Mindset, mindset, mindset! It’s a common buzzword around poker, and with each calculated risk/reward scenario being played out inside the inner workings of the brain, there’s no doubt that a poker player’s mindset is important. If you haven’t cleared your head of hang ups, fears, negative habits and weak confidence, you just won’t go far.

But your head is attached to your body, and if you haven’t put consistent effort towards taking care of your body, your mind will be less likely to cooperate. That doesn’t have to mean running marathons or lifting weights. There are things poker players can do without dramatically altering their routines that can improve the chances that your mind will be in the right place at the right time. No matter what your current level of fitness, here are 5 simple ways for poker players to keep their bodies in gear throughout the WSOP:

Hydration
Half your weight in ounces of water is the general rule for “enough water” and if you drink that much you’d miss more hands than it’s worth with trips to the bathroom. So here’s the tip: Just drink water. Drink your energy drinks when you need them (notice “need them”, which is not morning, noon and night) and lay off the soda, alcohol and anything that’s not water.

• More water = improved blood flow (blood is thinner) = more oxygen to your brain = clearer thinking and improved focus = less stress

Sleep
Please, no less than 7 hours. You need sleep. You need good sleep, and to get good sleep, you need a routine. With long nights of poker it can be hard to hit the sack at the same time so have an end of day routine regardless of what time that may be. A few things you do everyday to wind down. Let your body get off the poker track and actually relax so you’ll come back with a clear head for the next round.

• More sleep = rest from the stress of playing = improved mood, patience, focus

Movement:
Your body was not meant to be still for extended periods of time. During breaks, get up and purposefully walk around. Those are seriously long hallways inside the Rio. Walk two of them, there and back, and I’d bet you’ll hit at least a ½-1 mile. If you can, go farther and workout at least once a week.

• Movement = blood flow = more oxygen to your brain = clear thinking and improved focus = less stress

Breathe
Sitting hunched over the table doesn’t give your lungs much room to expand. If you breathe shallow, you circulate less oxygen and trap toxins in your blood stream that need to get out. Every hour consciously breathe in through your nose and out through your mouth for 3 breaths.

• Conscious breathing = more oxygen to your brain = clear thinking and improved focus = less stress

Fuel
When you’re under stress — by definition any situation that makes your heart rate and blood pressure change without warning — it affects your digestion. You need fuel (aka food) to keep going and help you recover. Two simple food rules that will ensure your body gets the nutrition it needs:

1. Avoid fried food or fatty food (fatty= pizza, red meat & cream-base such as ranch dressing; fried= french fries, chicken tenders with heavy batter, and most things that leave heavy grease stains behind)
2. Eat 1 fruit and 1 vegetable at least once a day (and more if you can)

There’s no quick fix. It takes a combination of behaviors before a mindset emerges that leads to a consistent lifestyle. Poker players are athletes, albeit non-traditional ones, and if you don’t start treating yourself as such, you will find yourself losing a competitive edge to those who do.

There are two sides to every coin. In response to my prior article: “New Coaching Site? or Another PTN Ponzi Pyramid!,” Chris Levick (PokerDomeAA) offered the following dialog on Twitter:

Moreover, any inference that Mr. Levick’s website was unavailable for insidious reasons would appear to be unfounded. As promised by Mr. Levick, his website (www.chrislevick.com) is back up and running again, with all of the original content that I found in the cache.

Accordingly, below are the original blog posts about the Poker Player Academy in Mr. Levick’s own words, including one that I previously missed.

Time For Vegas – Work & Wynn Classic

Vegas is calling and this time I am listening! On Monday I depart Australia’s shores to commence the real work for Poker Player Academy. As many know, we are locating our offices in Las Vegas Nevada so we can be right in the middle of all the action. Poker Player Academy is in the process of [...]

Poker Player Academy Update

Hello Everyone, I was wanting to give you an update on the most exciting opportunity to hit the poker scene in years. It’s called Poker Player Academy. As most of you may already know, last week I signed on as CEO to Poker Player Academy. Since my signing on as CEO, there have been a number of exciting [...]

Historic Deal

An historic deal was concluded this week when I travelled to Thailand. Poker Player Academy LLC is about to be launched, it wont just be another poker training site like all the rest. This business will be using cutting edge web based training methods never before seen. This technology has been described by senior educators [...]

Hopefully this information will help you decide whether or not The Poker Player Academy is a campaign that you should embrace. (I offer this advice to The Poker Player Academy: invest a few moments of your time and add a publicly available “About Us” page to your website so that the general populous can glean some idea about who you are and what you hope to accomplish.)

(Click below for the Team Chauhan comparative results.)

Tom to La, after Team Pokerati’s first and only FT of 2010: “Congrats, you really played great. If I don’t bink a tourney soon, think you might be able to float me some scratch?”

Tom Schneider
$4,348 – 128th – $1.5k NLH
$22,085 – 14th – $1k NLH/Seniors
$3,352 – 52nd – $1.5k PLH
$6,128 – 32nd – $1.5k Omaha Hi/Lo

La Sengphet
$22,728 – 7th -$1k NLH/Ladies

Pat Poels
$13,232 – 10th – $2.5k Limit 2-7 3x

Robert Goldfarb
$6,128 – 29th – $1.5k Omaha Hi/Lo

The Big Randy
$3,428 – 196th – $1.5k NLH

Toothless Bob
$3,080 – 2nd place – $150 NLH (Binion’s Poker Classic)
$1,240 – 1st place – $65 NLH (Sahara nightly)
$355 – 4th place – $65 NLH (Sahara nightly)

John Harris (85Nutz)
TBD – first 2010 WSOP day 2 – $1k NLH

Seriously, I’m honestly thankful for and proud of ‘em all. It makes me happy to know there are multiple skilled players in WSOP-ville proudly wearing Pokerati black and white — identifying their favorite poker website all while spreading the good word of Truth, Capitalism, and SEO.

For those still seeking a bit more from their 2010 WSOP — whether it be the first cash, a final table, surviving ’til dinner, or even just a little extended run-better — hang in there, be strong, you can do it, you know, positive attitude and shit. Stay focused, eye on the prize … have fun, sure, but never be too obvious about drug use or sexual perversions, and remember your duty to keep any and all douchebaggery to a minimum. That’s what Team Pokerati is all about!

From there, our WSOP mantra is simple: Bracelets happen.

So far the closest Harris (right) has come to a final table is watching La in the Ladies Event with her boyfriend, DC (left). But that all could change if today really is indeed his day.

UPDATE: It was not his day … Harris went out shortly before the bubble. But based on his play and re-finding some semblance of a comfort zone, I feel good about next week.

For the sake of comparison, let’s look at the current results for Sam Chauhan clients. Turns out his players have continued their winning ways this at the WSOP. And one of his MMA fighters just scored a big televised victory, too … and reportedly, according to a presumably highly reliable source, he also just got hired by an NBA team looking to incorporate Sammy’s Mindset Mojo into their 2010-11 gameplan.

Gavin Smith
$268,238 – 1st – $2.5k Limit/NLH
$38,424 – 16th – $10k NLH/HU

Jen Harman
$33,890- 6th – $2.5k Razz $ 2,500 Seven Card Razz
$173,159 – 3rd – $10k 7-stud Hi/Lo

Marco Traniello
$61,414 – 8th – $10k HORSE
$21,665 – 27th – $10k PLH
$1,870 – 282nd – $1k NLH
$10, 537 – 39th – $2.5k NLH/6h
$5,644 – 22nd – $1.5k LHE

Phil Hellmuth
$30,633 – 7th – $1.5k PLO Hi/Lo
$14,517 – 50th – $5k NLH
$25,472 – 15th – $1.5k NLH

Antonio Esfandiari
$17,987 – 32nd – $10k NLH/HU
$49,024 – 12th – $5k NLH
$2,880 – 211th – $1.5k NLH

Mike Matusow
$4,448 – 49th – $1.5k PLO Hi/Lo 1,500 Pot Limit Omaha Hi/Lo 8
$21,665 – 26th – $10k PLH

David Williams
$17,987 – 25th – $10k NLH/HU

Paul Wasicka
$1,834 – 286th – $1k NLH

Stacey Nutini
$4,866 – 88th – $1.5k NLH
$11,246 – 1st – $230 NLH/Ladies (Grand Poker Series)

Mike Frazin
$26,695 – 2nd – $1k NLH w rebuys (Bellagio Cup VI)

Cung Le
def. Scott Smith by TKO – Strikeforce MMA

Though plenty will still insist Chauhan’s formula for success is just a matter of statistical variance + marketing, as manager of Team Pokerati I have to at least consider Chauhan’s ballyhooed brand of poker tonic … as seen in his free weekly quasi-spam, most recently sent with a subject line presumably apropos for 90some-percent of WSOP competitors :

Unwanted Results

In life there is no failure only unwanted results. Most people feel upset or sad because of the results not being what they envisioned in life, business or even poker. The key is that we will all experience this throughout our life. You must find a way to deal with it in an empowering way.

Your brain usually focuses on negative experiences and references it instantly. Understanding the negativity bias of the brain, it takes an extra effort to internalize positive experiences and heal negative ones. When you focus on a positive experience you are correcting a neurological imbalance.That’s why people are attracted to drama and majority of people live in negativity. It takes a conscious effort to make you focus on a positive experience. When you have a positive experience today, help it sink in to any negative experience that you have in the future. When negative material arises, bring to your mind any emotion and perspective that will be the antidote to that negative material.

Don’t be attached to the outcome. Only worry about things you have control over. Everything else you worry about is a waste of energy. Just remember a sail boat in the middle of the ocean faces winds from different directions, as long as you control the sail you can reach your destination regardless. That’s the way you should think of yourself. You might have winds of uncertainty or doubt. Focus and make every setback a motivation for a comeback. Nothing can stop you from achieving your goal!

Never Give Up!!

Exactly. Pretty much what we said: Bracelets happen … everything else is gravy.

A recent blog [sic.] on CardPlayer by a former guest on my “The Tournament Trail” show at Hold ‘Em Radio (http://www.holdemradio.com/), WPT champion Roy Winston, indicated that no one has contacted him regarding his offer of coaching for the Main Event.

Sorry, Roy, but I’m laughing. Because no one has contacted me, either, about my offer to put a Pokerati patch on them in exchange for guaranteed internet coverage! No offense, but whothefugk are you? A WPT champion? Big deal! The final nine — whether by luck or skill or some combination thereof — have outlasted 6,400 players to get to where they are. Have you ever done that? I didn’t think so.* Why would someone want to potentially mess their game up by receiving “coaching” from someone other than Phil Hellmuth (who clearly knows how to win WSOP final tables with any starting chip ratio) or maybe Erik Seidel? If I were one of the Nueve de Noviembre, I gotta say, I’d be feeling pretty good about my poker skills in general … and would be having many talks with the poker friends who helped get me there (The Arizona Posse, Batfaces, et al.) and probably just about any other poker player I ran into between July and November. But hire an outside coach? That would be like an athlete qualifying for the Olympics and hiring someone in the interim who happened to win a similar event in the Pan-Am games.

The story here isn’t on whether or not the final table delay was a right idea for the sake of marketing … it’s about how the remaining WSOP main event players are somehow smart enough not to fall for sales pitches from interlopers trying to get in on their action.

*Note: Roy “the Oracle” Winston has come close — outlasting more than 6,300 players in the 2007 main event, but going out early when it got down to three tables. So maybe it should be the other way around and he could get some coaching from one of them?

Roy’s website: www.OraclePoker.net