Can We Change Our Personalities?

A member of our poker discussion group asked, “What techniques, and to what degree, can a player use mental tools to alter his/her personality to become more successful? For example, can an impatient person become more patient?”

It’s an excellent question, and similar questions are asked frequently, not just about poker, but about everything. Many people want to change their own personalities or those of other people (such as their spouses).

In novels and movies such changes occur fairly frequently, quickly, and easily. In real life personality changes rarely occur, and the changes that do occur are usually small, slow, and difficult.

Your personality is essentially who you are. It includes your motives, attitudes, perceptions, thinking patterns, values, habits, and nearly everything else about you. Since your genes and a lifetime of experiences created you, don’t expect large changes. You are what you are, and you should accept that reality.

However, you can change your behavior. You have much more control over what you do than over what you want, think, and feel. And your behavior is what counts at the poker table. No matter what you want or how you perceive, think, and feel, the only thing that matters in poker is what you do, that is, your decisions.

Of course, your motives, etc. are important. They influence how you behave and create resistance to change. But, since you can’t do much about your motives, impatience, etc., you should focus upon what you can control, your decisions.

For example, it really doesn’t matter why you’re impatient. All that matters at the table is how your impatience causes bad decisions. So let’s look at ways to improve decisions that are harmed by impatience. The same principles apply to changing the effects of almost any other personality trait.

I will suggest taking several steps, and I hope readers suggest others.

1. First and most important, THINK SMALL.

You can’t prevent all the bad decisions caused by your impatience, and trying to do so virtually guarantees that you will fail. However, you have a reasonably good chance of changing one bad decision. After gaining control over that decision, you can work on another one.

Let’s take the most common and obvious impatient mistake: playing too many hands preflop. You certainly know it’s a mistake, but you still make it many times every night. So does nearly everyone else. If you make this mistake less often, you’ll save lots of chips and gain confidence about controlling other impatient mistakes. That confidence will help you to work on other weaknesses.

2. Identify the factors that cause this mistake.

These factors are individualistic. For example, many people get tighter when winning and looser when losing. Others have exactly the opposite pattern.

Conditions which cause dysfunctional behavior are called “triggers.” If you identify your triggers and understand how they affect you, you become less vulnerable to them. For example, if you know that you get too loose when you’ve lost a rack, don’t buy that second rack. Just go home.

Unfortunately, many people don’t even think about when, how, or why their play varies. If you have that weakness, become more introspective. Repeatedly ask yourself, “Did I play that hand badly?”

If the answer is, “Yes,” take notes. Exactly what did you do wrong? Why did you do it? Do you often make similar mistakes? When do you make them? If you take enough notes, you’ll see patterns that will identify your triggers and improve your game in many other ways.

3. Increase your motivation.

You may think that you really want to “become more patient,” but your behavior clearly proves that you don’t want it badly enough. If your motivation became high enough, you’d never play the wrong kind of hand. If you doubt me, just answer this question: What would you do if I put a gun to your head and said, “If you play any hand you should fold, I’ll blow your brains out?”

Since I can’t give you that incentive, you need to develop others. I’ll mention two useful techniques, and I hope that other people suggest additional ones.

A. Learn how much this mistake costs you.

Most people have no idea how expensive it is to play too many hands. Poker feedback is notoriously unreliable. You can play terrible cards, get lucky, and win a huge pot. You’ll remember that pot long after you’ve forgotten the losses from playing too many hands.

You may also rationalize bad decisions. “I cold-called a rock’s raise with ace-ten suited because I can outplay him after the flop.” “I know how to get away from hands.” “I’m varying my play to keep opponents off balance.”

Write down every time you play hands you know you should fold, and record the results of those bad decisions. Do it for ten or twenty hours, determine how much it costs you per hour, and then multiply that cost by the number of hours you play per year. It’s almost certainly costing you hundreds of big blinds per year. Seeing how expensive this mistake is may, repeat may, convince you to make it less often.

I have given similar advice about record-keeping many times, and nearly everyone ignores it. First, it’s work, and most players won’t work, even if they claim that they want to become (or are already) poker pros. Second, it’s boring, clerical work, and most people feel they are above it. Third, they really don’t want to know how much this mistake (or any other) costs them.

Although those feelings are natural, you should resist them. If you really want to make any significant change in yourself, you’ll have to work and accept painful realities.

B. Create artificial rewards and punishments.

Learning those annual costs may help, but you probably need more immediate incentives. Psychological research is absolutely clear on one point: Immediate, small rewards and punishments have IMMENSELY greater effects on behavior than larger, delayed ones.

Knowing that this mistake costs you hundreds of bets per year will probably have much less effect than much smaller rewards and punishments that are delivered nearly every time you make or don’t make this mistake. Creating such rewards and punishments is not easy, but it can be done.

DUCY?, a book that David Sklansky and I wrote, included a chapter, “A Short Lesson About Will Power.” We wrote, “If sticking to resolutions creates pride and not sticking to them creates instantaneous pain, these feelings can be just the help you need.”

So reward yourself every time you resist your desire to play cards you should fold. Mentally pat yourself on the back, and say, “Nice play,” even if you would have won a huge pot. More importantly, punish yourself every time you play a hand you should fold – regardless of whether you win or lose. “You idiot, you know you shouldn’t cold-call raises from rocks with ace-ten suited! Why are you such a doofus?”

I once read an article that recommended a similar idea. Pretend that a great player is looking over your shoulder, and you have to explain every one of your decisions. If you can make that player real enough psychologically, you’ll make fewer mistakes.

You can also use more tangible rewards and punishments. For example, if David Sklansky broke a resolution, he would skip dessert. You can reward yourself for going an hour without playing one bad hand preflop, or punish yourself for playing too many of them. You can buy something you’ve wanted, but felt was too expensive. Or you can make an immediate commitment that – as soon as you get home – you’ll do a painful number of pushups.

These artificial incentives may sound silly, but an immense amount of research proves that small, immediate rewards and punishments are the most powerful behavior modification tool. Since poker won’t provide the right kinds of rewards and punishments, you should create artificial ones.

Psychologists have done an enormous amount of research on behavior modification, but that’s enough for now. I hope these basic ideas are useful. More importantly, I hope this blog starts a serious discussion of how to change ourselves. It’s an extremely important subject for everybody.

This question could have come from anyone. We all wish we could change some elements of our play and personality. You’ve probably tried to become a different sort of person and poker player, but been disappointed by your results. Let’s hear about your experiences.

• What did you like or dislike about my suggestions? I won’t be offended by criticisms. The more comments readers make, the more we all learn.
• How have you tried to change yourself?
• What worked and didn’t work for you?