As with all human endeavours requiring skill and concentration, you can’t underestimate the effects of proper nutrition on your poker performance. You need a balanced diet with adequate protein, carbohydrates and fat. If you’re short one of these, you will suffer in some way: indigestion, fevers, chills, confusion, apathy, lack of affect, speech impediment, swollen feet, belching, bloating, hiccuping, extreme flatulence, constipation, diarrhea, anal leakage, appendicitis, and, in some extreme instances, seizures or hallucinations.

All common sense, no? Eat like a pig and you will likely play like one. Eat too much junk food and you will both play and look like junk. Eat too much roughage, or drink too many liquids with diuretic properties like coffee or tea and you will be getting up from the table every few minutes to go to the jakes. Eat lots of garlic and onions and the people at your table will glare at you with disdain and turn their faces whenever you exhale or open your mouth to speak. Don’t eat enough fish and you will lack the necessary brain power to function at full capacity. Eat too many wine gums or Jujyfruits and your teeth will be a mess and you will annoy the other players both with your mouth gymnastics as you try to tongue the teeth clean, or, even worse, deploy a toothpick to it. There’s something about a poker player sucking on a toothpick that everybody finds distasteful, or am I the only one?

This is not to say that consulting with a dietitian or a sports nutritionist is obligatory, though it wouldn’t hurt if you´re clueless. But if you follow several commonsensical tips about eating properly before sitting down to play, and adopt good nutrition as a part of general healthy living, then I don’t think your game will suffer from that, anyway. I mean, if you’re going to play like a well-fed donkey, then so be it. But at least you won’t be blaming your bad game on a spinning head, or painful abdominal gas, or weak eyes caused by poor nutrition. You’ll think, “No I ate well, very well indeed, and thus can only deduce that my play is bad because I am a donkey.” And you would be absolutely correct to think this.

I think it best to keep the meals simple before a cash game or a tournament. In a run-up to a tournament you should eat modestly and stay away from phlegm-producing dairy products. I normally consume two turkey sandwiches on whole wheat with a slather of mayonnaise and a slice of pickle. Then I might eat a light salad to refresh the palate, and perhaps drink a power shake of some manifestation, with or without frozen blueberries, with or without whey powder, with or without flaxseed oil, with or without a potassium-rich banana to avoid painful leg cramps, with or without low-fat yogurt, with or without desiccated liver powder (though usually without as this can induce projectile vomiting if administered in the slightest overabundance), with or without a raw egg or two, with or without amino acid powder which essentially tastes like ground bones, with or without a glop of honey, which I like but which can be cloying, with or without soya milk, which I’ve heard can increase estrogen levels in men, and so forth.

So when I play and have eaten well, I feel fully energized, fully fuelled, clear-headed, keen, my stomach at ease, digesting slowly and surely. I make my moves with confidence and my nerves are calm and steely.

What, you may ask, happens if you don’t eat well, or if you eat poorly? Let me give an illustrative example of what can happen. I played in a cash game recently at an acquaintance’s place in Hamilton, The Steel City. The acquaintance, a bit of a wise guy named Angelo, prepared a massive bubbling pot of chili con carne for the players, and as I was quite hungry I ate the spicy chili with relish, three bowls all told. Indeed all the players there, gathered from all parts of southern Ontario, sweating and smiling, ate bowls and bowls of the chili, which they all conceded was the best chili con carne they’d ever eaten.

“Angie, why is it so good?” one of the red-faced fellows asked him. “Well,” he said, delighted by the question, “I only use the best ground chuck, and instead of plain old chili powder I use a chipotle, cumin and cinnamon concoction I ground up myself with the mortar and pestle.” The boys murmured approvingly. “In addition,” said Angelo, “I use jalapeño and habanero peppers and I won’t even make the chili if I don’t have cilantro.” The guys mopped up their bowls with hunks of bread and mopped their sweaty brows with the backs of their hands. “But if you want to know the secret, I’ll tell you. As well as using red kidney beans and navy beans and pinto beans, I throw two cans of black beans into the pot.” The fellows nodded. “The black beans are the key to a good chili con carne,” Angelo said. “The black beans, and of course the bottle of Guinness I pour in at the last. I guess, that’s key. The Guinness. And the beans.” All of the fellows cheered and stomped their feet with approval.

So we played poker. It was about nine o’clock when we started. I knew most of the guys and they were fair players. Unlike the fast games I play down Niagara way or up in Toronto the action was moderate. Perhaps all the good grub had made us heavy and listless. A few hours passed and I was up and down with the chips, trying hard to maintain my concentration, fighting both a desire to sleep and a growing concern that my bloating from the meal was not subsiding at all.

At around midnight I started noticing a decided change in the atmosphere. I heard little grunts and puffs. Guys were sitting up in their chairs. Some guys had odd looks on their faces, like they were hiding a secret, or like they were guilty of something, or like they were undergoing something personal that they weren’t prepared to disclose just yet but surely would in time. Some guys were sweating profusely. One guy, a little man with a beret, underwent several facial spasms that I later discovered were just normal tics and not related to anything else. Angelo, the host, still smiled with great self-satisfaction. But then his demeanour abruptly changed. He excused himself from the poker game and was gone for a good 10 minutes when the others at the table grew concerned, not concerned for Angelo’s well-being, or for the progress and rhythm of the game, but concerned that he was taking an exceedingly long time in the bathroom when others surely, by now, felt the need to go as well.

Then, after 10 more minutes, Angelo returned, looking pale and rumpled. Two guys bolted from the table and fought their way up the stairs to the bathroom. The others at the table sat there lifting their haunches and expelling bellows of wind. The smell, a combination of bog and hog, grew unbearable. “Open a window, for God’s sake!” someone cried. I felt a perverse build-up within me. I glanced at Angelo who could only shrug and wipe the sweat from his upper lip as I buckled over, cramped and flatulent as a corn-fed cow.

Emile Frendo of the Honeymoon City is a semi-professional poker player and winner of the 2006 Pirate Poker Open Championship.