Fear: Part Two

My first column on fear began: “Jason Zweig’s Your Money and Your Brain cites research that suggests that fear is much more common and has much greater effects than most poker players believe.”

That column and others about Zweig’s book said that our primitive brain evolved hundreds of thousands of years before our rational brain, and that it creates fears and other emotional reactions, even when we’re unaware of their causes.

Doubts About Our Primitive Brain’s Power

Several people have criticized the research Zweig reported because the samples were small or the methods were flawed. And they insisted that many people – certainly themselves – nearly always made rational decisions, especially when playing poker.

They believe what they want to believe and deny the overwhelming evidence of the primitive brain’s power. Since conclusions based on small samples are dubious, let’s look at an enormous sample, the more than one hundred million overweight American adults.

“Obesity is a leading preventable cause of death.” (Wikipedia). “More than two-thirds … of [American] adults are … overweight or obese. More than one-third … are obese [very overweight].” (National Institutes of Health)

Our unhealthy diet is one important cause, but our primitive brains are certainly another. Many people who insist that they’re rational are obese, and they know it makes them less attractive, damages their health, and shortens their lives. They’ve repeatedly tried to lose weight. Why did they fail?

Because our primitive brain evolved when food was scarce, when we were afraid of starving. Our primitive brain doesn’t regard fat as ugly or unhealthy. It’s like money in the bank: protection against starvation. When we encounter excessive food:
Our rational brain says, “Don’t eat. Fat is bad!”

Our primitive brain says, “Eat. Fat is good!”

Our primitive brain often wins.

Diehards may insist that obesity “has nothing to do with poker.” Perhaps they can’t control their eating, but their rational brain makes all their poker decisions.

Nonsense! Your rational brain may make most poker decisions, but your primitive brain certainly affects some of them. You can’t turn it on and off.

It’s extraordinarily irrational to believe that you’re more rational about poker than you are about your looks, health, and life. Is poker more important than they are?

Reducing Irrational Reactions To Fear

The word, “irrational,” was emphasized because fear is absolutely essential for survival. If we were totally fearless, if we didn’t have rational fears, we would take such crazy chances that we would soon be dead.

To play winning poker, we need balanced reactions to risks. If we’re too afraid, if we wait for sure things, we can’t win. If we take too many risks, we will go broke very quickly. Since poker is gambling, we must accept that we will often lose, wait until we have an edge, and then exploit it.

Separating rational and irrational reactions is complicated by the fact that our primitive brain reacts much faster than our rational one. It also reacts much more intensely to fearful signals than to emotionally neutral ones.

The evolutionary reason is obvious: If you didn’t react extremely quickly to something that might be dangerous, it could kill you. It’s immeasurably better to avoid something that isn’t dangerous than to react slowly to a danger.

If you overreact to a harmless situation, it usually costs you little or nothing. If you don’t react quickly to a dangerous one, you’re dead.

An earlier column said that your primitive brain “works so fast that you often finish responding before the conscious part of your brain realizes that there was anything to respond to. (Think of the times you’ve swerved to avoid a hazard on the highway before you could even identify it.)”

Fortunately, at the poker table we don’t have to react instantaneously. The first and most important way to reduce the primitive brain’s reactions is just to slow down.
You’ve probably read Doyle Brunson’s recommendation: “Stick to your first impression. Have the courage of your convictions.” It obviously works for Doyle, but – unless you have his experience and intuition – it’s terrible advice.

Your emotions have their greatest effects immediately. If you take a little more time, you’ll make less emotional, more rational decisions. How often have you reacted too quickly and angrily asked yourself, “How could I be so stupid?”

After deciding to slow down, use that time to analyze both the situation and yourself. We all know the value of situational analysis, but hardly any poker authority has said much (or anything) about self-analysis. They just assume that – if people know how to analyze the external factors – they will make good decisions.

But – as this series of articles has argued – people often don’t analyze situations rationally. They let their fears and other irrational factors distort their analyses. To make better decisions, don’t just analyze the sizes of the pot and the bet, the pot and implied odds, your opponents’ style, strengths and weaknesses, and so on. Make sure that your analysis includes the most important element, your real self, not the player you’d like to be.

Ask yourself, “How is my primitive brain affecting me?” “Are my fears or other emotions distorting my thinking?” Don’t pretend that your rational brain makes all your decisions. Accept that your primitive brain is essentially the same as every other primitive brain. As I wrote in the previous column, “You, me, the best pros, the tightest Rocks, and the wildest Maniacs are sometimes affected by our fears, even if we are unaware of them, even if the risks are trivial. The better players are less affected by fears, but nobody can completely escape their effects.”

You can’t reduce the primitive brain’s effects without accepting that fact and working hard to understand how it works, not just in general, but how it’s affecting this particular decision. You may be rational most of the time, but how are you reacting NOW?

To improve this analysis, Zweig recommended: “USE YOUR WORDS… the … cues of language activate the prefrontal cortex and other areas of your [rational] brain. … To prevent your feelings from overwhelming the facts, use your words” to analyze the situation and your feelings about it.

Silently ask yourself, “What am I feeling?” and “Why do I feel that way?” Answering those questions will help you to recognize and reduce the effects of all your emotions.

Zweig also recommended: “TRACK your feelings.” Keep records of your feelings and relate them to the situation and the quality of your decisions. You will learn that in some situations you can trust your feelings, but that other situations arouse irrational reactions.

Once you know when and how your feelings affect your decisions, you can avoid situations that cause emotional reactions. If you can’t avoid them, you can reduce irrational reactions just by being aware of how your feelings affect your decisions.

For thousands of years wise men have recommended self-analysis. Socrates said it best: “An unexamined life is not work living.” That rule applies to all areas of life, including poker. And it applies to everyone, even you. ♠

“Dr. Al” ([email protected]) coaches only on psychology issues. For information about seminars and webinars, go to propokerseminars.com. He is David Sklansky’s co-author of DUCY? and the sole author of four poker psychology books.