Breaking Out of Your Comfort Zone — Part II

Because I am a poker psychologist, many people have asked me, usually indirectly, “How can I play the way that I like to play, but get better results and move up to bigger games?”

My answer, of course, is, “You can’t. If you want to improve your results and move up, you must change your style and do lots of other unpleasant, uncomfortable things.” That is, you have to break out of your comfort zone. My last column generally described a few of the factors that prevent people from breaking out of it:
• The risks of experimenting
• The costs of making theoretical mistakes
• The greater impact of short-term consequences
• The obscure relationships between many actions and their effects on your results

Now, I’ll get more specific. Let’s say that you are a conservative, winning $4-$8 player, but want to move immediately to $8-$16 and ultimately to $15-$30. To beat those games, you should play more aggressively and deceptively. You join an $8-$16 game and experiment by making more raises and bluffs, and they cost you some money. You were uncomfortable when you made those plays, and you felt bad that they cost you money.

Since you paid an immediate, clearly defined, and relatively high price in discomfort and dollars, you may revert to your comfort zone. You feel bad now, while the future gains are almost abstractions. The pain of losing real dollars is much greater than the pleasure of increasing your long-term profits, especially if you can’t be sure that the changes will pay off. The most difficult problem in breaking out of your comfort zone is shifting your focus from short-term, specific rewards and punishments to long-term, uncertain ones.

Resistance to Changing Your Style
This resistance is extremely powerful, because your style was created by the same factors that produced your personality. You play conservatively because you dislike and avoid risks, not just at the poker table, but nearly everywhere. You probably tend to be patient, drive carefully, save your money, and buy lots of insurance.

On the other hand, aggressive gamblers are likely to be impatient, make risky investments, choose insecure but potentially high-paying jobs, dislike rigid routines, drive aggressively, and so on.

If you want to become a bigger winner, you must understand what your style is, where it fits, and when and how to change it. Barry Tanenbaum’s book, Advanced Limit Hold’em Strategy: Techniques for Tough Games, emphasizes breaking out of your comfort zone:

“This book will ask you to make plays outside your current comfort zone … You must be prepared to tolerate (if not embrace) these new and uncomfortable circumstances to make more money at poker.” (Pages 44-50)

I wholeheartedly agree with Barry, but just wanting to break out of your comfort zone does not mean that you will do it. Because there isn’t any
data-based research on how to change your poker style, I have borrowed from hundreds of investigations of dieting and exercising programs. They provide overwhelming evidence that hardly anyone who starts a program makes large, long-term changes in their weight or physical condition.

Many people never really get started. Others make significant improvements for a short time, but soon revert to their old habits. The fault is usually not with the program. It would work, but people don’t stick to it.

Some people believe that this research is irrelevant, because “poker is different.” They have absolutely no evidence to support their position, while there is enormous evidence that an extremely wide variety of self-improvement plans fail. Since people don’t stick to programs to reduce their weight, get in shape, quit smoking, learn Spanish, get a degree, and so on, don’t believe that different principles apply to poker.

To increase your chances of changing your poker style, ask yourself the following:
• What is my style?
• What does it cost me to play that way?
• Why do I play that way?

What is My Style?
Carefully compare yourself to the successful players in the games that you want to beat. You probably will see that you need to become:
• Tighter or looser, depending upon your current style
• More aggressive
• More deceptive
• Less emotional
• All of the above (plus others)

What Does it Cost Me to Play That Way?
Motivation is critically important, and, despite what you may say or think, you probably are not that motivated to change your style. You would like to win more money, but hardly anyone really wants to change his style.

To reduce your resistance to changing, try to determine your style’s specific costs. If you play online and use a program like Poker Tracker, you will get much more complete and objective information. For example, you may find that you don’t get enough action on your big hands because you aren’t deceptive enough. Or, you get bluffed out too often because you rarely check-raise. Or, you win a relatively small percentage of the pots you contest until showdown because you chase too much or can’t lay down good hands that are clearly beat. Or, your emotions cause you to go on tilt and take occasional huge losses.

Why Do I Play That Way?
You probably have chosen (perhaps without serious thought) the style that is natural and comfortable. So, the obvious question is: “Why do you feel that way?”

You may not know because nearly everyone misunderstands and oversimplifies his motives. Virtually everything you do is driven by multiple motives and thought processes, and they often conflict with each other. Your genes and a lifetime of experiences have made you what you are today, and your desire to think well of yourself reduces your objectivity. If you get feedback from a coach, poker buddy, online forum, or discussion group, you will get a more accurate picture.

Don’t look only at your poker playing. Look for similarities between poker and your actions in many other places. For example:
• Is your home neat or messy?
• Do you interrupt other people, or let them interrupt you?
• Are you patient or impatient in slow-moving lines?
• Are you so uncomfortable when you lie that other people can see right through you?

These types of questions will help you to understand how your personality affects your poker playing. The more deeply embedded your poker style is in your overall personality, the harder it will be to change it.

If you commit yourself to working very hard, stick to that commitment, and get help from others, you can change yourself very, very slowly. If you try to change too much or too quickly, you almost certainly will fail. My next column will describe a series of steps that you should take. It won’t be fun or easy, but if you really want to develop yourself, it’s worth the time and effort.

To learn more about yourself and other players, you can buy Dr. Schoonmaker’s books, Your Worst Poker Enemy and Your Best Poker Friend, at CardPlayer.com.