Willpower: Part I

The hot topic in poker these days seems to be Game Theoretically Optimal Play. I hear questions about what is GTO play, how is it figured out, and is it guaranteed to make me a winner. I have nothing against game theory and GTO play. (In fact, I once took a course on game theory at NYU with Oskar Morgenstern, one of its discoverers.) I do, however, feel that devoting a great deal of time and effort to creating and implementing a GTO strategy is not an effective way to improve your results. Once you have some reasonable feel for bluffing and bluff catching frequencies and your ranges are relatively balanced, there are a lot of more important things on which to focus.

A lot of GTO poker focuses on making non-exploitative plays. For example, if you are last to act on the river, how often should you make a pot-sized bluff? A GTO strategy states that you should value bet two-thirds of the time and bluff one-third of the time. If you do so, you will win the same amount whether your opponent always calls, always folds or flips a coin to decide. This information is useful, but in reality some opponents call too often and some don’t call enough. You do much better playing a non-GTO (exploitative) strategy and bluffing less than 33 percent against callers and more against folders. Likewise, if you can read your opponent’s intentions with some degree of accuracy, you will be better off basing your bluffing frequency based on your read.

So what should you focus on? Nothing is more important than willpower or discipline. I have written about it before, and I’m sure I will write about it again, but nothing is more important to your results than willpower. It has been nicely defined as the ability to resist short-term temptations to achieve long-term goals.

Psychologists have studied discipline for years. Why? It impacts not just gambling results, but a person’s ability to lead a healthy life (diet, exercise, no smoking, etc.) and their ability to achieve financial goals (avoid over-spending and save for the future.) One finding is that willpower is like muscle strength in that it can be depleted by overuse. The theory that self-control is like a muscle needs to be examined quite closely. The psychological literature supports this contention. (Roy Baumeister is a psychology professor who has published a variety of books and papers on his research into this area.)

If you want evidence that it is true that poker willpower weakens immediately after use, then consider that when a new game starts up, it is very common for all the players to begin by playing a relatively disciplined, conservative game. As time passes, especially if some tough beats occur, these same players frequently become wilder and less disciplined. Their ‘discipline muscle’ has gotten tired. This might explain why some of the best games occur late at night or early in the morning. The disciplined winners have gone home. What’s left are a group of players, who may not have been that strong in the first place, and who are not only exhausted both physically and mentally, but have also had their self-control ‘muscle’ tired out.

It is clear that self-discipline is one of the most important factors required to become a successful player. Before you even start to play, you must have the discipline to study the type of games where you can make the most money. This changes over time. Then you wait for good games, those in which you have plus equity. Even when you possess the appropriate knowledge to beat a game and find a game you are sure you will be a favorite in, you must make sure that your bankroll is adequate to play in it and sustain some losses. Once you start to play, you have to wait for good situations to get involved. The greatest players in the world can play more hands profitably than the rest of us can. But, even they must throw away a lot of hands. Discipline is required before the game and during the game. In fact even after from the game, you have to be disciplined. You can’t afford to waste your gambling bankroll on other things.

The fact that discipline or self-control is a major component of success in playing poker seems to be beyond argument. Given that this is the case, anything that enables us to increase our self-control will help us achieve better results, while anything that decreases our discipline will hurt our performance. Certainly there are many good reasons to learn about self-control, and what cause it to increase or decrease. In the next column, I will continue the discussion of willpower, and give some recommendations as to the best way to increase yours. ♠

Steve ‘Zee’ Zolotow aka Zebra is a very successful gamesplayer. He has been a full-time gambler for over 40 years. With two WSOP bracelets, over 50 cashes, and a few million in tournament cashes, he is easing into retirement. He currently devotes most of his Vegas gaming time to poker, and can be found in cash games at Bellagio and at tournaments during the WSOP. When escaping from poker, he spends the spring and the fall in New York City where he hangs out at his bars: Doc Holliday’s, The Library and DBA.