talking about it. The bottom line is once you understand some basic principals about the mind, emotions, learning, and performance – improvement get really really straightforward, logical and just makes sense.

My program is something I’ve been working on for the past 10 years. It started in a very different form and in a completely different sport.

As a golfer in college on a track to playing professional golf, I was derailed by my own mental struggles in the elite national events. Sports psychology was pretty new back then and what was available to me helped at all times except where I needed it most – in the big pressure spots. Despite the urging of friends and family, I wasn’t about to just try to play professionally knowing I had these problems, but I was convinced there was a better way and if I found it I’d either cure myself and play professionally or have a career.

Turns out they both came true, but my stint as a professional golfer was short lived in part because of poker.

The story from then to now is a long one. Taking me through a 5th year of college to add a psychology major, a graduate degree in psychology, 2 years of post grad work to be licensed, starting my own golf psychology business in AZ, working with 100’s of golfers including PGA and LPGA tour players, fixing my own issues and playing 5 professional golf events, meeting/working with Dusty, joining Stoxpoker, working with 100’s of poker players, to now joining DTB.

The cliff notes hides the incredible amount that I’ve learned from over that time, and more recently in poker. My program was solid from my work with golfers, but there were still lose ends. Ends that I never could have guessed would be tied together from poker, but it makes sense when you look at the premium that is placed on the quality of your mental game in poker mostly because of variance.

So starting with the SN/SNE program I’ll be rolling out what I’ve learned. Because making SNE is a major challenge that means there’s a huge premium placed on having the right information for you. So I’ve come up with a way for enough players’ to get customized instruction. Being just one person that’s hard to give to thousands of players, but I think I’ve found a way. By combining high level videos, dedicated forum, Webinars, and the SNE Project, the gap between working with me directly and just a video can be filled. Of course ultimately my performance is judged by you.