Chicago Diary: Poker and Personality – II
After long deliberation in the previous blog about how poker relates to our decision making, its time to take a deeper look into how to PLAY it right. The most important lessons from recent loss in a tournament were playing too many hands, losing advantage of having bigger stack and giving into the math. These lessons came as a revelation after in the light of early exits from three consecutive tournaments. Coming to the first reason of playing too many hands, it is very difficult for someone not to play when you believe that you have good cards. Two underlying mindsets that make one plays lot of hands, are one, underestimating the people at the table and two resigning to the fact your fate is going to change with the next hand. It is one of the toughest periods to overcome these mental blocks. Underestimating people at the table potentially results in loosing many small pots to different people. The best way to deal with it, treat them like individuals just like you in a better position, since they are seated across you from you. Treat them like mirror images of your actions. Take time to read them, coz this gives you an advantage when you play against them, gives you an opportunity to understand the table dynamics and also that advantage of information before you jump in. The other worst enemy of a rookie poker player is the state of being resigned that not your day. We are there to play and win, no other motive, absolutely nothing. If you think its not your day, DON’T PLAY. State of self disbelief has its root cause in you not understanding the table dynamics. So take time out, fold couple of hands you think are good, don’t over analyze your situation, but relax and watch people and their emotions.
Coming to the second part of losing advantage of having bigger stack, that’s a real knack and that separates the top men to the others. A good player holds to his advantage by either eliminating the weaker ones, or letting the other eliminate each other in the process of gaining advantage. One way is to play a waiting game to see how the others are actually eliminating each other. This largely helps in the initial rounds, where you don’t need to push your luck that much. Remember the lesser the number of players left, the greater are the returns for strong hands and bluffs. When you feel that you are giving away the advantage explore the reasons why you were there in the first place. It could be as simple as winning a big pot with good hand.
In real life the poker skills and training translates to holding your credibility till you can. A word of caution though is that life doesn’t deal with people being eliminated in true sense. Life is more dynamic with intricate emotions and bonds. This requires your act to be consistent for longer periods of time, which in turn calls for consistent thought process. But it is worth pondering what does ALL IN mean to you? And are you the one who is willing to take the risk for what you believe to be ALL IN or the one who prefers to die a slow death?
