Gambling Times - Player's Guide

James McKenna Columns

Power Poker Psychology - Poker Time Management
Baseball and Tennis are “goal-time” sports. The goal is for players to reach the highest score at the end of nine innings or a set of six games. Basketball and Hockey are “clock-time” sports. The team with the highest score when the clock runs out is the winner.
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Power Poker Psychology - Table Parents
Have you ever had the experience of doing or saying something that was just like one of your parents? In fact, you may have not only sounded like one of them, but you were being them. This is referred to as your "Parent Ego State." And, wow, does it ever show up in casinos.
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Power Poker Psychology - Psychological Games Casinos and their Regulators Play
All the conditions needed for psychological games exist between Casinos and their regulators. Psychological games, by definition, are unconscious.
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Power Poker Psychology - Psychological Games Between Players and the Gaming Industry
This is Part Two of three articles on Psychological Games in the gaming industry. Last time we discussed (1.) Games played between players and dealers. Today the focus will be on (2.) Games that occur between players and the gaming industry.
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Power Poker Psychology - Psychological Games and Gaming
The whole gaming industry is ripe with psychological games between the casinos, the commissions, and the public. Besides psychological games between players, there are...
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Power Poker Psychology - Profiling Gamblers
How can a gambler or someone who is concerned about a loved one who gambles determine whether there is a problem? Some players are good while some are bad players. At the same time, some players are organized and others are sloppy. Some are loose and some are tight. According to Gamblers’ Anonymous, 6 percent of the population are compulsive gamblers.
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Tournament Poker - The Least Mistaken
Success is seldom an accident. The key to success in poker is to make the least mistakes and/or succeed in getting other players to make more mistakes.
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Gambling Psychology - Winning is a Verb
There are players, who watch things happen, players who make things happen, and those who end up broke, asking, “What happened?” When players make things happen they are probably winning, or at least investing wisely and having fun.
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Gambling Psychology - Table Lessons
There are a lot of sayings one will hear when playing cards in a casino. Some of these sayings have elements of truthand may contain valuable lessons.
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Gambling Psychology - Money Talks
While some people use drugs and alcohol for stimulation, there are gamblers that will risk money for that thrill. The majority of players use money in appropriate ways. Similar to investing in the stock market, such players don’t bet funds needed for other necessities in life...
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Power Poker Psychology - Power Plays
What images do you get when someone says, “He’s a power poker player”? ...
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Power Poker Psychology - Attitudes of Success
Winners know that baseball, as with slots, roulette, other casino games, and yes, even poker are essentially games of failure! For example, Rogers Hornsby and Ted Williams are familiar names in baseball...
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Power Poker Psychology - Attitude vs. Aptitude and Luck
If you have played any poker in any casino, you’ve heard the worn-out lament, “I’d rather be lucky than good at...” Compare this to the other extreme. Nearing the end of the movie, Rounders, Matt Damon says, “People insist on calling it luck,”...
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