Building Your Support Network

My previous column said that serious players need a support network to provide intellectual and emotional help. Building a network is conceptually simple: First, decide which kinds of help you need; second, develop good relationships with people who can provide it. Unfortunately, it’s often difficult to perform those tasks well.

Which Kinds of Help Do You Need?

You can’t answer this question without carefully identifying your leaks. Unfortunately, virtually everyone overestimates their abilities. In most competitions, more than two-thirds of the participants think they’re above average, a statistical impossibility.
Poker players are especially likely to overestimate themselves because:

• Many players lie to themselves and others about their results. In fact, if you don’t keep detailed, accurate records, you will probably lie, deliberately or accidentally. You’ll forget to record all the chips you bought, or you won’t remember some losses.
• There is no accurate evaluation system as there is in chess, golf, bowling, and many other games.
• Luck has huge short-term effects.
• The bottom line is that most people don’t play as well as they believe. Some slightly overestimate themselves, while others are completely misguided. They lose year after year, but insist that they play well, but are terribly unlucky.

Worse yet, many players don’t want to know how badly they play. They’d rather blame bad luck than admit and plug their leaks. Dr. Daniel Kessler, a poker-playing clinical psychologist, once told me: “Most poker players are anti-introspection. They may work hard to analyze opponents, but don’t seriously try to analyze themselves.”

My writing emphasizes self-analysis, and it infuriates some readers. For example, at Amazon.com a reviewer of Your Worst Poker Enemy wrote, “I threw the book in the trash,” and, “Amazingly, Schoonmaker opines that you should spend more time thinking about your own limitations than exploiting those of your opponents.”

That’s a perfect example of anti-introspection. He’s amazed that I recommend doing something that most top performers do. Every NFL, NBA, and MLB team carefully studies videos of its games, looking for mistakes. Tiger Woods pays coaches to analyze and improve his play. John Grisham works closely with editors. President Obama’s advisors criticize his decisions and speeches.

You should obviously spend more time thinking about your limitations than about those of your opponents. Your limitations affect everything you do, while you play only a small percentage of your hands against any opponent. If you don’t critically analyze your own play, you’ll make the same mistakes forever.

How Can You Identify Your Leaks?

A google search for “poker” + “leaks” got over 1,000,000 hits. If you read some articles and keep your mind open, you’ll identify many leaks you never suspected you had. I thought I understood my own leaks. I take many notes about my play and work with poker buddies on weaknesses, but learned about many unsuspected leaks.

Two of my articles that you can read at cardplayer.com, “Planning Your Self-development,” Parts IV and V,” discussed five types of assets and liabilities:

1. Knowledge
2. Skills
3. Personal traits
4. Mental abilities
5. Situational factors

A leak is less of an asset (such as knowledge or mental toughness) or more of a liability (such as tilting or chasing). Those articles described dozens of assets and liabilities, and you can find hundreds online.

As you read about leaks, write down every one you might have and why you believe it costs you money. Then rate them as Very Important, Important, Fairly Important, or Trivial.

How Do You React to Criticism?

Honestly answer this question before looking for helpers. If you welcome direct criticism, look for people who will tell you what you need to hear without regard for your feelings. If you become defensive when criticized, look for more tactful helpers. They may not be as smart or knowledgeable, but you’ll respond better to their comments. If you won’t accept it, the best advice is useless.

Unfortunately, many people kid themselves about their reactions. They claim to welcome criticism, but often reject it. Instead of seeing criticisms as attempts to help them, they regard them as personal attacks. Instead of listening with an open mind, they argue and say, “Yes, but…”

What Kinds of Helpers Should You Seek?

As I said in my previous column, you need two types of help, intellectual and emotional. “A few people can provide both, but most can provide only one. Intellectual supporters should play better than you and be impersonal, judgmental and critical. They should tell you how to play better, even if it hurts your feelings. Conversely, emotional supporters should protect your feelings. Their task is not to improve your skills; it’s to help you to avoid tilt. Very few people can do both well.”

Personal comfort and trust are critical for both types. If you don’t feel comfortable and trust people, don’t work with them, no matter how well-qualified they are.

Your intellectual helpers must fully understand the games you play. For example, if you play only cash games, don’t work with a tournament specialist.

The same principle applies to limit and no-limit cash games, hold’em versus Omaha, and so on.

Surprisingly, that principle even applies to the stakes you play. If you play in small games, don’t work with someone who plays only for much higher stakes. You may think that higher stakes players can provide better advice, but they don’t understand smaller games. The strategies that work with better players won’t work well with weaker ones.

David Sklansky explained why he and Mason Malmuth needed Ed Miller to write Small Stakes Hold’em. Neither of them had played in small games, and “the underlying concepts needed to extract the most profit from these players are just as deep, although different, from those needed to beat better players in bigger games… Techniques that extract the most profit in small games won’t work in bigger games. (The converse is even more true)”

Your emotional helpers must understand how you feel about poker. You may have friends and relatives who help you with other emotional issues, but — if they don’t play poker seriously — they may not be much help with your feelings about our game. Only serious players can understand how frustrating it is to play a hand perfectly and be beaten by an idiot, or how upsetting it is to get rivered again and again.

When you describe your feelings to non-players, they may wonder, “How can you get so upset about poker? It’s just a game.”

They don’t understand that — to some of us – poker is not “just a game.” I’m reminded of a popular tennis poster: “Tennis isn’t a matter of life and death. It’s more important than that.”

My friends and I aren’t that extreme, but we do take poker very seriously. It’s not just a game, and it’s not just the money. And, if people can’t understand how intensely you feel, they obviously can’t provide much emotional help. ♠

Dr. Al ([email protected]) coaches only on psychology issues, such as controlling impulses, coping with losing streaks, going on tilt, and breaking out of your comfort zone.