EPISODE 112---The Poker Party is Over ----Alan Schoonmaker, Ph.D.

Alan Schoonmaker earned his Ph.D. in industrial psychology at U of California, Berkeley. He taught and did research at UCLA, Carnegie-Mellon, and Belgium's Catholic University of Louvain. After running management development at Merrill Lynch, he worked as a consultant in twenty-nine countries on all six continents. His clients included the world's largest corporations such as IBM, Mobil, GE, GM, and Chase Manhattan. The annual sales of his clients exceed one trillion dollars.He has written or co-authored three research monographs and five books on industrial psychology. His work has been translated into French, German, Spanish, Swedish, Japanese, and Indonesian. He has also developed several multi-media training programs. His "Selling: The Psychological Approach" was once the world's best selling computer based instructional program for business people. A major theme of his work is understanding and adjusting to different kinds of people. His attitude toward our game is unique for a poker writer: "I play only in smaller games because maximizing my profits is much less important to me than relaxing and learning about people. I became a psychologist because I enjoy people-watching, and a cardroom is a wonderful place to do it." "Players in small games are much more interesting than the more serious players. They are more varied, open, and relaxed. They laugh more, tell better stories, and never forget that the purpose of playing any game is to have fun." "As the stakes get higher, the players become more serious and homogeneous. Most of them study the same books, know the same odds, and try to use similar strategies. In the smaller games there are more rocks, more maniacs, more calling stations, more nerds, more "Deluded Experts," and more oddballs, which means I learn more and get better material for my writing." "Most poker writers focus on how the champions think and play, but hardly anything has been written about ordinary players. I want to help them to understand themselves and the people in their games." Poker is much more than knowing the right strategies; it's also knowing how to actualize those strategies. The game is full of losing players who know how to play, yet can't seem to induce themselves to consistently make the right plays. "Black Friday" and the current state of the U.S. economy have changed the sub-culture in which we live and play. The dynamics of the poker world have drastically changed. Internet poker is not the cash cow it used to be, thereby changing the face of live poker. The games got tougher as Internet pros gravitated to the live action, the only action they can currently find. As players we must find ways to adapt to our new realities. For the Internet player looking to become a major winner in live poker this involves changes in skill sets and mindsets. For the B&M players it involves adjusting to the skills and styles of former online players. The Internet game and the live game, though related, have very different fundamentals, not to mention all the innumerable different nuances. And, because there are fewer weak players, everybody must adjust to tougher games. The Poker Party is Over will teach things about developing into a great poker player. You'll learn how train your mind to adjust from Internet poker to live poker, or - if you're a B&M player - to adjust to internet players. You'll ascertain how to become an expert on "tells", learn how to effectively manage your bankroll, and be taught how to guide your mind through poker logic. You'll discover how to prepare yourself for survival in our dog-eat-dog world and much, much more.