Tommy Angelo

The stillness hypothesis goes like this: During poker, each moment of stillness is a moment of less unhappiness, and less tilt, which is pretty much the same thing. By 'tilt' I mean 'any non-A-game performance or mindset'. A scientific hypothesis should be falsifiable, meaning that the hypothesist provides an experiment that could disprove the hypothesis. I will do that. It’s not ideal that the experiment will rely on your subjective reporting for data, but we’ll get to that. Why bother?

Poker mantras are plentiful and awesome, such as ‘All you need is a chip and a chair,' and 'It’s never wrong to not play.' But the best poker mantra of all — the only one with explicit universal instructions that can improve your win rate at any moment — the only mantra that has saved me a thousand buy-ins, is this: Wait for a better spot. Let’s do a thought survey.

Tommy Angelo is a poker player, writer, and coach who's been shaping the game for decades. Tommy practices and coaches painless poker, and his books, articles and videos have helped serious poker players around the world. Was it the killer kale salad? Or maybe it was the nap. Why was tonight’s poker session extra awesome? Three times I found myself basking in the bliss of poker nirvana. The third event was so profound that I rushed home to type about it.