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Ego - the worst poker enemy

Ego- the worst poker enemy

Once we get familiar with complicated poker strategies, read number of poker’s art articles and analyse thousands of deals, we finally assume that we’re complete player. We will think that way until another poker session comes, the game get started and we…

Start to lose buy-in after buy-in and drop away in competition not even having a chance to fight for leading places.

Off course it is the worst case scenario which is not everyone’s play reality, although many people has experienced that kind of problems. That problems are caused by our enlarged ego and self-expression about great abilities. The blame of our loses will be put on those awful big fishes at the table. Those people are simply lucky. That’s the only explanation because they can’t be so smart, good and brilliant as we are. As a result of that sort of thinking we join another game and all that happen again. And that is vicious circle.

Our ego might be the worst thing to fight and so the hardest one. Couple of months ago, I was interviewed for a Cardplayer Poland, a very good player, Skaand. According to him the most crucial feature as a player is humility and I fully support that statement. In situation when we sit down at the card table with no respect to our competitors and ensure about our infallibility, that game might end up with quick and painful final.

Control of your own ego can be game beneficial in short, as well as in long term.

Destroying the enemy!!!

We start the game and we realise that one of our table partners is a person we don’t like or we find that person annoying. It can also be a person which constantly beats us, picks lucky rivers, bluffs and gives us mean comments. In that kind of situation many people feel strong need to win back and it’s hard to resist it. We want to destroy him and humiliate. We start to focusing on this one target, neglecting other players and what happens on a table. We’re looking up his raise with weak cards in order to “hit him”. Usually it ends up badly.

Our attitude shall be completely different. Playing poker is not about a play against one specific player( unless we play heads-up). Our win will be worthy no matter from whom we will take chips away. We should be focus on all players observation instead of hunting for personal enemy. That should be profitable both for our game result and our frame of mind.

I’m the best poker player!!!

Another manifestation of destructive ego is feeling that we’re the best, know it all and we can win with everyone in every situation. As a result, during the game we will make several mistakes such as kicking it with marginal cards. It will be fasten by impression that we’re able to win and force competitors to throw away their cards because of our “genius” strategies. We will bluff to often and senselessly, what we will be missed is a calm and realistic situation judgment.

My own experience brings several proves of earlier examples. Couple of months ago I was in to self-confidential situation especially after a big win in competition or very good cash session. After that there was a time when I was so uppish that I easily gave up great part of my winning to my competitors.
We have to remember, that poker is a kind of a game which give no certainty even after reading hundreds of books, analyzing thousands of hands. The winning in some competition doesn’t make us unerring. Nobody is infallible. Everyone makes mistakes and the winner will be the one who is aware of that and knowingly marginalize them.

I was playing good, it’s that the others have had more luck

Another negative effect of our greatness is stagnation of our poker knowledge seeking. Once we assume that we’re the best player ever and stop to see our mistakes, the explanation of every loose will be based on statement: I was great, they just got luck. That is serious obstacle in case of constructive conclusion for the future. The truth is that there will always be some defects in our game no matter how well tournament went. The fact that we could always do something better during the game is inalienable. Knowing owns faults, weaknesses and acting with humility will give us not only higher calm level and better individual score but also help with figuring clues for the future. We will notice what should be improve and learn from our mistakes.

At the end I must add that all prior statements does not mean that the best poker player is a kind of diffident and cowed one with strong feeling of other competitors greatness. There is always a golden mean. We should sit at the table sure about our abilities and self-confident but at the same time with humility and respect. After the game we shouldn’t search for cheap excuses (no one cares about our bed luck) instead of it let’s learn from our errors and imperfections. Thanks to that our poker development will go on peacefully and with no unnecessary downfalls.