Business Is A Poker Game

Earlier columns said that playing poker could help business people to select the right games, adjust to changing situations, negotiate deals, and cope with losses. The previous one explained why poker is a great business teacher. But you can’t get the complete value of poker’s lessons if you don’t have “the right stuff.”

Tom Wolfe used that term for the intangible qualities that distinguish the astronauts from other hot pilots. All fighter pilots have superb skills, brains, and bodies, but astronauts have something extra.

So do the big winners in poker and business, the ones who make the Poker Hall of Fame, reach the top of the corporate pyramid, or accumulate billions of dollars. Let’s discuss three essential personal traits.

Ruthlessly Competitive

This drive may be the critical difference between poker and business champions and highly skilled wannabes. Jack Straus, a Poker Hall of Famer, said it most colorfully, “I’d bust my own grandmother if she was playing poker with me.”

Doyle Brunson agrees, “The correct attitude is that folks play poker because the game appeals to them. They like the blend of luck and strategy and are willing to compete for money. To do this, you need opponents, real opponents who are as intent on beating you as you are on destroying them. (According to Doyle, 1984 edition, pp. 21-22)

Nolan Dalla wrote: “Every enduring poker champion … has an insatiable desire to win.” (“Once upon a time in America: The John Bonetti story, Card Player, May 1, 1998)

These quotations are from my Card Player column, “Would you bust your own grandmother?” (6/14/2005) It also said, “Certain people – especially champions – are not at all normal or balanced while playing. Normal people don’t have insatiable needs, nor do they want to destroy people.”

Unless there are large differences in talent, the hungrier competitor has a huge edge. If I’m somewhat more talented and play poker for fun, but you need to win, you’ll beat me. You’ll work harder, study longer, analyze my game, and attack my weaknesses. Balanced people are psychologically healthier and have better personal relationships, but the intense competitors usually win.

That same hunger drives the most successful managers. “The inner craving comes first…The typical young executive burns the office lights late at night…to satiate a man within him, a howling man who provokes him to compete more, and accomplish more, and then to compete and accomplish still more.” (Guzzardi, Walter, Jr. The Young Executives, p. 34.)

Many highly successful corporate executives have the same attitude toward money as poker winners: Its primary value is for score-keeping. They don’t care that much about what it can buy; the important thing is making money, because their salaries are “the most widely accepted success symbol.” (ibid, p.39)

They’ve been called “workaholics,” an ambivalent term. Many people dislike their narrowly focused commitment, their families complain about being neglected, but top managers generally respect and reward them. They want people who put their careers ahead of everything else, partly because it boosts the bottom line, partly because they feel the same way. Many corporations’ top levels are full of workaholics.

Bill Gates may be the world’s richest man, but he has an insatiable need to become richer and more powerful. He’s broken numerous laws and lied to a judge and the Senate. If his grandmother were a competitor, he’d gladly bust her.

Some extremely rich people treat stocks, bonds, and other financial instruments as if they were poker chips, and they fight ferociously to increase their stacks and their power. They make millions or billions they can never spend by destroying people’s lives. They buy and sell companies, strip assets, lay off thousands of workers, close down operations, and wipe out entire communities without feeling guilty. I’m not saying how they should feel and act; I’m just describing how they do feel and act.

Some intense competitors are ruthless only while playing competitive games. Barry Greenstein contributes all his tournament winnings to charity. Poker Gives is a players’ charitable organization. Bill Gates has donated billions to various causes.

Extreme Realism And Discipline

The Right Stuff includes both qualities. If you’re not extremely realistic and disciplined, an insatiable hunger for money or power can destroy you. A tiny subset of highly competitive people lacks discipline and realism. I call them, “pathological competitors.”

To them everything is a contest, even personal and sexual relationships, and they must always win, regardless of the cost.

Both problems have a common cause: a lack of realism. Realistic people accept their limitations and recognize that they don’t always have to win. They make intelligent trade-offs, sacrificing some satisfactions and accepting unimportant defeats to achieve their high-priority objectives. They don’t want to win the battle, but lose the war.

Some highly skilled poker players struggle to survive because they choose games that are too big or too tough for them. Or they convert trivial challenges into macho contests. They must constantly prove how tough they are.

Pathological competitiveness can severely damage a business career. Pathological competitors may insist on winning a trivial argument, but lose a customer or their job. Even after seeing disastrous consequences, they may justify fighting so hard as “a matter of principle.” Over the long term, intense, rational competitors usually win, while pathological competitors often lose.

Some spectacularly rich people have crippled themselves by being pathologically competitive. Bunker Hunt inherited billions, but lost over $1 billion trying to corner the silver market. Nobody had recently cornered it, and he wanted to prove he could do it.

Robert Campo destroyed himself by borrowing billions to buy Federated Stores, even though those stores couldn’t earn enough to repay the loans. He was very wealthy, but his foolhardy gamble destroyed him.

A few pathological competitors resemble kleptomaniacs. Mike Milken had everything – a billion dollars, a cover story in Business Week, enormous power, an income one year of over $500 million – but his craving was so overwhelming that he broke several laws to acquire still more.

He went from being an enormous winner to a spectacular loser, paying a $600 million fine and going to prison. Despite being a billionaire, he lived so modestly that he didn’t enjoy his money. And he was too addicted to learn from his first punishment. When he left prison, he still had hundreds of millions of dollars and knew he was being watched closely, but he couldn’t control himself. He was fined another $47 million for violating his plea bargain. It’s as if a kleptomaniac knew the store detective was watching, but still tried to shoplift.

The Bottom Line

To become a big winner in poker or business you must be ruthlessly competitive, brutally realistic, and extremely disciplined. If you’re not ruthlessly competitive, you won’t make enough sacrifices. If you don’t have enough realism and discipline, you’ll sacrifice too much. ♠

After publishing five long, expensive poker books, Dr. Al, [email protected], has switched to short, inexpensive, eBooks. Stay Young; Play Poker and How to Beat Small Poker Games cost $2.99 at Amazon.com.