Psychology in Poker
STRESS REACTIONS AT THE CARD TABLE
by: Lou Krieger©
"Suddenly, I saw three rolled up aces and I was in late position.
It was a 7-card stud game, not at home, but on a family vacation
in Las Vegas." This letter, from a reader in Colorado, is fascinating
for it's frankness, and is probably the singularly most interesting
letter I've received from a reader since this column began. He goes
on to say: "A queen to my right raised, and I reraised. He
called. My adrenaline was really pumping. My next card was a king,
and as I was grabbing for my chips, I'm sure I was literally shaking.
My heart was pounding out of control, my jugular vein felt like
it was about to burst, and I'm sure my face must have turned redder
than the ace of diamonds. After witnessing my physiologic reaction,
my opponent folded."
"By profession," the writer adds, "I am a surgeon.
Prior to major surgeries I am quiet and introspective, and excel
at handling crisis situations. With other people's lives hanging
on a thread, I am calm - so why do I panic over a $10 dollar bet
in a card game? Ten dollars is like a penny to me, so why do I bet
it like it was my last dollar?"
The writer goes on to mention that he plays poker both for relaxation
as well as the challenge of winning, but that poses a dilemma for
him. "How," he writes, "can I relax and enjoy myself
when I'm that stressed over a $10 bet?"
Does any of this make sense? Why would a surgeon, who effectively
handles the staccato pace of multiple trauma patients in a hospital
emergency room, and does so with with complete aplomb, come apart
from the tensions of a mere card game? Shouldn't a poker game on
a vacation in Las Vegas be child's play for a man who works in an
environment where the stakes, quite literally, are life and death?
While there are many forces at work here, the least of them is
the ten dollar bet. One major difference between poker and surgery
is the degree of control exerted by the practitioner. The surgeon
is in total command of the operating room. While surgery offers
no guarantee of success, a surgeon's skill resides completely within
himself. No one rolls the dice in the operating room. In poker you
make your play then await the turn of a card. That card, which can
be neither controlled nor foretold, may reward your play or destroy
it. Though skill wins in the long run, in the narrow confines of
any given hand, the whims of fortune can rage with the force of
a prairie fire.
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A beginner, making all the wrong moves, is capable of beating a
world-class player just by getting lucky. That's the essence of
gambling. Although every move made and each decision taken at the
poker table is done with all the knowledge and skill a player can
muster, immediate results may bear no relationship to his skills.
Risk, that high-wire act of uncertainty, is a vital force in poker.
If we all played for matchsticks what difference would it make whether
we won or lost - and what's more, who'd care? But it's money we're
playing for, that inestimable measure of a man's worth, and something
as small as a ten-dollar bet, even for someone who can easily afford
it, can produce stress.
Without any tension, poker wouldn't be much fun. It's precisely
that sense of tension - that visceral reaction we get from the inherent
insecurity of casting our fate to the winds of fortune, from that
feeling of being alone, out there on the edge, buttressed only by
our skills - that seems to reside deep within our core. Our willingness
to risk, to take a chance when the outcome is not entirely clear,
is probably one of the factors that helps us survive as a species.
Why else would we risk? Why climb mountains, run marathons, become
entrepreneurs, try sky diving, explore vast and unknown frontiers,
play poker, or even fall in love. All of these are high risk behaviors.
They require risk, and are accompanied only by the certain knowledge
that the success of our endeavor is not preordained.
Risk can be exhilarating as long as it is not overwhelming. Risk,
after all, is not some static point in experience. It lies on a
continuum. Too little risk and there's no thrill. Too much risk
can be overwhelming to the point of immobility - like a deer frozen
in the headlights.
And everyone has his own level of risk tolerance. Some individuals
don't like any degree of real risk. Certain forms of seemingly risky
behavior are not risky at all; they merely simulate it - like a
ride in an amusement park. Other forms of risk seem suicidal. The
prospect of free-climbing a sheer rock face or cliff diving in Acapulco,
at least for the untrained, would be incredibly stressful. Like
finding yourself playing no-limit poker against Doyle Brunson and
Johnny Chan with the rent money, the effect can be stupefying.
For the visitor to Las Vegas, just playing poker there can be intimidating
if you're not used to it. It is certainly not your local game in
a card casino where you know all the regulars. Your opponents are
faceless adversaries, not friends. The game is fast, the casino
loud, and everyone save you, the newcomer, seems to be completely
in tune with this environment. You're trying to process so much
information and extant stimuli so quickly that you are overwhelmed.
Seeking harmony to calm your senses, you find only dissonance. It's
stage fright. It's opening night jitters. It's the fighter who says
he's nervous until he absorbs that first blow. It's the writer who
can bang out a 3,000-word article in a single sitting - but only
after he's spent three days laboring over a twenty-five word introductory
paragraph.
Sure, I'm not surprised that a $10 wager can seem like betting
the rent money, and that under all those pressures, losing can become
intolerable. Unless a player can accept the fact that short term
results are simply a scattergram, and endeavor to play his best
at all times - never mind if a given day brings a win or a loss
- that sense of tension, welling up from an inability to control
something as intractable as the turn of a card, will always be present.
But there is an out. Forget about winning. Just concentrate on
playing well. Concern yourself solely with playing your best game,
and let the chips literally fall where they may. Some things can't
be controlled, so don't bother trying. If you play your best, and
you're a better player than your opponents, you'll win money in
the long run. It may not be in that game, on that day, or in that
casino, but you'll win. Take Mike Caro's advice to heart. You're
not being paid to win pots. You're being paid to make good decisions.
Do it and the results take care of themselves. Take the long view
and I believe you'll be overcome the stresses and tensions which
seem to hover around unimportant and ultimately insignificant short-term
decisions.
Next year, next month, next week, it won't matter at all whether
you won or lost with those rolled up aces - or even whether your
stress level was so transparent that your opponent folded once your
trembling hand reached for your chips. What matters is that you
play that hand as you play the others. It is, after all, just another
in a long series of poker decisions that began the first time you
played the game and will continue until your deal is done.
We hope you have enjoyed this article about the psychology in poker.
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