Primate Poker Psychology

Improve your poker play by exploring the last frontier: The Inner Game of Poker.

Article: Poker and Introverts. Which personality type does best in poker? Learn about the link between introspection and winning poker...then take the personality test and see where you're at.

Article: The Inner Game of Poker. Learn about the link between poker and market trading...then read about the advances in personal trader psychology, and apply these advances to your poker game.

The following books on market trading are useful for poker students intent on playing winning poker. For more background on the connection between market trading and poker, please see the article found on this web site entitled The Inner Game of Poker.

New Market Wizards by Jack Schwager. (see page 439, chapter: “The Role of the Subconscious”). Good poker habits and good market trading habits have alot in common. Learn more about the personal (inner) psychology of trading...and poker. This book contains a chapter entitled "The Role of the Subconscious". This is a very useful chapter for players intent on playing winning poker.

The Disciplined Trader: Developing Winning Attitudes by Mark Douglas. Groundbreaking work on trader psychology. Applicable to poker players intent on improving play.

Trading in the Zone: Master the Market with Confidence, Discipline and a Winning Attitude
from Mark Douglas. The latest from this pioneering author on personal trading psychology. Useful reading on trader psychology for any poker player intent on winning.

Market Wizards: Interviews with America's Top Traders. Contains the interview with personal psychology pioneer and market trading master Ed Seykota. This single interview pays for the entire book.

Resources: Ed Seykota's Trading Tribe. Poker and market-trading are both games that deal with investment decision-making based on incomplete information. Both require a very highly developed level of discipline and self-awareness. Get started. Read about how to get yourself clear, and align yourself to psychologically prepare for anything that requires your best effort.

Resources: Emotional control techniques from the American Psychological Association.

Learn how stay calm. How to stop second-guessing yourself.

How to stop going on tilt. How to intentionally manage your bankroll.

How to exercise self-control.

How to develop your built-in, innate, human ability to "read" people.

Required study...even for experienced players.

"What is it that distinguishes man from animals? It is not his upright posture. That was present in the apes long before the brain began to develop. Nor is it the use of tools. It is something altogether new, a previously unknown quality: self-awareness."

- Erich Fromm (1900–1980), U.S. psychologist.