Jared Tendler is a mental game coach who has worked together with over 300 poker players and helped them achieve their full potential at the table.

Obviously, I have to start with one of the leading mental coaches in the poker industry: Jared Tendler. He coached over 500 poker players, including several of the top players in the world. He transitioned into the poker world after he coaches several pro golf players and athletes. The game of poker evolves at a rapid pace. The worst player in your game today likely would have crushed the games of 2005 and been considered a top pro. As the gaps in technical edges tighten the importance of having a mental edge increases. Obviously, I have to start with one of the leading mental coaches in the poker industry: Jared Tendler. He coached over 500 poker players, including several of the top players in the world. He transitioned into the poker world after he coaches several pro golf players and athletes.

Among the clients Tendler has worked with include Dusty 'Leatherass' Schmidt, Niman 'Samoleus' Kenkre and 2010 EPT Berlin main event champ Ben 'NeverScaredB' Wilinofsky.

Tendler, who is a licensed mental health counselor with an MA in psychology, got himself an important role in the poker community after the international success of 'The Mental Game of Poker', a book that PokerStars Team Pro Lex Veldhuis once defined 'the best poker book ever written.'

Three years after the launch of his first poker book and one year after he came out with the sequel – The Mental Game of Poker 2 - Spain's PokerNewsAntonio Martín caught up with Tendler to discover his interest in poker and get his thoughts on what players can do to reach their best performances and avoid the dangers of tilts.

How you did the first The Mental Game of Poker book come about? What motivated you to write that book?

I felt very strongly that I had something unique to say about the mental game and had gotten a lot of good feedback from the videos that I had done, the questions I had answered on forums, and the players that I had coached.

So writing a book seemed like the natural next step. It was an exciting thing to do, but what I didn't realize was how much work was actually involved.

I was very overconfident and though I could get it done myself - even though I'm not a writer - and get it done within three months ... It took two years!

Why did you decide to focus on the poker world?

Call it a stroke of good luck. I played poker since I was a kid and always loved the game, but I never considered coaching poker players on the mental game until I happened to meet Dusty 'Leatherass' Schmidt on the golf course one day.

I was coaching golfers at that time, some on the PGA and LPGA tours, and Dusty knew the value of sport psychology from his time as a pro golfer.

He always wanted to work with a sport psychologist but never had the money. Now he did, and in 2007 he was trying to make Supernova Elite in 10 months but was struggling with huge tilt problems. He was destroying mice, and ripping his computer out of the wall.

So a few months after we met he called me for help. After working with him for six month, he had tremendous success and so he offered me an opportunity to make videos for Stoxpoker and the rest is history.

After your book came out, 'the zone' became something many started to talk about and seek as if it was the Holy Grail. Can you explain us what it is in few simple words?

The zone is the peak of mental performance. It's the place where you're playing at your absolute best.

When in the zone a player is able to think deeper about the game, see details of the action they don't normally see (timing tells, or variations in bet sizing), their mind is consumed only with poker (no distractions), and time seems to either slow down or speed up.

It's an amazing place, but unfortunately very few players understand how to prepare themselves to reach this level of performance consistently.

What the most important skill a player needs to have in order to become successful?

The desire to be better and the willingness to do whatever they can to be better. Maybe that's two things, but they're both essential.

I read an interview with Phil Ivey a few years ago where he said that he makes mistakes like everyone else, the difference is that he's constantly thinking about ways that he can correct them and be even better.

I think a lot of players ignore their weaknesses, or their mistakes, especially when they're running well. You always have them. That's reality. The key is to always be working to improve mentally, tactically, or anything else that will make you better.

Tilts are usually a very serious problem for poker players, especially for those without too much experience. How do you work with them to let them overcome their tilts?

The key is to take tilt head on, and try to correct it in the moment that it starts. The problem for many players is that the wait to start to correct/battle their tilt problem until tilt has gotten too big to control.

When tilt becomes too intense, it shuts down your ability to think, if you can't think you cannot control tilt. Period. So you must begin correcting tilt when it's small and you have the ability to think through it.

Once you've recognized that small sign of tilt, take a few deep breaths to steady the mind and then inject logic. Injecting logic is a fancy way of saying 'think' but it's a specific thing to think about that corrects the underlying cause of tilt. Using this logic helps to reduce tilt and correct it in the long term.

Which one do you think is the key to avoid tilting in poker?

Identify the cause of tilt and solve that problem. It is simple to say, but it is much harder to do that of course.

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John ‘JBradley/WhatA298’ Bradley

• 13 Year Poker Professional with a wide variety of experience
• Consistent long-term winner with over $700k in online profits
• Over $1M in online tournament cashes since transitioning from cash games 4 years ago
• Population analysis and psychological specialist

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Poker experience

• I’ve played over 8 million hands online
• I’ve played over 14k MTTs online at $85 ABI
• My biggest online scores are $99k (2^nd in the Sunday Million) and $65k (2^nd in the Super Tuesday) alongside a variety of other five figure scores
• I have made a steady and consistent living from 6-max cash games and MTTs across many sites over 13 years, regularly playing in cash games up to $1KNL and MTTs up to $1k but also having a great deal of experience grinding lower stakes when needed.
• I’ve put in volume on many different sites both regulated and unregulated and I have a keen knowledge of the industry as a whole and how to traverse it to achieve the goals you seek.
• I have a deep understanding of how populations tend to play, the psychological reasons why and what we can do to exploit these tendencies.
• I am adept in the mental game of poker, bankroll management and the meta-skills required to make poker a solid long-term career or side income. As a family man I also know how best to balance poker with other aspects of life.

Pocket Fives profile:

My journey as a poker player

I started playing poker in 2007 and through the training site Cardrunners and some 1-to-1 coaching I quickly built a bankroll and a living for myself playing 6-max cash games. I was at the time a law student and when it became time to start training as a solicitor I decided to instead go all-in on poker and see if I could make it. I continued to improve through many other training sites and my own ‘lab work’ with any training program I could get my hands on. As the games got harder I got better and poker was now supporting me in travelling the world and starting a family.

The games continued to get harder and I continued to grow through the regular channels but now also with the help of an NLP solution-focused trainer who helped me discover my mental blocks and showed me the importance of psychology in poker. I had many upswings and many downswings and each time I learned something about myself, my game and the game as a whole. I gained a deeper understanding of variance, the mindset of all the different player types and how to achieve a sustainable long-term income from poker. All the while honing the craft of decision-making which is essentially what poker boils down to.

I pride myself on the fact that I was able to maintain a consistent salary while the poker industry declined and most pros fell by the wayside. This taught me a great deal about myself and although it’s great that poker is now having a resurgence, I know that I’ll be able to survive and thrive no matter the landscape and this is a skill I hope to teach you. I believe we should ‘reach for the stars’ but also that we should make sure we are always on solid ground. I’ve learnt that bankroll management is an art as well as a science and that we can do anything we set our minds to.

Eventually I started to branch out into other forms of poker and settled primarily in the realm of tournament poker which is now my main game. Tournament poker helped me grow further as there are far more variables than in cash poker and there is more longevity in it compared to cash games. I still play both but where possible I like to engage with the tournament world.

I have more recently realised that what I’ve learnt on my journey can be of massive benefit to others and I feel that success is best when shared and therefore I have been focusing some attention on giving back. I started coaching and have found that I have a natural aptitude for it. I inherently care about people and want the best for them, am a great listener and am able to get to the heart of an issue so we can get you where you want to be as efficiently as possible.

Poker coaching experience

I have found a great deal of enjoyment in helping others follow their poker dreams and succeed and have a great desire to support you in any way that I can – your goals will become my goals.

I can help in a wide variety of ways. I believe everybody needs something different and it is my job to find out what you need the most and how to get it to you as efficiently as possible. I have many tools at my disposal to help with this; training tools such as Flopzilla, PIO Solver and Equilab, filters for scouring through your database and perhaps just my experience and instincts when looking into your game.

Sessions can take many different forms depending on your goals and preferences. They can involve database analysis, the use of training tools, hand history analysis, live play; whatever is needed we will do.

I look forward to meeting you and helping you to achieve your goals!

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Poker coach Bobby “BJP” James

Hey, I’m Bobby ‘The BJP’ James, a professional poker player and coach for more than 5 years now. I have written over 75 articles for Bluff Europe Poker Magazine.

I’ve been in podcasts with Bencb789, Jonathan ‘Apestyles’ Van Fleet, Bryan Rast and the legends Dara O’Kearney and David K Lappin of ‘The Chip Race’.

I’m also a Poker Ambassador for Betsafe who are part of the MPN family, playing live and online representing the brand. I have my own stream on Twitch that I host 4 nights a week Mon/Tue/Thur/Sun – 7PM GMT Weekdays and 5PM GMT Sunday till late. I stream MTT’s and provide in-depth analysis and entertainment essentially giving lots of free information out on how to beat small field MTT’s and exploit other players weaknesses.

I have final tabled the Sunday Million on Stars and finished 5th for just under $40,000. I think my greatest success has come from Betsafe/MPN where my graph is rather exceptional for the stakes and volume i’ve put in.

Poker Coach – Anders “Petter85” Holm

“Petter85” – SNG and MTT specialist

The poker player Anders “Petter85” Holm started playing online over a decade ago and soon became one of the most fearful players at Sit and go’s at Pokerstars. He soon also developed his MTT skills and have merits such as win at Pokerstars big tournies such as Sunday Warmup, several wins in Sunday 100 rebuy, WCCOP final tables and much much more.

Poker Coach – Johan “HOMERos” Strid

Tournament and cashgame specialist

The poker player “HOMERos” started, just as Petter, playing poker 2004 well before the poker boom. He soon develop his SNG and MTT skills and was one of the players with the absolute best win rate at Pokerstars during the “SNG-era”. His win rate well succeded top pros such as Elky, Dariomineri and Rainkhan. Below you can see some of his top scores at MTT at Pokerstars.

Top MTT Cashes

• 2 Sunday Warmup wins (4 way chop both times)
• 8th place Sunday Million
• Scoop Final table both 2013 and 2014, where the last one was a 1000$ event.
• 4th place in the Swedish National Championchip Live 2014. (1500$ buyin)

Mental Coach Poker Game

Cashgames – Over 70 000$ in cashgame winnings. Mostly NL1000$ at Full Tilt.

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