Foreword: Dusty Schmidt

HOW TO WIN, by Dusty Schmidt

It was the mother of all slumps.

For the year I was running $100,000 behind EV; for the previous 28 months I was $400,000 behind EV. My first, second and third instincts were to just keep doing what I was doing.

We all agree that poker is a game of skill, and the basis of skill is knowledge. The thing about knowledge is that it constantly evolves, and I had stopped evolving. As Paul writes in this book, I’d “let my towel go dry.” I suppose I had good reasons for this: having a new family; writing a book; starting a new business. All of these things took me away from concentrating on poker as I had previously.

My game was on autopilot, and at first I managed to do just fine.  Whereas I’d maybe made $100,000 a month back when I was really grinding, I was down to making $60,000 playing part time — still a great haul.

But soon that $60,000 was down to $30,000. Now I had a sense of urgency. I started playing more, yet my income was plummeting toward zero. I came within inches of experiencing the first losing month of my career. What was happening? Had I lost my touch? Was it the games? It had to be the games, right, because I was so far behind EV?

For the first time in my poker life, I was really, really scared. I was scared because I had no idea how to fix myself. The games were harder, the fish were fewer, and I didn’t know one thing to do about it.

Then I thought of what Paul wrote in the first few pages of Way of the Poker Warrior: “empty your cup.”

Empty your cup.

I had to forget what I thought I knew about poker and my own game, and start fresh. That began with me coming to terms with my weaknesses, another of Paul’s axioms in this book.

My honest assessment was that I wasn’t practicing effectively — in fact, most of the time I wasn’t practicing at all. I’d always made so much money per hour that time spent practicing felt like an opportunity cost. The result was that I was making adjustments while I played — a time when my state of mind was at its most vulnerable. Rather than implementing strategy, I was adjusting to new players on the fly, trying to counteract what they were doing without a real basis for my actions.

I looked in the mirror and realized I was making classic mistakes: playing too many hands, misjudging people’s ranges, playing emotionally, and getting into too many spots where I shouldn’t have been involved. I was still grinding, but I was working long rather than working smart.

When I first read Way of the Poker Warrior, I appreciated that it spoke to fundamental truths about the game. I wondered, though, if it would apply much to an advanced player like I am.

What I found was days later I was still thinking about the book. Then days became weeks. The standard Paul sets stayed on my mind, and I compared myself to it. It was then that I felt the burden lift. I felt as though I’d found a roadmap home.

I had to go back to basics — “become a white belt,” as Paul says. Following Paul’s advice from “We Sweat Now So We Don’t Bleed Later,” I began spending 20 percent of my time practicing. I looked over old notes I’d taken, and went back to reviewing my game when I was playing better, just as Paul says to do in “Let’s Go To The Videotape.”

As Paul suggests, I found new teachers, swallowing my pride and asking for friends to analyze my game. I “taught to learn,” explaining to them what I was trying to do and why. I even applied some of Paul’s more idiosyncratic thoughts, including his advice in “I’m Not Left-Handed, Either” where he suggests dropping down a few limits and playing like a fish. All of it got me back on a winning path.

Way of the Poker Warrior reinforced for me something I’ve long believed, which is that mastery is its own skill. Once you’ve mastered one thing, it becomes much easier to master another. I was a pro golfer before getting into poker, and my ramp-up for the latter was much quicker because of my experience with the former. Paul clearly had the same experience with Taekwon-Do and poker. I think the essential truths Paul speaks to in this book would put someone on the path toward mastering anything, not just poker.

I always admired Paul because he’s the person I want to be some day: martial-arts badass, plays guitar in a rock band, lives in Manhattan, does what he wants, gets the girl. I live vicariously through the guy. But I never thought I’d be thanking him for helping me enjoy again the process of playing winning poker.

Yet that’s just what I’m doing.

Dusty “Leatherass” Schmidt is a member of Team PokerStars Online. He is also a lead instructor at DragTheBar.com, and author of the book “Treat Your Poker Like A Business.” In his five-year online-poker career, Schmidt has played nearly 7 million hands and won more than $3 million, without ever having a losing month. He blogs several times a week at www.dustyschmidt.net.