Survival of the Fittest

The other day, while browsing through the gaming section at the neighborhood bookstore, I noticed on the shelf, wedged between the dozens of poker titles, a copy of The Origin of Species. How it got there is anyone's guess, but for just a moment I found myself wondering if its placement there was intentional, the handiwork of some imaginative clerk who'd decided that its Darwinian concepts would make the poker shelf its most appropriate home. It was a whimsical thought, but not all that farfetched – the same kind of thinking that finds Sun Tzu's The Art of War on display in a bookstore's business section.



Competitive activities involve outcome; some players win and some must lose. In poker's ever-expanding universe, there are plenty of winners: the tournament champs we see again and again on TV and in this magazine, as well as those whose names we never hear, making handsome livings from live games played at hefty limits. Throw in those recreational players with strong games plugging away profitably at low to medium limits year in and year out and you've got an awful lot of people who are lifetime winners. For all their considerable numbers, however, they are dwarfed by their in-the-red counterparts, the legions of lifetime losers who make their gaming profits possible.



What separates the fittest from the less fit, the players on the well-nourished side of poker's food chain from those they feed on? Clearly, there's more involved than mere brainpower; we've all played with doctors and lawyers and college professors who couldn't play a lick. What special qualities does the winner bring to the feast that his losing counterpart would do well to emulate, should he ever get serious about becoming the epicure instead of the entree?



Losers wish; winners want

Popular myth notwithstanding, most losers don't secretly want to lose – but neither do they want to win. They may very well wish to win, and happily indulge in World Series of Poker fantasies, but consciously or otherwise, poker success is something they yearn to have happen to them. Such "wouldn't-it-be-great" wishing is a very different thing from the kind of determined desire that drives a player to observe, study, learn, and implement whatever it takes to become a winner. Bottom line: Winners are more determined.



Winners have expectations that conform with reality
This is not to suggest that winners don't, or shouldn't, "dream big." But they don't spend their playing time with their heads in the clouds. They don't expect winning streaks to last forever, and then fall apart when they don't. They don't overestimate their own skills, or underestimate those of their opponents. They don't routinely waste their time and money in lousy games just to cool their heels until a good one becomes available. And they don't need or expect to dig out of every big hole now, tonight, this second. They set attainable goals in line with where they stand, and they have a good idea of where that is.



Winners follow through

Remember that hand last week when a light bulb went off and you thought, Wow, this is like a situation I read about recently … I'm supposed to raise here even though I have the second-best hand … hmm, why is that again? What is it that makes that the best option? Unfortunately, before you knew it, the moment was gone and the opportunity missed, but at least you made a mental note to review and analyze it later on. Taking that mental memo – committing to learn from experience – is something that winners do. Something else they do, after the session is over, is actually follow through. Did you remember to do that? Or, did you forget all about it, only to again be caught off guard and miss another opportunity the next time it cropped up?



Winners are more analytical and intuitive

Now wait a minute, that's an awfully broad brush – analytical and intuitive? Don't most people fall into one camp or the other? While it's true that some players with great feel may generally eschew analysis, and those less intuitively gifted may concentrate more on the game's nuts and bolts, analysis and intuitive insight are hardly unrelated. This is especially true for the average Joe, who in the heat of battle typically finds his head abuzz with all sorts of unproductive clatter, in the form of hope, fear, superstition, or general negativity. Such self-absorption is hardly conducive to rational analysis, on top of which it has the effect of jamming his "outwardly directed" radar. By contrast, the player who's done his analytic homework, and is thus prepared for a variety of contingencies, is relieved of both a mental burden and the emotional stress that comes with being uncertain as to strategic decisions. Moral: The intuitive player is not necessarily the second coming of Kreskin, but his antenna is simply less cluttered than that of his ill-prepared counterpart – leaving him freer to focus on his opponents and tune into what they're thinking and doing.



Winners view their results in terms of the big picture, not immediate outcome

That heading says it all.



Winners accept luck for what it is – no more, no less

There is no question that luck plays a very big part in poker; so big, in fact, that it's the very thing that keeps the long-term loser always coming back for more. What the winner understands that the loser doesn't is that the significant extent of luck's leveling effect does not minimize skill's importance, but magnifies it. He also understands the nonsense inherent in the loser's mantra: "I'd rather be lucky than good." The two are hardly mutually exclusive, besides which, as another saying goes, luck is here today and gone tomorrow. Skill, on the other hand, can be counted on to show up tomorrow.



And finally, to bring this admittedly incomplete list to a close …



Winners are more self-aware; they have more perspective, and exercise more self-control – which is all just another way of saying: Winners are tougher
No matter what kind of package they come in – big, brash, cocky young gun, or demure, unassuming, Marion the librarian – winning players have more mettle. They're just plain tougher. Oh yes they are. If you don't think self-awareness, perspective, and self-control are key ingredients in poker toughness, I respectfully submit that they're the very things that enable a player to handle adversity – and poker is all about adversity. The player capable of coping with it and remaining tenacious in its face, who can shrug off the many setbacks the poker gods throw at him, and hang on to his cool, stick to his game, and keep on coming – well, what kind of player is more dangerous than that? Isn't that the kind of player you'd like to be?