What’s The Best Attitude?

“Texann” asked me a question that I’m not sure I understand.

“What is the proper attitude to have when sitting down at the poker table? I have read and heard so much about having a positive attitude — from very formal types of things like the book, The Secret, to friends saying to “think positive”. However, for me, it seems like having a positive attitude winds up having a negative effect on my poker game.

“Before sitting down to play a tournament, I have tried thinking positive and “manifesting” a positive outcome. I have visualized myself doing well. I have concentrated on it. I have believed it. But if I didn’t do well, the disappointment seemed to be great because I had gotten my expectations so high. It didn’t matter if the loss was due to my own mistake or just plain bad luck. I had visualized myself doing very well, so according to the positive attitude way of thinking, I should have. The intensity of the disappointment often led to tilt in subsequent play.

“On the other hand, there have been times when I have not chosen the ‘positive attitude’ route and simply sat down at the table with no expectation whatsoever, good or bad. If I did well, I was happy, but if I didn’t, it didn’t bother me very much because my expectations had not been high in the first place.

“I have also noticed that I have seen a lot of poker players on TV that seemed to have attitudes that fly in the face of the ‘positive thinking’ approach. I’ve seen people who have made it very deep in large tournaments say things like, ‘I never thought I would make it this far. I just can’t believe it. I expected to be out the first day, yet here I am.’ If thoughts truly manifest things, then those people should have actually been out on the first day, but they weren’t.

“So given the above, I think that I probably shouldn’t try to have a positive attitude when I sit down to play a tournament. But then I wonder if that is going to cause me to have a negative self-fulfilling prophecy, i.e. if I don’t think I’m going to win, I won’t.

“So what is the best attitude to have when sitting down at the poker table? I would very much appreciate any advice you can give in this area.”

I think, but am not sure, that Texann has been misled by people who believe that thinking positively will improve your cards. If I have misunderstood her, my position is incorrect for her, but not for anyone who believes that myth. I’d appreciate comments from Texann and anyone else.

I’ll take pieces of material I’ve already published. Because I’m mixing published and new words, I’ll omit quotation marks and references to my own work. My published work had footnotes, but I don’t know how to make footnotes on a blog.

Many people try to “think lucky” to improve their cards. They agree – explicitly or implicitly – with the position Charlie Shoten took in his 5/29/2006 Poker Player column: “Your words are magnets that will draw a winning or losing hand depending on their thought content.” He got that “insight” from a terrible book called The Awesome Science of Luck. But there is no science of luck. Calling it “science” may make Charlie Shoten or some of his readers feel good, but their beliefs are just childish superstitions.

There is even some “research” on luck, and it reinforces silly superstitions. A friend encouraged me to read Dr. Wiseman’s The Luck Factor: Changing Your Luck, Changing Your Life – The Four Essential Principles. My friend loved this book because it supported his own beliefs.

Dr. Wiseman’s “research” was incredibly sloppy. He had no serious controls, nor did he do much statistical analysis. He just asked people, “Are you lucky or unlucky?” Then he uncritically repeated their anecdotes of wonderful or bad things happening as proof of the power of luck. Anecdotal evidence is unacceptable because you can find anecdotes to support almost any belief.

At Amazon.com one critic of this “research” said, “The description of ‘lucky’ specifically talks about winning lotteries. Yet people who classified themselves as ‘lucky’… didn’t do any better at the lottery than those who classified themselves as ‘unlucky’ (though ‘lucky’ people’s expectations of winning were more than twice as high as those of ‘unlucky’ people). This would seem to indicate that the ‘lucky’ people who participated in this experiment were anything but. They may have been more optimistic, unrealistic, or self-deluding, but they weren’t luckier.” This description of so-called “lucky” people as optimistic, unrealistic, and self-deluding fits many poker players.

Dr. Wiseman replied: “When it comes to random events like the lottery, such expectations count for little. Someone with a high expectation of winning will do as well as someone with a low expectation. However, life is not like a lottery. Often our expectations make a difference. They make a difference to whether we try something, how hard we persist in the face of failure, how we interact with others and how others interact with us.”

His reply deals with the positive effects of believing that you’re lucky, a subject I will discuss later. However, his results – and his own words – clearly indicate that this belief has no effect on random events, and the cards in poker are random. Therefore, his research – despite its sloppy procedures – is evidence against the belief that you should “think lucky” to get good cards.

However, believing that you’re lucky can create a positive attitude, and this attitude can provide several benefits to poker players, especially no-limit tournament players:
• You may become more confident and decisive.
• That confidence may make you more alert to opportunities.
• That confidence and decisiveness will help you to exploit those opportunities.
• You may accept responsibility for your results instead of blaming them on bad luck.
• That positive attitude will help you to cope with the inevitable bad beats, losing streaks, and other adversities of poker. Instead of feeling, “I can’t cope,” you will fight back.
• It can also intimidate other players; they may not want to confront a fearless and apparently lucky player. Your bluffs will work more often, and you can make other moves.

There is a thin line between having a positive, confident attitude and being arrogant. It pays to think “I’m lucky,” but don’t ever believe, “I’m so lucky that I can buck the odds.” They keep building billion dollar casinos to exploit that belief. If you make enough negative EV bets, you must lose.

You must also resist the belief that luck will overcome skill. The most important decision in poker is selecting games and situations in which you have an edge. If you let your belief in your own luck make you repeatedly challenge superior players or play bad cards, you will lose.

Strive for the positive benefits of believing “I’m lucky” without denying the reality that cards are random:
• Have confidence in yourself.
• Constantly look for opportunities.
• Exploit these opportunities decisively.
• Keep fighting when things are going badly.
• Keep trying to intimidate the opposition.
• But don’t overdo it. If you believe that your luck will overcome the odds or superior skill, you are doomed, maybe not today, but certainly over the long term.