Behavioral Strategies

When I first started playing hold'em, I fell into some pretty common traps. Like many a novice before me, I was hypnotized by pocket pairs, defended my blinds with nothing, and while I never overvalued suited cards to the extent that some players do, I had a definite weakness for ace-rag suited out of position. I was leaking money and knew it, and turned to poker books in an effort to stop up the leaks. The books were helpful, and soon I was being more selective in defending my blinds, and mentally yawning at the small pocket pairs that had so easily seduced me only weeks before. But the A-X suited thing continued to plague me, and in a rather puzzling fashion, for while it was a hand that I sometimes found difficult to resist even in terrible situations, at other times it tempted me not at all. What, I wondered, was responsible for my varying responses to the same hand?

I put the question to a poker buddy, an observant guy and armchair psychologist, and told him of my unsuccessful resolutions to stop playing the hand in bad spots.

"Resolutions," he sighed. "They're great when they work, but the trouble is that when they don't, the habit you're trying to kick can get reinforced because the problem starts to seem too hard to overcome. That's when you need a behavioral strategy."

I was all ears.

"For example," he continued, "I've noticed that your habit is to look at your cards one at a time as the dealer deals them off. You want to know why ace-rag tempts you, but only on a part-time basis? I'll bet dollars to doughnuts that the times you get hooked are when the first card is the ace."

I knew instantly that he was right. I did have the beginner's habit of looking at my cards one at a time, and when the first one was a rag, I'd immediately lose interest. When it was an ace, however, small seeds of anticipation were planted, and in those brief moments before the second card arrived, an attachment to that ace would start to form – an attachment that clouded my judgment in the face of annoying complications, such as raises in front of me.

"Try changing your routine," my friend suggested. "Wait until both of your cards arrive, and then look at them together. That way, instead of teasing yourself with the partial picture of what might be a good hand, you'll get the complete picture all at once of a marginal one, and avoid getting attached to it in the first place."

I gave it a try, and not only did it eliminate my "ace temptation," it also freed me up to study my opponents as they looked at their cards.

Many people find behavioral strategies a useful tool in overcoming bad habits. I once had a friend who constantly chastised herself for her inability to stop bingeing on sweets. She was overweight, lonely, and depressed, and like many lonely people, sought comfort in food. A vicious cycle developed, for the more she resorted to bingeing, the more overweight, depressed, and lonely she became. Although she was desperate to reclaim control of her own behavior, her negative patterns had become so firmly entrenched that the thought of changing them – of even knowing where to begin – was simply overwhelming.

Then one day, after not seeing her for several months, I bumped into her on the street. She was so trim I barely recognized her, but the difference in her figure was nothing compared with the difference in her personality. The insecure, self-conscious person I remembered had been replaced by a confident young woman who radiated self-assurance from every pore. When I asked her what had happened to bring about such positive change, she told me that she'd happened to tune in one night to a talk-radio program in which the host was offering how-to advice for breaking out of self-destructive behavior. One particular idea both amused and intrigued her, for it was so simplistic as to border on the absurd. To break out of negative patterns, he advised, you needed to throw your bad habits a curve. The key was to make a change – any change at all. For instance, if you have trouble resisting sweets, and you're right-handed, try eating them with your left hand.

With nothing to lose but unwanted pounds, my friend tried doing exactly that, and what she found was that it threw her out of her comfort zone – which made her realize that it wasn't the sweets that interested her as much as it was the routine. In the absence of a meaningful social life, the routine had become a sacred ritual, her sole source of comfort, and when the sanctity of it was disrupted, when it was made uncomfortable by this left-handed business, it was no longer satisfying. The contemplation of that idea led her to the further realization that more constructive routines were available – and that if she could get used to a routine that offered only momentary gratifications, she could probably acclimate herself to one that offered long-term rewards.

These days, my friend tells me, when she finds herself tempted by a piece of candy, she reaches for it with her left hand. It's a little trigger that she's trained herself to use, a reminder to take a moment and consider if she truly wants the candy or is merely reaching for it out of old habit.

Triggers are available in many shapes and sizes; buttons can get pushed in lots of ways. When I was 21, someone said something to me at a card table that gnawed at me so much that to this day, I use it as a motivational tool. At the end of an all-night session in which I'd been playing badly for hours, I showed down a piece of cheese so pathetic that … well, let's just say it was the act of a pretty desperate soul. An older gentleman at the table, a man I admired and whose respect I wanted, looked at it in a funny way, and feeling a little defensive, I muttered something along the lines of, "Hey, I came to play cards, not watch," to which the old man quietly replied, "Son, you stopped playing cards at about midnight. The cards are playing you."

Nothing – absolutely nothing – could have pushed my buttons harder than those words, and ever since that night, when the pain of bad beats sets my stomach to churning and tempts me to throw good money after bad, it serves as a prearranged signal to make me stop and ask myself, Just who's in charge here, anyway – are you playing these cards, or are they playing you? Although it might not hit home for everyone, for me it's a question that resonates profoundly; it appeals to my pride, challenges my ego, and helps me maintain perspective in those moments when I feel it starting to slip away.

If you're leaking money, feel stuck in bad habits, or find yourself running on a treadmill of broken resolutions, it might be useful to experiment with a behavioral strategy. Instead of making yourself vague promises to "play better," concentrate on specifics. Focus on a negative tendency, and figure out how to get your own attention when it starts to kick in. Find a trigger, an idea that has special meaning for you – something that challenges you to do better. Be the player, not the played. It may sound simplistic, but what do you have to lose, except bad habits?