To be great – and I mean really great – at cards, you must be able to hold, and manipulate numbers in your head. Trouble is that many people are not good at this. So, if that’s you, here’s a great training exercise – I call it ‘reverse phone numbers’. Go to the white pages section of your local phone directory, and have someone look at any phone number in the book. Have them read the number out loud to you.

You try to see the number in your head, then say it out loud – backwards – to them. They can check your answer. When you can do this consistently, with little effort, then progress to 2 phone numbers – let your confederate read them both to you, one after another, and then you say them both backwards, as if it were one very long phone number.

This type of memory training will come in handy on the poker table, because, as it’s been said many times, it’s all about the numbers, baby…