Mind Over Poker - A State of Mind

I’m often asked my opinion as to the most important skill that one needs to succeed in poker. My one-word answer typically surprises the questioner: empathy. While this is the short answer, a much longer and more detailed explanation is necessary, so here goes.

You are probably familiar with time-honored maxims in poker along the lines of: “What counts is not the cards that you hold, but the cards that your opponent holds.” In my opinion, that is only partially true. To completely understand your opponent’s position, you must know how he views his cards. That’s why inexperienced players are so tough to figure out. It’s hard to judge the worth of their holdings when they don’t know.

Furthermore, we all have a tendency to project our own frame of reference on others. We may not put an opponent on pocket jacks because we would never play them that way. That’s the wrong analysis, and that’s where empathy comes in. Let’s look at a couple of definitions of empathy from dictionary.com. First: “Empathy is the ability to understand someone else’s state of mind.” And, empathy is defined as “the intellectual identification with or vicarious experiencing of the feelings, thoughts, or attitudes of another.”

So, it is really impossible to evaluate the entire situation without knowing your opponent’s state of mind. Let’s take the above maxim at face value. If it matters more what cards your opponent holds than what cards you hold, isn’t the same true of your opponent? Isn’t he also evaluating your hand? If he has nothing and you have nothing, who is going to win? If he is vulnerable and you are vulnerable, who is going to win? The answer is, the player who best understands his opponent’s state of mind.

You may not want to make a naked bluff against an opponent you believe has nothing if he is fully capable of coming over the top with his own bluff. If a short stack moves all in from late position, it’s important to know if he’ll do that with any two cards or if he would rather get blinded out while waiting for that elusive premium hand.
The best players are the ones who can change gears, mix up their play, and shift pressure away from themselves and on to their opponents. One of the ways you shift that pressure is by understanding your opponent’s state of mind while simultaneously being difficult to read yourself. Of course, one of the ironies I find is that while so many players project their own frame of reference on their opponent’s play, very few believe that their opponents are capable of mixing up their play.

Maintain an open mind when evaluating an opponent. Run through the full range of possibilities concerning his capabilities and play. Then, zero in on how he plays his cards. It’s not enough to know his holdings, but how he’ll play them, as well. Even if you could theoretically see his cards, it wouldn’t be enough to maximize your profits if you had no idea how he would play them. It’s a matter of his state of mind. ♠