Self-pity: The Achilles Heel Of Poker Players

I have known plenty of very talented poker players who had adequate bankrolls

, more than sufficient skill and experience and access to games that they could beat regularly. These players I'm describing have all since moved on to other professions, and I can identify one characteristic they all shared that I believe was their undoing.

What is the fault, the flaw that could undo so many otherwise quality poker pros? Simple: self-pity.

Poker is a game where you're going to lose a lot of of pots even the best pros probably only win about 65% of the pots they play, and I suspect that number is far too high of an estimate. No matter the specific number, anyone who plays a good amount of poker is going to lose a large amount of hands.

There are a few ways you can react to losing a hand. When I say losing a hand, I'm talking about a hand that didn't go your way due to luck or timing, not a hand you lost because you misplayed. You can either take it in stride, accept the inevitability of all the hash marks that will pile up in your personal loss column, and move on to the next hand.

Many players don't do the above. Instead, the react in the second way: they feel sorry for themselves. They bemoan their luck, complain to anyone who will listen how rotten their lot is and torture themselves with thoughts of some fate or curse as they walk from the poker room to their car.

Reacting that way is basically installing a explosive emotional device in your brain, one that will detonate at some point in the future, tearing down your game in the process. The more you feel sorry for yourself when you lose, the more you'll start to embrace the irrational, and the less control you'll have over your game. You won't see the facts of your game clearly, and hands that you misplay will morph into hands where you were unlucky, creating a vicious cycle wherein the degrading of your skill ensures further degrading of your skill.

Face the fact: poker is a game of large numbers, and we live lives of small numbers. It is entirely possible for one person to be luckier in key situations, especially in live tournaments. Why? Because even a very active player might only have a few dozen of really critical moments in their career, and that type of sample size is tiny, insignificant.

It doesn't matter that some people are luckier, and feeling sorry for yourself because you perceive that you're in the unlucky camp is akin to feeling angry about only having ten fingers when you're trying to count to sixteen. Get over it, and eradicate the aspect of yourself that really poses a threat to your game. It's not the luck you need to worry about it's that nagging self-pity you feel when you lose an important hand that needs to be shown the door.

by: James Mackinaw

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