If you are not emotionally ready to win, you probably will lose. Of course, you may get lucky and win anyway, but smart players don't depend on luck. Despite their importance, many players are only vaguely aware of their own emotions, and some deny their importance.
It's a mistake, because emotions can dramatically affect your play. Positive emotions such as confidence and determination usually improve it, but negative emotions damage judgment and objectivity.
A few important negative emotions are anger, anxiety, apprehension, arrogance, denial, desire for revenge, disappointment, fear, frustration, gloom, insecurity, and irritability. These feelings and others can have devastating effects on your play and your bankroll. My new book,
Your Worst Poker Enemy, contains a chapter titled "Destructive Emotions," which thoroughly analyzes their effects.
What Do Top Pros Think?
My book's title came from Stu Ungar, who stated, "At the table your worst enemy is yourself." (Nolan Dalla and Peter Abelson,
One of a Kind: The Rise and Fall of Stuey "The Kid" Ungar, the World's Greatest Poker Player, Page 282) Stu had incredible talent, but terrible emotional control. He repeatedly yielded to his self-destructive impulses, and they destroyed him. Despite his enormous successes, he died broke.
On
High Stakes Poker (
GSN, Dec. 25, 2006), Daniel Negreanu identified "emotional stability" as critically important in high-stakes cash games: "You must be able to take a punch in the gut" when you lose a big pot or your entire stack. If you can't, you may lose the rest of your bankroll.
Barry Greenstein obviously agrees. In
Ace on the River, he said, "In Control of Their Emotions" was the fourth most important trait of winning players, and "Psychologically Tough" was the most important one. "Even after losing a hand, they don't show their disappointment … They don't give in, no matter how severe the psychological beating." (Pages 69-70)
Phil Hellmuth has repeatedly criticized himself for losing control, a very intelligent response, but some players lose control and don't recognize or admit it.
Even mild emotions affect perceptions. After watching two players in another
High Stakes Poker show, Mike Matusow said that he knew one was bluffing. But he admitted that if his own chips were at risk, he would not have seen the bluff. Because he wasn't in the hand, he had the detachment to see things clearly.
Emotions During Tournaments
Controlling emotions is always important, but it can be more difficult during tournaments, because:
1. If you're broke, you're gone.
2. The competition is more pronounced.
3. You must remain focused longer.
4. You can be forced to play undesirable hands.
5. You win much less often.
6. The tension level is higher.
If you're broke, you're gone: In cash games, you can rebuy, but when your tournament stack is gone, you're finished. Even if the money is unimportant, you may be afraid of being embarrassed. People are constantly looking around to see who has busted out, and the ones who have done so often act sheepishly. They know that others can tell that they got knocked out. The fear of failure and embarrassment often reduces your ability to think clearly.
The competition is more pronounced: A tournament is more like a "sporting event" than a cash game. The results are recorded, and anyone can tell where you placed. Your ego is much more involved, increasing the emotional pressure.
You must remain focused longer: In cash games, you can go home or take a break whenever you like, but tournament players are tied to the table. If you need a break, your blinds and antes keep going into the pot. If you can't continue, you forfeit everything.
Staying continuously focused is especially difficult during tournaments with large fields. After hours or days of exhausting concentration, you easily can lose your self-control over something you would shrug aside if you weren't so tired. The need for continued focus in tournaments heightens the role played by your emotions and increases the need for emotional stability and control.
You can be forced to play undesirable hands: When you play for cash, you decide which hands to play. If you don't like your cards, just throw them away. In tournaments, the constantly escalating blinds and antes can eventually force you to play weak hands. Losing control of this decision can make you feel helpless, and putting your tournament life on the line with bad cards can be very painful. As your stack dwindles and the blinds escalate, the pressure builds.
The uncertainty about when to commit your chips adds to the pressure. If your stack is not quite in the danger zone, but the blinds will increase soon, should you overplay a marginal hand or wait for a better one? For some people, uncertainty is so painful that they commit suicide.
For example, when a tall building is on fire, some people are so afraid they won't get rescued that they jump to certain death. Some players commit "tournament suicide" by pushing in prematurely just to get it over with. The uncertainty is so painful that it overwhelms their rational desire to survive and win.
You win less often: Good cash-game players win far more often than they lose, but only about 10 percent of the entrants cash in most large tournaments. On my radio show, Tom McEvoy said that a major league baseball player will get dropped from the team if he hits only .200, "but a tournament player who hits .200 is a superstar." (
Poker Psychology, holdemradio.com, May 15, 2007)
If you play in large tournaments, you can go weeks or months without a significant win. Some excellent players can't handle these long droughts. Losing again and again can drain you emotionally.
The tension level is higher: All of these factors increase tension, making you far more likely to react emotionally. The table-talk in cash games - even for very high stakes - is often relaxed and friendly, but table-talk during tournaments - even quite small ones - often has a more intense edge. Instead of laughing and having a good time, most people are concentrating on the game, and they may even be unpleasant about it.
For all of these reasons, tournaments are emotional potboilers compared to the more relaxed pace of cash games. You always must control your emotions, especially when playing tournaments. Players who can't handle the emotional ups and downs of tournaments usually perish. The ones who survive and win can make better decisions precisely because they can control their emotions.
The Bottom Line
We all know that poker demands gathering information, analyzing it, and making good decisions. To do them well, you must see situations clearly, analyze them objectively, and decide rationally. Negative emotions interfere with all of these processes. Accordingly, you always should be in touch with and in control of your emotions. My next column will tell you how to take your emotional temperature before and while playing, and also will tell you what to do when you're not emotionally ready to win.
Preston Oade, my co-author for these columns, often monitors and documents his emotional state before and while playing, and relates it to his results.
