Stay Young; Play Poker — Part III

Part I said that combining poker, diet, and exercise can help you to stay younger, healthier and smarter. Because there are excellent articles and books on diet and exercise, I’ll focus on increasing poker’s anti-aging effects.
Part Two applied five general anti-aging principles to preparing to play:

This article will relate these principles to two important decisions: choosing games and choosing seats. Choosing well can greatly increase your profits. Some choices can also slow down aging, but they may actually decrease your profits.

What?

Don’t poker players always try to maximize profits?

No, they don’t, nor should they.

In fact, no matter how much they claim to care only about profits, everyone — even the most profit-oriented professional — takes profit-reducing actions to satisfy other motives.

So do you. You certainly sacrifice profits to satisfy other motives such as the pleasure of playing in a wild game, making a fancy play, expressing your anger, socializing with friends, taking a foolish gamble, challenging better players, just relaxing, and so on. We all make trade-offs, usually without fully understanding or admitting them.

Don’t kid yourself about your motives. Take a hard look at what you actually do and compare it to what you should do to maximize your profits. You will see huge conflicts. Then ask yourself, “Why do I make these choices?” “What motives am I trying to satisfy?” If you’re honest, you’ll realize that you’re driven by many motives besides the desire to win money.

The games and seats that satisfy one motive will often frustrate others. The higher priority you place on staying young, the more you should try to implement some of these recommendations, even if they cost you money or other satisfactions.

Don’t Always Choose the Softest Games.

Some players will vehemently disagree. They’ll insist, “The softest games are the most profitable, and I want to win as much as possible.” But that’s an extremely short-sighted position, and winning poker is all about the long term. If you play only in soft games, you’ll probably reduce your long-term profits and age more quickly.

You can’t develop or even maintain your skills without challenges. If you play only in soft games, you won’t develop the skills you need to beat the tough players and games that you’ll inevitably encounter. You may even become unable to beat some soft games. You’ll keep playing in the same old way, while your competitors will develop new skills.

Worse yet, since you can beat the softest games without concentrating, you will slowly switch to playing on auto-pilot. That’s a prescription for boredom, declining skills, reduced profits, and mental deterioration.

Of course, you should often choose the softest games, but occasionally select tougher ones. It’s an essential step toward developing your skills and staying young and sharp.

Play In Different Types of Games

If you always play in the same type of game, you won’t get the challenge and stimulation needed to delay mental deterioration. Slow down the aging process by occasionally switching between:

Whenever you switch, you’ll be stimulated to think. You’ll have to make adjustments, perhaps large ones. You’ll have a puzzle and the motivation to solve it. If you don’t adjust well, you’ll lose money. The fear of losing will stimulate you to think, and that’s exactly what you need to stay young and sharp.

Choose Seats That Increase Active Learning and Social Stimulation.

Sit next to someone you respect who enjoys discussing other players’ hands, skills, and reactions. Ask questions and offer information in ways that invite a useful response. Do it quietly after you’ve both folded (or when you take a break). “I think she’s got a set.” “Do you think Tom plays well?” “It looks like Jim is on tilt. Have you ever seen him play this way?” These discussions will improve your card-reading and people-reading skills, keep you involved in the game, provide feedback about how well you think, exercise your brain, and increase that essential social interaction.

Occasionally Choose “Bad Seats.”

Base most seat choices on positional advantages. You’ll increase your profits by having tough, aggressive, loose, and unpredictable players to your right, and weak, passive, tight, and predictable ones to your left.

Occasionally, when you feel sharp and confident, choose a “bad seat,” one with the wrong players on your left. It will probably cost you some money, but it may be a good investment. First, it can teach you how to adjust to this bad situation, and you will often need that ability. Second, it will present you with a difficult puzzle. Trying to solve it will provide the kinds of stimulation you need to stay young and sharp.

But Won’t These Decisions Increase Stress?

Of course they will. That’s why I recommended them. You need the right amounts of the right kinds of stress to slow down aging. Without them, you’ll stagnate and speed up the aging process.

But don’t overdo it. Games or seats with too much or the wrong kinds of stress are even worse than ones without enough of it. They can be very costly, both financially and psychologically. Too much stress can damage your bankroll, your enjoyment of poker, and even your mental and physical health.

Select games and seats that optimize stress, ones with the right amounts of the right kinds of stress for you. As I said in Part II, “Reactions to different types of stress vary immensely. For example, the large swings from loose-aggressive games (especially no-limit ones) really bother some players, while others enjoy them, but react negatively to tight or small games.” The same principle applies to most kinds of stress. Situations that bring out your best may frighten or bore me.

Carefully review your reactions to different kinds of games. Which ones bore you? Confuse you? Scare you? Make you feel just the right amount of stimulation? Make a similar review for different kinds of seats. Which ones make the game too easy or too difficult?

Then use this information to improve your choices. Don’t always try to satisfy the same motives. Play with weak opponents to maximize your profits, with old friends to relax and socialize, in your favorite game for pleasure, in different kinds of games for novelty and stimulation. Usually pick the seats that are most profitable, but occasionally choose ones that force you to adjust.

In other words, don’t try only to make money. Occasionally, sacrifice some profits, especially short-term ones, to develop your skills and satisfy other motives, especially the important desire to stay young and sharp. ♠

Dr. Al ([email protected]) coaches only on psychology issues, such as controlling impulses and emotions, coping with losing streaks, and developing yourself. He is David Sklansky’s co-author for DUCY? and the sole author of five poker psychology books.