My biggest poker memory challenge yet....

Hey Followers,

For this blog I must keep my contact confidential, and the use of his proprietary charts confidential so that he doesn't get exploited on his site somewhere। The names and charts have been changed to protect the innocent, but the story is the same.

I got an email about 3 weeks ago by Charlie who said he wanted to buy my book but did not see how it could help him in what he wanted to memorize. Intrigued, I asked him what it was he wanted to put into his head. Charlie said he had these charts he had developed for a specific hold em game that he liked and that he lost time and EV by switching back and forth between them. He asked me if there is a way to commit these charts to his memory, and he added that if not he wouldn't be surprised. In his message he included the charts (which for the purpose of this blog I have altered) and I took a look at them.

Here is what i basically got, click on it to enlarge:

I thought to myself "wow, just 30 of them!". I thought about it before I gave him an answer and I decided that I thought he could commit this to memory, but I had never attempted anything like this before. So, I email him back and say I would like the challenge but there would be no guarantees of success mainly because this was so different. Also, had I actually helped him do this, as I get the rights to how I did it, and he would write about how this could be done in his own words.

Well we have begun, and I am proud to say we have a plan of attack to simplify the above information. As we speak, Charles is associating imagery from my book, mainly the nicknames with places on the planet and certain objects there to help him remember what to do with the cards he is dealt given a certain situation in hold em.

Here is an example of our communication:

Charlie

Hi,

I was wondering if I can make "linked" stories with the images. For example: "I see a dead man lying (A8) in the nile vineyard, I see his hand holding to a cell phone (AT), a 9mm gun (A9) lying close by. I wonder if his big fat wife (AQ), who was jealous from his supposed relation with Anna Kournikova (AK) is responsible? Or maybe he got shot because of his blackjack (AJ) gambling debts?" ? Or is it too complex and should I just place images without links between them?

Thanks, Charles

Hi Charles,

I don't think that would be wise. I think you want to separate all the images and have the associations or links in their own. Why? Well , in the heat of the game you want to quickly look at the cards, determine the blinds and your position then your nickname and determine your action from the image asap. If you have to learn a huge story that takes time to go through it and will take extra time which you may not have. IE i don't think you want to go through the whole story to find your action. Simpler is better. Cell phone has vines growing out of it. Dead man has vines coming out of him and so on. Hope that helps. Are you having challenges committing the images to memory? If so don't worry, your image centers need time to form connections. So have patience and it will come

Hi Bennett,

Thanks I get it. Makes sense when thinking about the speed of games. And less time and brain work it takes, the more I have left for attention to game flow etc. Images to memory is going good. I find that they stick better when I take the time to "see" them in my mind. Mainly when I go to bed, eyes closed and run trough them, taking the time to really "see" them. Trying to choose simple yet memorable and funny images. Like Anna Kournikova naked with only 3 leaves hiding parts of her body, dead man's lying on the ground with a vine growing out of his mouth etc. :)Man this works!

I emailed him later to explain that your brain doesn't know the difference between things it sees in your mind's eye and things you see for real.

He has one chart down, 29 to go. I will keep you updated as we do it.

Bennett Onika.