Are you building this essential mindset into your game plan?
BE CONFIDENT Any one of us ordinary poker players can defeat a top professional under the right conditions. That’s the lesson of confidence. I’ve never seen this point better demonstrated than when I watched Jason Alexander (that’s the hysterical, bafoon comedian George Castanza from TV’s “Seinfeld”) outlast and glide happily by “The Great Dane” Gus Hansen (one of the top fifteen players in the world) at the 2006 World Poker Tournament. Does this mean TV comedians are the new Poker Gods? No. It just means you need to believe in yourself. Reputations are there to be attacked.
SO WHAT IS A GAMING GOD? Probably the best example of a Gaming God in Great Britain would be David “Devilfish” Ulliott. David is not just a great poker player. According to him, all of the major bookies: Ladbrokes, William Hill and Coral won’t let him bet on horses anymore such has been his success. He’s banned from playing roulette in several of the large casinos and is certainly feared and respected at poker tables around the world. The only question of real interest to us as fellow players is why? Again, it boils down to immense confidence and self esteem. He has more one-liners than a Columbian drug lord and his personal mantra is “Life’s a blast, but it don’t last, so live it long and live it fast!” This kind of attitude sets up its own energy pattern and you will definitely dominate more games with that mind-set.
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BUT THE DEVIL’S IN THE DETAIL Not that long ago Ulliott led an unexpected British victory in the 888.com Poker Nations Cup against a handful of Scandinavian countries plus Ireland, Germany and the USA. “We looked down and out going into the final day, but I was playing in the anchor position and I knew I could bring it home.” The closure was dramatic. After the card equivalent of World war 111, the Devil went heads-up against the German Captain Michael Keiner. Keiner paired his King at the flop and looked all set to blitz the “Fish” when an Eight came down the river like the Special Boat Squadron and the Devil completed his straight. “It was like a Hollywood movie!” grunted an ecstatic Ulliott at the time.
MAYBE IT’S CON-FIDENCE Obviously Ulliott is a man of supreme self belief and takes his aggression to the wire but he mixes it with the unpredictable. “People expect stone-cold bluffs from me because they predict my arrogance.” says Ulliott. (Clearly a dangerous assumption.) “These days I like to make sure I have some sort of hand to back it all up.” Let’s call it calculated confidence. Maybe that’s what we can all learn from the Devil.
