News: New Mental Game Coach and $50 Poker Books to be Won

Jared Tendler is a very successful mental game coach working alongside poker journalist Barry Carter. Soon they'll be releasing regular psychology articles so that PokerStrategists can really sharpen their mind and improve their game. We caught up with them for a chat and found out what's in store.

Jared Tendler's book

"You won’t get mystical positive thinking meditation, you will get proven, scientific advice"

Jared Tendler: Mental coach
Jared's Twitter

PokerStrategy.com: How has poker influenced your lifestyle?

Jared Tendler: Not much...I have played for fun, but I was a golfer, turned mental game coach for golfers, turned mental game coach for poker players. After I met Dusty 'Leatherass' Schmidt on the golf course he informed me how there was a need for someone like me in poker.

Barry Carter: I’ve been a poker journalist for five years so as you can imagine, poker is pretty much my life. It has been really good to me; I have gotten to travel the world doing a job that is also a hobby.

Barry Carter: Poker journalist
Barry's Twitter

PokerStrategy.com: What are your goals with teaching? What can our members expect from your learning material?

Jared Tendler: An approach to mental game & psychology that is strategic, not full of fluffy stuff that makes you feel good about losing. A no-nonsense approach that gives you advice that has helped hundreds of players from around the world solve tilt, motivation, and confidence problems.

I take coaching seriously and try and answer every question personally, not with generic standard answers. Anyone can ask me questions on twitter (http://twitter.com/#!/jaredtendler) and I am looking forward to working with you guys on your forum.

Barry Carter: My role working with Jared has been helping him make his work easy to understand from a poker player’s point of view. He is the talent; I am a bit like a translator.

PokerStrategy.com: Which of your skills are the most helpful when it comes to educating poker players?

Jared Tendler: The fact I understand poker players better than they know themselves at times. Beingan outsider has helped me to be unbiased in the issues poker players struggle with, which has helped me redefine conventional poker psychology wisdom that doesn’t hold up to standards in sports psychology found elsewhere.

Plus I am actually trained; I have a master’s degree in psychology and a license in counselling psychology that took 3200 hours to complete. I have 6 years’ experience working in performance, 3 years in poker. Nobody has my level of qualification or experience working with poker players.

Barry Carter: To mirror what Jared said, the real difference between what he does and most of what else is currently out there is that Jared is a professional from the wider sporting and psychology industry, not just poker. You won’t get mystical positive thinking meditation bullsh*t from him, you will get straightforward, proven, scientific advice.

PokerStrategy.com: What's the best way to learn poker as you see it?

Jared Tendler: The best way to learn is creating an organized approach, a solid structure of preparation, playing, and analysis after. Not getting frustrated and upset by mistakes is important, figure out why it was a mistake and fix it.

Barry Carter: Understanding the learning process is key, poker makes it very easy to make you think you have mastered something early when you haven’t. Understanding that making mistakes along the way is actually a very important way to learn is crucial. Also most poker players try and learn way too many things early on, when in fact they should be keeping things simple and gradual as the mind only has so much capacity to learn.

PokerStrategy.com: What kind of content can we expect from you?

Jared Tendler: The number one problems players come to me with is tilt, so in the short term that’s what we will cover as it costs players a lot of money. We will also happily take requests on other issues including fear, motivation, confidence, increasing volume, moving up in stakes, and playing in the Zone. Let us know what you want to hear about.

PokerStrategy.com: Can you tell us about your new book, "The Mental Game of Poker"?

Jared Tendler: After working with poker players for three years, and with professional athletes for years before that, I saw that nothing was out there in the poker world from a sports psychology perspective. Poker players actually need sports psychology more than any other sport because there is so much variance involved. This book really cracks open the major psychological issues poker players face and will help you resolve the major tilt, motivation, confidence issues that are caused by variance.

Barry Carter: My role in the book was to play the part of the audience more than anything, so I was lucky in that I got to learn so much from this experience as we went along. I am still only really a modest player, but my mental game is brilliant. I have also found the teachings transferrable to other things in life, like changing my eating habits and improving at the gym.

PokerStrategy.com: What is there to know about the person behind the screenname? Hobbies, personality, etc...?

Jared Tendler: I am a former professional golfer, still avid player, love the game, if anyone wants to talk golf with me then drop me a line. I love high level competition in anything, darts to car racing, I love seeing how people perform. I also play tennis & run.

Barry Carter: I love boxing, football, comedy, and dogs. I also am a bit of a twitter geek if anyone wants to add me (http://twitter.com/#!/barry_carter).

PokerStrategy.com: Any last words for our community?

Jared Tendler: Drop me a line any time, I love hearing from all of you guys, this is what I do for a living so I want to hear from you.

Barry Carter: I love the PokerStrategy site, I think it’s a great business model, a great community, and a great way to learn.

We look forward to having you guys on board. Welcome to PokerStrategy.com!

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"You won’t get mystical positive thinking meditation, you will get proven, scientific advice"