Hey Tommy welcome to the roster, your book Elements of Poker was a great help to me - looking forward to your videos!

Lost count how many times i listened to your podcasts in the past. Thx a ton for joining. Really looking foward to your series :)

Thanks Tommy, awesome content. Banjo was a great paragraph break. I look forward to this series a lot!

moar bansitions please :-)

Thanks for the welcoming! I'm delighted to be on board, and looking forward to making more videos. Good times ahead!

Awesome, Phil you`re a genius for this.

loved this video and especially the happiness decision topic you talked about. Im an MTT player and Coach and I have been mentioning in my sessions to other players alot that there is not enough talk about the value of intuition on training sites. You call it happiness here, but I think it comes down to the same thing, at least partly.
In complex scenarios (and I think your mentioned preflop blind defense actually is such a scenario, because there are so many future actions and cards ahead. Not knowing with how many bluffs opponent continues on each street etc, lots of factors coming up to determine whether hand X is a good defend or not. In mtts there is the icm/stack utility risk factor too, like how much stack utility on average do we have to risk in order to realize our equity), when we can not satisfyingly deal with a scenario purely based on logic, I think we need to take intuition into the equation, because I think it can deal better with more complex and abstract factors. At least part of intuition is our past experiences expressing themselves as an emotion in a particular spot I believe, since we probably just could not deal consciously with the whole amount of raw data at once. Especially in MTTs, where its not all about cev and immediate odds and implied odds etc, where things can sometimes look much more abstract, intuition or making plays based on feeling of happiness in unclear spots can help alot.
I know im diving alot into a specific direction here and thats not all of what your talk about happiness decisions was about, but just want to say in this specific area alone there just has not been put enough emphasis on it yet in the training and coaching world imo.

Really looking forward to your videos, love the banjo skits too keep them in there!

great video, looking forward to many more. glad to see the feedback is all positive so far. I believe this sort of content benefits everyone in the community whereas I find all the GTO-approach strategy videos rather masturbatory and detrimental to poker.

Welcome Tommy! Looking forward to seeing future videos, the ideas you flagged should make for great content.

Very entertaining Tommy - ty. Love the idea of happiness in poker. It's certainly possible to go down the misery road some days

Tommy, I cannot express how excited I am to have you as a part of RIO. I have listened and read your work before, and enjoyed your approach and wisdom greatly. I feel your focus on happiness first and foremost is key in poker microcosmically, and life macrocosmically. Tilt used to be a huge issue for me, and is much less so having used some of your strategies. I am so excited to hear you again, and I look forward to your new book when it is completed. Welcome, and thanks in advance.

Awesome video. Love using happiness as a way to measure success. Also love the banjo, first time I ever heard deep purple on a banjo. My wife walked in when you mentioned happiness. She wanted to know if you were wearing a robe and drinking a White Russian. I've been in a bit of a funk lately, the vid had me run over to amazon and buy your book, already through 100 pages with a lot highlighted.

Hi Tommy,

It's such a pleasure to see your vid here on RIO. Thanks for doing this, and kudos to RIO staff for bringing you as well.

I have always liked your poker articles and books, and got a tremendous amount of help from those. Through those articles, you have helped my mental game a lot even without realising it, and I am sure I won't be alone in this camp. I have only a handful of poker books on my bookshelf, of which 2 are yours! (In particular, I have read the "reciprocality" article of yours probably about 40 times, if not more.)

I just always wanted to thank you, and I am glad that I can finally say a few words that you could hear. :)

-- midori

I waited for ages for Tommy Angelo, it's just awesome to see him again!

So pumped that TA is on RIO

I started my study of improving happiness through modifying my perspective before i found poker (Its very possible that is how i found poker). Your video was a nice surprise to finish my usual daily poker study.

Looking forward to a Ted Talks featuring you Tommy. Thanks for joining RIO.

I laugh out loud every time you play your banjo. I'm not sure if I laugh out of enjoying the sound it makes or because it feels so ridiculous and out of place in a poker video.

Content was interesting; enjoyed the history lesson and got value from your practical mental game advice.

legend!

Hi Tommyy
You mentioned you quit drinking. Personally I'd love to hear more about this if you ever feel the inclination.

Speaking of tilting habits that sound you hear is my cat, Max, who I am going to attend to now. :)

Great video, great idea!

Thanks for making this

I'm glad you are joining the team Tommy and am looking for forward for your video serie(s).
The eightpath fold to poker enlightment back on deuces cracked is probably the best thing I've ever watched as it really helped the 20 yo newly profesionnal poker player I was to become a man, improving my approch of poker and more importantly of life in in general.
Welcome to RIO !

Hi Tommy,

I am really intrigued by your opening video and I have a question.

I recently bought a book on tidying. I would normally not buy books on tidying but this was a book about mastery. The author, Marie Kondo is a Japanese lady and has mastered 'the art of tidying'’. Her number one principle is to discard everything and anything that does not make you happy.

I applied her method and it has reaped numerous advantages for me. I found it quite easy to 'surrender to the master' when it came to tidying. One of the reasons that made it easy was that the possible cost / worst case scenario wasn'’t very bad. I have been applying this technique in several areas of my life and have found it to be greatly beneficial.

Up to this point I have some skepticism applying this technique to poker though. The main grounds for this skepticism come from the following idea:

Sometimes optimizing growth requires doing things that does not make a person very happy. For poker players it could be something like introducing the habit of studying instead of just playing. It can be tough at first, not fun, a player can be very resistant. A lot of time due to fears and or low confidence. This player may be convinced and try to rationalize that the studying does not make him happy. And this might result in not doing the right thing (breaking through fears, becoming a better poker player).

What are your thoughts on this?

Thanks so much,
Jorryt

Welcome Tommy! Really enjoyed your book and looking forward to your videos here in the future!

Wow it made me so happy to log in and see that Tommy is making videos!! Loved the intro. Both Elements of Poker and the Eightfold Path to Poker Enlightenment have been critical tools for me in developing as a player, and are some of the most valuable materials I have seen. Really looking forward to material on playing our A-games more often and staying focused. I also think it would be really cool to see a video on mindfulness meditation, it's benefits and some ways to get started. A very warm welcome to Tommy!

Nice video, I liked it a lot. I would even recommend this to non-poker players. Like the whole part about staking was mind opening to me. Looking forward to more episodes!

Definitely looking up for more of your vídeos...greats topics you talked about. Keep it up.

That's a nice surprise ;) The Eightfold Path to Poker Enlightenment had such a huge impact on my life, many thanks for that. Can't wait for your RIO productions.

The banjo here reminded me of all those Seinfield episodes that use electric slap bass riffs between scenes! But really it's great to have Tommy here and I'm looking forward to learning from him!

Welcome to the team Tommy! I'm excited to hear and think about all the topics you mentioned.

Hi Tommy,

Welcome to RIO, very excited to see more content from you. I'm someone who thinks they could perhaps benefit from meditation but I'm not sure where or the best way to start. Do you have a book recommendation? Do you think the guided meditations on YouTube are useful? Should I hire a meditation coach?

Do you have a book recommendation?

Yes. "Wherever You Go, There You Are," by Jon Kabat-Zinn.

Do you think the guided meditations on YouTube are useful?

I have almost no experience with guided meditations so I have nothing to say on that topic.

Should I hire a meditation coach?

Not yet. I think your best first step would be to sit as still as you can right now with a straight spine and concentrate entirely on the ins and outs of your breathing. And then do that again as often as possible.

I do believe it's possible to put oneself through dedicated, fruitful training, such as physical training, or poker training, without it being a painful experience. But only if that person has already been through the training required to see pain for what it is and consciously reduce it in the moment sometimes, in other words, meditation.

Was going to brand the video a complete load of tosh until I read this in the comments. Totally makes sense now. Didn't like the banjo music or feel the need for such a long intro/history though.

Anything more on approaching poker study would be great though as this is something I've always struggled to be consistent with.

Look forward to more, thanks and gl

you a big john hartford fan tommy?

Hi Tommy: I had a chance in my regular business outside of poker to make a questionable deal that would make me some sorely needed money but make me miserable and tense for the foreseeable future and possibly longer. I think your happiness theory helped me take the high road and the happiness I felt in making the call to turn down this deal was intense. It's not going to help my cash flow or put a new deck on the back of my house but better to be happy! Ty so much. Cue banjo music

Ni han well played!

With regards to your comments on staking, the majority of time, if someone is still a +ev investment I think the actual situation is often that you have "leaks" with regards to running a business/staking, and that's whats causing the unhappiness.

When I hear staking problems, assuming the horse is honest/+Ev, the problem is usually because of lack of clear terms and contract from the outset, or lack of ability for the staker to remain professional. The advice I would give first, is to consider if the problem is with you rather than a horse in a tough spot (financially, or with variance) being a bit difficult. Above all else, this should not be personal, stay calm.

It's very strange that many very good poker pros can detach from huge swings/behave very rationally at the tables, but when it comes to making EV decisions in this regard, all this goes out the window, and they approach it half-assed and emotionally.

Lastly, don't stake close friends, and unless your friend has a stable of 20+ horses/very professionally run operation, getting staked by a friend is likely a huge mistake as well. This avoids a lot of this.

Hi, looking forward to the rest of the series.

I have 2 questions, how would you feel your content is going to differ from that of Jared Tindler's mental game books in content?

Can you do a video focusing on how you keep interest in the game