One of the main reasons why men love RoK is for its excellent male orientated information, that helps us improve ourselves. Christian McQueen’s article on How to Control Your Emotions With Women is an perfect example, although one could argue that you need to control your emotions in all walks of life. Even in professional settings people will tolerate the occasional girly breakdown, but a man and a leader must never show his weaknesses, least of all emotionally.
With this in mind, and with thanks to Cody Stark, I want to recommended the book “The Poker Mindset.”
Why would you care about having a Poker Mindset ?
I always try to think outside the box, and while some people might abhor the gambling mentality, there is goodness and learning to be had in any arena. For myself I work in the financial markets, so it’s very important for me to avoid a gambling frame of mind, especially where I am gambling purely for entertainment since that is a guaranteed loss.
While stock market experts might like to pretend that the financial markets are not a giant gamble, history begs to differ, as do the millions of unnamed traders who have lost their pants. Reading any book about gambling might seem to be the antithesis of what a financial market expert would want to do, but I found in this book the secrets to some of my worst failures, not only in the stock markets but also in everyday life. The psychological approach of the authors, both accomplished professional poker players, can be directly related to game or any professional pursuit.
On a purely vain level, the thought of being that cool headed poker ace who reads his opponents perfectly and sweeps the pot, is certainly a worthy masculine goal and applying it to real life instead of a card game is going to change the rules you play by. This is literally one of the most eye opening books I’ve read. Knowing mistakes and flaws in your personality, psychology, and approach is very different to consciously rationalizing them and putting a new frame in play.
What authors Ian Taylor and Matthew Hilger do is breakdown a myriad of more complex psychological errors and categorize them. I find myself wavering most dangerously between several of their descriptions. Before we get into those in detail, here are a few pieces of advice from the book. It’s a quite concise and easy read, so I won’t go into too much depth; just give you a few tasty treats, which apply to life as well as poker games.
Is “Average” Acceptable?
If you’re an average player at poker, then you are losing money. Poker is one endeavor where average is simply not good enough.
Risk Aversion
No matter what attitude a poker player has toward risk in his everyday life, he must adopt a risk-neutral attitude when sitting at the poker table.
Greed
When playing poker, you need to get rid of all pretenses that greed is a bad thing. Greed is not only acceptable when playing poker, it is vital.
Woolly thinking
Any line of thought that contains a logical flaw — any deduction that, when you break it down, does not make sense. The problem when playing poker is that every decision is important and every bit of woolly thinking will cost you money.
■ Considering irrelevant variables
■ Misunderstanding probability
■ Results-based thinking
■ Spurious regression
■ Acting on principle
■ Superstition
As you can see, much of this can be applied to real life, and especially to game. I recall going out one night with a nerdy but extroverted software programmer who said he had his lucky leather jacket on and was going to get laid. Obviously he’d met a chick in it one time, but this is called spurious regression or plain superstition. Needless to say despite my best efforts we wound up solo in a burger joint at 4am. Lucky jacket be damned.
Another important factor to consider is what is known as tilt. This is when a player goes on a losing streak. It can be set off by any number of minor factors. For example a hot 9, blows you out and laughs in your face in front of her BFF and your wingman. Suddenly you lose all confidence and begin approaching girls with the mindset to fail on purpose. You’re subconsciously out to prove you are a loser. When this has happened to me in the financial markets, I’ve demolished months of hard profits and what’s worse is that my tilts have been caused by something as silly as some workers outside my apartment drilling the road, or getting blown out by a chick last weekend. It had nothing to do with my work at all. The book lays out many types of tilt and how to avoid them. I never heard this term before so it’s probably saved me a small fortune.
However the best section of the book in my opinion is the characterizations. Here is quick summary.
LOSERS :
The newbie
New players will be trying to find their feet in the game.
The casual player
Casual players make up a large proportion of the poker-playing population, and so appearance-wise at least, they are difficult to stereotype. The best way to identify casual players is by their demeanor and playing style. They will know how to play the game and will not normally appear nervous. They play the game for fun, as evidenced by their words and actions.
The catch is that most casual players don’t think they only play for fun. In fact, most of them will say they play for money. In reality, though, they are almost all long-term losers because they don’t play the game the way it should be played. They want to win, but only on their terms. Like the newbies, casual players tend to play too loosely / too passively, because that is the way they want to play.
The gambler
Gamblers play neither for fun nor to win in the classic sense (although both elements are a factor). They play because they enjoy the buzz of gambling; they want to get their money in the pot and then see if they’ve won. For this reason, they are nearly always loose, and often aggressive, too. They might or might not be deceptive.
The rock
The rock is a pedestrian and predictable opponent. He will play in a very tight, passive, and straightforward style that allows him to lose his money very slowly or maybe even eek out a profit in certain games. If he raises, then he will nearly always have a very good hand.
The bully
The bully’s main motivation is to be in charge of the table. He wants ‘Z win, but more pressingly, he wants to play in a style that will make Other players fear him. His ego, rather than good poker sense, tends to make his decisions. Bullies generally play a loose, aggressive style, not only because this is the style most likely to intimidate other players, but also because it matches their personality somewhat.
The developing player
When a new player sets off on the road to becoming a winning player, he will usually go through several stages before he learns all the intricacies of the game. He is keen and pays close attention to the game, but his play is raw and he will make mistakes (and often beat himself up over them).
The speculative player
Speculative players play to win but do not have the discipline to play a tight-aggressive style, so they try to win with a loose-aggressive one instead. They can be quite dangerous to play against because they are difficult to put on a hand and generally play well post-flop. Sometimes they are winners, but often they cannot play well enough to overcome the trash hands they are starting with.
WINNERS :
The nit
The word “nit” has been used to describe a lot of different players over the years, but most commonly refers to a tight player who is generally unfriendly and pedantic. Nits are usually marginal winners who are very careful about the games they play and will never leave their comfort zone. Although they are rarely big winners, they do play to win rather than just for fun.
The robot
Robots are winning players who play a generally good game of poker. They do not win as much as they could because they tend to play very mechanically, without paying as much attention to the game as they should. This is sometimes because they don’t enjoy the game that much, sometimes because they are lazy, and sometimes because they treat poker more like a job and simply go through the motions.
The shark
The shark is a strong player who not only plays good poker but also Studies the particulars of the game he is in and adapts accordingly. The shark wants to make money, plain and simple. He probably enjoys the game, too, but his primary motivation is always making the decision that gives him the best expectation.
Going back to Christian’s article about controlling emotions, we see that we want to be in the shark category. You cannot jump here immediately—it’s a slow process and one I am just getting to with my work in the financial markets. The shark has put in the hard yards and survived many mistakes and setbacks and ironed out any trace of the other categories.
The book lays out many psychological strategies that you can implement on your journey to becoming emotionally neutral. One of the ideas I like best, is the concept of the person buying a chocolate bar, who pays, opens it and then drops it on the dirty floor. Many people will then deny themselves from the chocolate entirely. This is of course wolly thinking that prevents you from getting back into the game. If you want a bar, you just buy another one. Your mistake is irrelevant. Abundance mentality is paramount. Just because you failed first time, doesn’t mean you will automatically fail the second time. In fact, you’re going to be twice as careful not to drop the bar since you’ve paid for it twice.
I think this book can help anyone who wants to improve their psychology and approach to life, business, game, money making, and women. It is of course filled with poker terms, but you can gloss over those and take the main psychological components for yourself. I always disliked gambling because it makes crap entertainment and is a dreadful way to make money, but once you understand the professional process, you also understand the same mindset is behind just about anything you want to succeed at. Whats more, being mindful about how to handle losses, failure and set backs without losing frame can make you unstoppable.
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