Guess Who's Back?
Pete and Melissa are back for a catch up episode. Topics range from knowing your skill level, to maximising EV in soft live poker games, to Pete's return studying poker seriously in 2025.
Feb 19, 2025•1 hr 14 min•Season 3Ep. 1
Poker Distilled
Join poker coach Pete Clarke and poker player Melissa for a psychological and philosophical journey through a wide array of poker topics.
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Episodes
Are We The Universe?
Pete and Melissa discuss this episode's philosophy book and how it relates to poker: The Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are by Alan Watts.
Oct 01, 2024•57 min
Does Poker Erode the Soul?
Poker can subject you to periods of darkness beyond what you are normally forced to confront in real life. Do such periods have a long-term effect on the psyche? Is it true that what doesn't kill you makes you stronger or do we emerge out of every downswing with a bit more of the light sucked out of us?
Sep 17, 2024•1 hr 3 min•Season 3Ep. 7
Our BEST EVER Episode
Pete has a proposition for Melissa - a new idea that will change the trajectory of the podcast. Also in today's episode we discuss three ways of strengthening the will covered in Ryan Holiday's book The Obstacle is The Way and how they relate to the poker player.
Sep 10, 2024•1 hr 3 min•Season 3Ep. 6
Escaping the Toxic Self
What if tilt is not actually something poker does to us but something we do to ourselves? In this episode we examine poker as a higher order beauty. Its intricacies exist objectively, even in a realm where humans don't. If we can fix our attention on the objective beauty of the game itself and escape the daily churn of how it makes us feel, we can harness curiosity to free ourselves from the gloom of self awareness and reach a flow state where we can play at our best more often.
Aug 22, 2024•57 min
Results Addiction in Poker
Why is it so difficult for humans NOT to look at their short-term poker results. What are the benefits of getting into better results checking habits? Why the feedback of daily, weekly and monthly graphs isn't really feedback at all...and much more.
Aug 15, 2024•1 hr 1 min•Season 3Ep. 4
Why We Love Overbetting
Overbets and why they're such a fundamental part of No Limit Holdem. Why pot and all multiples of pot are arbitrary. Melissa embarks on an INSANE challenge. Discussion of the Kristen Foxen bust out hand and much more.
Jul 19, 2024•1 hr 12 min•Season 3Ep. 3
Melissa's Meltdown
Pete and Melissa debate the utility / futility of Range Betting and that mode of thinking before getting into a therapy session where Melissa recounts a recent incident at the poker table where she hit rock bottom in terms of her behaviour and how she's intent on changing her petulant ways.
Jul 12, 2024•1 hr 17 min•Season 3Ep. 2
The Mad Dreams of Reason
Pete and Melissa are back with season 3 of Poker Distilled. Season 3 gets underway with a quote from a novel Melissa is reading which sparks a big discussion about how the madness of seeking a perfect theoretical strategy can absolutely ruin your poker progress and how the imperfection of humans vs human play is where the true beauty of the game resides.
Jul 04, 2024•1 hr 21 min•Season 3Ep. 1
Anniversary Special
Pete and Melissa are back for a one off catch up while you patiently wait for season 3 of Poker Distilled. Topics includes challenging yourself in tough games, how to build armour in poker and in life and why it's so important to have ambition as a poker player.
Apr 11, 2024•1 hr 29 min
The Season 2 Finale
It's the end of another magical season of poker distilled and what better way to start 2024 than to hear Pete and Melissa discuss why tilt and gambling issues are two points on the same spectrum and why not knowing how to fight people short-handed in wide range spots makes you a hollow shell of a poker player.
Jan 01, 2024•1 hr 10 min
There are No Employees in Poker
Why being a poker player is like being the CEO of a one person company; why trying to play your range at the expense of considering your hand is almost always asking for trouble; and why calling someone a 'Karen' is a reprehensible act. This episode explains it all.
Dec 25, 2023•1 hr 17 min•Season 2Ep. 19
Are YOUR Poker Decisions Rational?
Today there is good news and there is bad news. The good news is that Pete's golf game is no longer as terrible as it was. The bad news is that there is a very high chance that you make poker decisions for irrational reasons. In this episode we discuss the various mental game leaks that cause unsound thought processes and how to go about fixing them.
Dec 18, 2023•1 hr 20 min•Season 2Ep. 18
Is Poker a Lonely Pursuit?
Your poker career can be an isolating place. You are solely responsible for your fate and no one else can truly experience your poker journey like you do. What can we do to make poker a less lonely place and what has happened to the lost arts of sweats and study groups. Are we missing out on one of the greatest aspects of learning the game by making so much of our study solitary?
Dec 11, 2023•1 hr 9 min•Season 2Ep. 17
Are YOU Pete's Next YouTube Star?
Pete is looking to recruit a new online cash game student who has a bit of a following in the poker world. The new star could be a well known live player. It could be HELLMUTH? Or maybe it could be you? In this episode we also discuss Melissa's epic $5/$10 heads up battle with the cardroom manager. Our final segment is on the concept of trade offs in poker strategy and how humans are quite bad at thinking in this vital way.
Dec 04, 2023•1 hr 17 min•Season 2Ep. 16
Hero Calls and Fish Logic
Melissa asks Pete about a wild looking call he recently made while streaming before discussion focuses on getting inside the mind of weaker poker players. How do they think and how can we exploit them for it?
Nov 27, 2023•1 hr 1 min•Season 2Ep. 15
Gherkins, Model Trains, and Live Poker
Melissa interrogates Pete about the word 'Gherkin' before an interesting discussion about how to manage your live poker career.
Nov 20, 2023•1 hr 15 min
Pete Returns to The Grind
After quite a few years of focussing full time on growing Carrot Corner and coaching, Pete has decided to get back in the mix and generate a big sample of hands in 2024 at the stakes he commonly coaches. Melissa interviews him about the reasons behind this decision as well as his hopes and fears as to how things will go.
Nov 13, 2023•1 hr 15 min
Melissa Gets Poker Therapy
Poker can leave us battered, bruised and weakened. It's not whether this happens to you in poker that is the interesting question; but how you bounce back from it. Pete plays the role of poker therapist in this episode as Melissa searches for the road to recovery from an absolutely brutal weekend of terrible variance.
Nov 06, 2023•1 hr 11 min
Ego Alignment in Poker
If your ego is too big for your poker ability, it can lead to frustration, tilt, and delusion. Your learning might slow down or stop entirely as you become stuck in the victim mindset, expecting to win. However, deflated ego can also be a big problem leading to a lack of confidence and self-trust at the tables. How do we go about mapping our ego to our ability level and how can we tell when there is a mismatch?
Oct 30, 2023•1 hr 10 min
Meaningful vs Meaningless
Melissa starts the podcast with a horror story of how she lost $500 out of nowhere in a very unfortunate incident at her local cardroom. The conversation then centres around the different ways in which events can be meaningful and meaningless and where this one falls on that spectrum.
Oct 23, 2023•57 min•Season 2Ep. 10
This is Just a Tribute
This is not the greatest episode of Poker Distilled, oh no, this is a Tribute. Couldn't remember the greatest episode of Poker Distilled, oh no, Pete's sound was muted throughout. What a boomer. This episode is about the concept of World Favourability in Poker and why having the right vantage point is mandatory for assessing it correctly.
Oct 16, 2023•1 hr 12 min•Season 2Ep. 9
Exploring Poker Biases
Every poker player leans a certain way when it comes to their default game. These biases tend to come out as soon as tilt enters the fray and impartiality goes out of the window. Sure, we're supposed to mix when we have an indifferent situation and no exploitative read to guide us, but in reality we often let our default preferences decide matters.
Oct 02, 2023•1 hr 6 min•Season 2Ep. 8
Community as the Cure for Disorderly Poker Thought
In 2010, Pete was part of a thriving poker community getting told off by professional poker players for his sloppy thought processes. In the modern age, good poker communities are hard to come by and lone learning has become commonplace, but how destructive is this isolation for your poker community and what can you do about it?
Sep 25, 2023•1 hr 18 min•Season 2Ep. 7
Melissa vs Old Man Coffee
Melissa recounts the story of her dramatic recent encounter with an old man coffee . More serious topics this week include Pete's experiences with some rare anti-social/unpleasant poker students and some strategy talk about playing at low stack to pot ratios.
Sep 18, 2023•1 hr 3 min•Season 2Ep. 6
Obsession = Purpose
After falling out about Pete's disdain for live poker, Pete and Melissa reconcile by launching into a deep conversation about the importance of becoming obsessed with a discipline (like poker) to draw real meaning from it.
Sep 04, 2023•1 hr 12 min•Season 2Ep. 5
The Dark Side of Poker Coaching
After some recap on Melissa's experiences using the mental game techniques from the previous episode, Pete talks a bit about some of the most difficult experiences he's had as a poker coach including dealing with students that have no hope of succeeding or even those who have gambling problems related to poker.
Aug 28, 2023•1 hr 25 min•Season 2Ep. 4
Fighting Attachment in Poker
Poker has a harsh way of making us attached to pots, winnings, progress, graphs and more before viciously snatching those things away in a bout of negative variance. How can we manage our own attachment to cope with this mentally taxing element of the game.
Aug 21, 2023•1 hr 12 min•Season 2Ep. 3
Processing Our Poker Mistakes
Mistakes provide one of the most essential and valuable resources for growth in poker but how do we get into the right mindset to make use of them with the bonus effect of playing poker becoming a happier and more fulfilling experience?
Aug 14, 2023•1 hr 15 min•Season 2Ep. 2
The Dos and Don'ts of Poker Solvers
Solvers can be extremely powerful tools, but what if I told you that for many people solvers make their game WORSE not better. In this episode we give you practical advice on how to get the most out of tools like PIO Solver and GTO Wizard while avoiding the common pitfalls that snare unsuspecting poker players.
Aug 07, 2023•1 hr 12 min•Season 2Ep. 1
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