How Yoga Helps Top Poker Professionals
Yoga is proven to help people with many aspects of their life.
As we explored in our article ‘Using Yoga to Come Home From Chronic Pain’, yoga can help alleviate discomfort and help you heal. It can make you more flexible and prepared for exercise. It can help you deal with the stress brought on by everyday life and promote mindfulness and calm. It can also help you win big at poker.
Okay, so the last one isn’t a benefit everyone can enjoy, but many top poker professionals are turning to yoga to help them improve their game. Andrew Lichtenberger even wrote a book on the subject ‘Yoga of Poker’, but there are far more examples of players using the benefits of yoga to improve their game.
One of the best players in the world is Daniel Negreanu, and he shines like a beacon for clean living throughout the poker world. Negreanu is a committed vegan and a fan of meditation. He even claims to deal with defeat with breathing techniques, a fundamental of mediation. “People often ask me how to deal with a bad beat,” he once said. “My answer to that is to take three to five really deep breaths. That in itself is a form of mediation that can help center you and relieve the body of anxiety. As you meditate more often, this practice can help you deal with these situations more easily.”
As we know, yoga is a form of meditation, and Negreanu suggests that many top-level poker players have turned to the discipline to help them at the table. “Yoga has also become quite popular among many of the elite poker players in the world today,” he says on his website. “Yoga can also act as a form of meditation that connects your body and
mind. It’s not just about a good stretch, for some people, it can be quite an experience when they are totally present, in the moment, and focused solely on what they are doing.”
That’s certainly the case with Kristen Bicknell who is a three-time World Series of Poker bracelet winner. As far back as 2012, she talked about the importance of a good yoga routine. “I have three fitness classes I really like and will go to each week at the same time,” she said. “One of them is a Yin Yoga class, one of them an intense spinning class, and the other a spinning class that has a bit of yoga at the end.” She even incorporates yoga into her routine at the table, adding, “Aside from going to the studio for yoga classes, every 5k hands I play, I will do a short little stretching/yoga/exercise routine.”
What is it about yoga that helps poker players? Poker is a game that places demands upon a player, often unseen. It appears easy, sitting at the table playing cards, but the sums of money involved are huge. Players must remain focused and able to concentrate for prolonged periods, something yoga promotes. Also, as Bicknell alludes to, being able to stretch properly can help endurance at the table, something else in which yoga can play a role.
Doing yoga won’t make you a good poker player, but if you are already of a decent standard, it seems it is a good tool to get you ahead. Just ask the professionals!
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