Mind Over Poker

Poker is a game of imperfect information. No doubt, that’s a statement with which you are quite familiar. It’s what makes the game challenging and exhilarating. Make the right move at an opportune time and you experience a sense of mastery that is hard to match in other pursuits. That overwhelming sense of accomplishment is fortified by the instant gratification of scooping a big pot. What other proof of your brilliance is needed? You’re the player with the chips. Not by sleight of hand, but by your cunning and intellect, your opponents’ chips have made their way into your stack. It’s easy to start to believe that you can conquer this game — that you can somehow play perfectly.

The flip side of this game of imperfect information is frustration. Against all logic and common sense, you guess wrong. You are not yet the genius you thought you were, as evidenced by your vanishing chip stack. What seemed so clear actually becomes murkier when that missing piece of information — your opponents’ cards — is revealed.

There is a corollary to the truism “poker is a game of imperfect information” with which you may not be as familiar. Specifically, poker is a game that cannot be played perfectly. Think about it. If it is a game of imperfect information, it follows that the game cannot be played perfectly. That seems simple enough, but I want you to give it some real thought. Do you strive for perfection? That may be admirable, but it can be a losing proposition in poker.

There is an old saying that “the enemy of good is perfect.” Never is that more true than in poker. You become a winning poker player by making consistently good decisions that are based on the information available at the time, coupled with your experience (both overall experience and specific experience with your current opponents). You just have to be good enough, not perfect, to beat the game.

So, what’s wrong with perfection? It’s a maddening experience, since the desire for perfection goes hand in hand with the desire for information. The only way that you can determine if you played a hand perfectly is if you know the missing information. This can be troubling when it comes to those tough laydowns. If you lay down a hand, you’ll never know if you made the right decision. That’s OK, though. Lay it down with the knowledge that you’re playing well. You don’t have to be perfect to win. Take comfort in the fact that perfection is an impossibility in poker.

David Apostolico’s latest book Compete, Play, Win is an examination of how each of us can harness our innate competitive drive to compete more effectively in all aspects of our lives. You can contact him at [email protected].