Apathy or unquenched desire?
 

Posted from my iPhone in the midfle of nowhere so I apologize for not being wordy. Coming into this next tournament series, the 5 diamond, I am not entirely excited but look forward to it. Reading some blogs on the iPhone has shown me just how psyched people get at the prospects of winning a tournament. Myself, besides the financial benefits I just don't feel it. What it one tournament, 100 tournaments, going to prove? Anyways, getting to the point of the discussion, I am curious what kind of personality is better for the tournament mind: someone detached from emotions entirely but generally apathetic in approach to results, or someone who is insanely driven to be the best while at the same time becoming subject to the torment that comes with it?

Re: Apathy or unquenched desire?
 

I think that people being extremely competitive is why they get into tournaments in the first place. I mean if not for the thrill of the final table and winning a tournament, I'd probably be exclusively a cash game player... Even if it's not right, people use wins to validate themselves... Especially in this game where we lose 99% of the time when you can finally get a win it's so huge... I think ego has a lot to do with it also...

WRT your question, you're basically asking if it's better to be you or Nath, and I don't really know... I think it really depends on your own personality and whether you can deal with pouring yourself into tourney results...

Hope to meet ya at Bellagio...

Re: Apathy or unquenched desire?
 

Who cares what 1 or 100 or 1 million tournaments prove? I get excited about the prospect of a 7-figure score. I get excited about sitting at a table with 2-3 guaranteed soft spots instead of having to wait and bum-hunt online cash games and grind against the regs. I want to make money playing poker. Period. Sure, having the respect of my poker-playing peers would be nice, and maybe parlaying a big tournament score into sponsorships/"fame" would be interesting. But first and foremost, show me the money. In fact, the prospect of making this big score is such a powerful motivator that I am flying out to Vegas to play these, despite the fact that I have never cashed in a live event with a buyin greater than 5k and am probably stuck near 6-figures in live tournaments lifetime.

Honestly, the question behind this should be "would you rather run super hot and be thought of as a clown (vietcong01) or run cold/average and be thought of as a good player (any number of mttc regs)?"

Anyway, to answer your question before I ramble out of control, there's probably some happy middle between the two polar personalities you describe. Someone who is generally apathetic will eventually stop caring whether he plays well. He thinks, "why should I care about maximizing my EV here?" He cannot motivate himself to do well, because he doesn't even care about his results. Someone who is "insanely driven to be the best" will be unable to detach himself from his results. Every beat is a personal blow from the variance gods. Every mistake, no matter how small, is devastating for him; after all, how can he be anywhere near the best if he makes an incorrect play? "THE BEST PLAYERS NEVER MAKE MISTAKES," he screams to himself. A bad run crushes this player's soul, possibly before he ever even runs good enough to get a shot at that big score.

I'm player number two, I fear. But I'm trying to change that.

Anyway, neither personality is well-suited to tournament poker. Or really, poker in general. You have to be apathetic enough to ignore the variance in the short run, even if the short run feels like a marathon. You have to be apathetic enough to shake off your mistakes and not let them compound themselves with tilt, but driven enough to recognize and correct said mistakes. You also have to be driven enough to care about winning. You have to stay motivated and play well and have confidence in yourself, no matter the slings and arrows variance hits you with.

Hope this helps answer the question?

Re: Apathy or unquenched desire?
 

Ignore this post as i misread leos post

-------------////

I also am rambling but this us hard on ab inphone so i will try tp contribute more qhen i can acruallyvtype. For today tjo, gooooo dawgs etc

Re: Apathy or unquenched desire?
 

and to elaborate, i would say i am motivated but the excitement isnt there anymore unless im really deep insometbing significant. So that.maybe explains best... As a result of this numbness of sorts now, am i better off as a player? I can be more objective in playing hands, and my heart doesnt skip a beat as often.

Anorher way to put it is: Assuming 2 horses of similar skill and exp , would urather bavk the one who clearly wants it more to the point of mood swings or the one who doesnt want it nearly as much however is most likely to be even keel


cliffnotes: what emotional composition defines the perfect mtt plater?

Re: Apathy or unquenched desire?
 

[ QUOTE ]
leo i like ur answer but the intent behind my question was more in regards to what majes a better mtt player; obsession to the point of manic depression or aparhy to the point of not being motivated enough. Motivation is obv key with success but when i see people like myself i wonder if my attitude sets my ROI back

[/ QUOTE ]
And I'm saying neither option is really good. Both will burn out/become losers/fail for different reasons and probably in different ways, too. You seem to imply it yourself.

If I had to pick one, I guess I'd go with apathy, because it's a softer, less mentally jarring slope to the bottom. The apathetic player won't jump off a bridge after he bubbles a big donkament, or takes a shot that goes badly. Apathy, to a certain extent, is probably helpful. Psyduck mentioned MrSmokey1, who always seems apathetic and calm, even after becoming the youngest bracelet winner ever. And maybe he doesn't give a [censored]. But he certainly gave enough of a [censored] to improve his game, to get to the point where he is at. I mean, unless he was somehow born an amazing poker player. I doubt it.

Like I said, I used to be more apathetic, but now I'm not and I hate it. I live and die with every buyin I make in cash, every tournament I go deep in, every good or bad play I make. I don't even know what happened to make it this way, I used to be much more calm. "Naturally stoned" as Adanthar once put it. So, yeah, as someone who's slowly becoming the model for the overly driven, bipolar, punish-myself-for-playing-bad-ever type, I'm able to look back very fondly on my days of relative apathy. But that doesn't mean apathy is so god damn great. Too much apathy and you cease improving while everyone else flies by you. You allow yourself to sink in a sink-or-swim situation, all the while not caring that you're drowning.

To sum it up: Apathy is good, it prevents you from going crazy. Too much is not, it prevents you from improving. Being driven is good, it makes you take conscious steps towards improving your game. Being overly driven is not, it makes you a results-oriented little bitch, like me of late.

I haven't slept in a while, so this will all probably look stupid when I wake up. But I hope I clarified some things and didn't waste like 10 minutes on what honestly seemed like a drunken joke post on first read.

Re: Apathy or unquenched desire?
 

Nah Leo ur replies have been great and they foster good discussion. I know there is no correct answer for such a complicated question but I always look for ways to improve and lately I have noticed I am trending oppositely from Leo. That opens up self criticism and discussion, its just too bad imin Augusta for thanksgiving without Internet bc this thread lookslik e a djk drrunk post. As I types this I'm in a cracker barrel [img]/images/graemlins/laugh.gif[/img]

Re: Apathy or unquenched desire?
 

Somehow this has turned into an abomination of a rant, mega tl dr warning, also this is all old news so don't waste ten minutes of your life trying to read this, unless when really, really bored.

I think to become really great you need to be a passionate and driven person. However, one of the skills you need to develop is to some extent apathy. The apathy could also be translated as an understanding of variance. I like to think that I'm very passionate about improving myself and trying to play every hand perfectly. But certainly I also aim to cope with losing, which is probably one of the most important abilities to have when pursuing to play poker for a living. Considering most of us are perfectionists, competitive, and ambitious this is possibly the most difficult things to teach oneself.

How do I do this?

First of all I try to understand that playing MTT's means you will lose all the time and occasionally win. I mean, most of us understand this rationally but when egos are involved we tend to become emotional and forget.

Secondly my goal is to play a lot of tournaments a day. I remember from a Well post by a well respected STT'er (can't remember the name, sorry) that he told the forum he didn't get fazed by bad beats anymore, basically because he has seen them happen so ridiculously often. So besides reducing variance, playing a lot also helps you to numb the pain of getting sucked out on.

Thirdly, because I recognize that even with the above mentioned precautions you will occasionally have your dreams crushed because losing when being a massive favorite when deep in a MTT is way more frustrating then losing in a STT. You need take a moment to allow yourself to accept the sick beat; ignoring that you're feeling kind of tilted is the worst.

In essence I guess what I'm trying to say is;

Variance in tourneys is HUGE, in (live) tourneys you will never play enough to be able to ignore variance. Accepting this and being passionate about playing well and trying to maintain some form of apathy about the result seems to be the easy answer.

Re: Apathy or unquenched desire?
 

I think Leo's responses here have been the best poker writing I have ever read in my life.

After Australia I was stricken with apathy and now that I've lost a ton of money since then I've been stricken with being ridiculously over-attentive with each and every result. I can't handle playing cash games and every tournament I enter I am incredibly worried about.

I've always been an emotional person but I never really realized how much it sets me back. Today that changes.

Amazing posts, Leo.

Re: Apathy or unquenched desire?
 

[ QUOTE ]

Amazing posts, Leo.

[/ QUOTE ]

Re: Apathy or unquenched desire?
 

now that i have a working keyboard and internet, just wanted to say sry for my first response. i had completely misread leos first post and made a dumb reply but couldnt edit it in time because my iphone was really slow.

however it got out another good reply [img]/images/graemlins/laugh.gif[/img]

JP OSU, ya man i will be out for the entire series rooming with Aaron Been so we will definitely meet up at some point.

Highn, you make some gr8 points aswell.

I guess while thinking this over on the drive back home, I guess the best way to put it is that the optimal emotioanl approach to poker in general is something that is incredibly apathetic, however incredibly motivated and driven to make money.

someone like MrSmokey1 or Patrik Antonius seem to be great examples. Not once have I ever seen them flustered in real life or on TV, or online. They seem like robots, and yet they continually crush.

At this point in my life I'm apathetic to the point that I consider tournaments a harsh joke, and this after I had my ridiculous FTOPS score. It just doesnt seem right that people 10x dedicated and talented as myself wont be making as much as me this year because my selective luckbox ran good for one week.

However, that luckbox allowed me to be financially safe and work up a cash game bankroll on my own, for which I am definitely happy about. But now looking back, and looking forward to 5diamond, I'm playing on stakemoney for the series and part of me feels like this is a vacation. It will be my first tournamernt series for being someone over 21+, and I'm not gonna sweat the small stuff if I get screwed over late in a tournament.

To what extent that seeps into my motivastion to study all my hands and see what I've done wrong, I'm not sure. I will certainly try and do something like bring a voice recorder (a la Gus Hansen in Aussie Millions) to keep track of all my important hands so I can go over them later. For now that seems like a good idea.

Re: Apathy or unquenched desire?
 

yo clayton, i coudlnt tell, did you get an iphone yet?

Re: Apathy or unquenched desire?
 

i'm a huge grammar nit to the point of excusing myself for having used the iphone

and yeah, the iphone is great!

- no, i am not the DeebSpellCheck gimmick [img]/images/graemlins/frown.gif[/img] I think it might belong to Nath though...

Re: Apathy or unquenched desire?
 

I'm in the nonapathetic camp. Any time i win a pot theres a chuss, if its a big pot its a jeaa and if its really big on the FT bubble its JAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA.

I got nothin but life ahead and if i can't get excited about the thing i love the most, both in good and bad moments, I wouldn't do it. Yeah it sucks sometimes but I've weathered 3 40k downswings this year so now I feel like I can do anything.

Re: Apathy or unquenched desire?
 

[ QUOTE ]
yo clayton, i coudlnt tell, did you get an iphone yet?

[/ QUOTE ]
yea i'm not sure either.

Re: Apathy or unquenched desire?
 

and yeah, it is about the competition. why do you think i talk so much [censored]? why do i berate every other "good" player? Why do i spend like 8 hours a day on 2+2? Cuz i gotta prove to everybody including myself that i can be the best at this silly game. The sick part is, i actually feel like i'm getting there.

Re: Apathy or unquenched desire?
 

[ QUOTE ]
and yeah, it is about the competition. why do you think i talk so much [censored]? why do i berate every other "good" player? Why do i spend like 8 hours a day on 2+2?

[/ QUOTE ]
social disorder?

Re: Apathy or unquenched desire?
 

no, its because i can't luckbox sunday majors. leave that for the donks

Re: Apathy or unquenched desire?
 

[ QUOTE ]
no, its because i can't luckbox sunday majors. leave that for the donks

[/ QUOTE ]
omg noooooooooooooooooooooo you owned me sir.

Re: Apathy or unquenched desire?
 

there has to be a level of excitement for live mtt poker, else u will get bored/not play your a game during the early stages.

& if u get deep in a liveament, and yer not excited (even on the inside), well, then yer a bigger man than myself.

Re: Apathy or unquenched desire?
 

[ QUOTE ]
there has to be a level of excitement for live mtt poker, else u will get bored/not play your a game during the early stages.

[/ QUOTE ]
thats what ipods are for!

Re: Apathy or unquenched desire?
 

can you stop trolling this thread jurollo? kthx you are quite annoying.

Re: Apathy or unquenched desire?
 

wow leo wins. I think I'm the apathetic type that has outbursts of pure destruction

Re: Apathy or unquenched desire?
 

[ QUOTE ]


Honestly, the question behind this should be "would you rather run super hot and be thought of as a clown (vietcong01) or run cold/average and be thought of as a good player (any number of mttc regs)?"

[/ QUOTE ]

Easily, definitely, would rather be "thought of as a clown" and be super-successful than have moderate success along with the respect of a bunch of self-inflated poker snobs. Most people try to buoy their own self-esteem by convincing themselves that poker has more skill/talent than it ever will.

I'm in the "apathy/detachment" camp, but maybe that's just cause I'm not ultra-competitive. I definitely don't want to prove to anyone that I'm the best, and I know that I probably never will be the best; being able to compete despite that awareness gives me plenty of satisfaction by itself. I just want to quietly win some donkaments and ride off into the sunset. I think using poker talent to fuel one's ego/self-esteem is ultimately pretty empty, so I treat the game accordingly.

Re: Apathy or unquenched desire?
 

why do you think you "probably never will be the best"?

Re: Apathy or unquenched desire?
 

I'm definitely in the apathy/detachment camp like 90% of the time, but I'm also hyper-competitive in things I actually do which is why I play MTTs and not cash games. I of course want the feeling of conquering everyone else in the tourney, but at the same time since that like never happens I'm usually just "blah"

Re: Apathy or unquenched desire?
 

[ QUOTE ]
why do you think you "probably never will be the best"?

[/ QUOTE ]

Because the way the game is, I don't think there never will be a clear definition of what is "the best," so it's a pretty abstract concept to begin with. And there will always be players who care more than I do about being considered "the best," so I just don't see the value in pursuing an impractical, romantic and fairly useless concept. Also, if there a point of excellence that could easily be described as "the best," it wouldn't be satisfying to me unless I had a balanced life and enough money. My goal is to make money and live a healthy life, not to be "the best."

Now, being the best you can be (to use the Army slogan) is obviously something a poker player needs to do in order to be successful, and I generally agree with Superfluous Man's (is that Leo?) summary:

[ QUOTE ]
To sum it up: Apathy is good, it prevents you from going crazy. Too much is not, it prevents you from improving. Being driven is good, it makes you take conscious steps towards improving your game. Being overly driven is not, it makes you a results-oriented little bitch, like me of late.

[/ QUOTE ]

Re: Apathy or unquenched desire?
 

i dont see anything wrong with pursuing an impractical and romantic concept if the result is working on your game. obv you need balance to succeed, i would argue that is part of being "the best". And I don't think its useless...wanting to be one of the best is a lofty and noble goal imo.


e - however i didn't mean to say that one could not have success in poker without this mentality. I just feel that in a game where the only limitation is mental capacity and motivation, not striving to be the best is a waste of my time. I guess part of it has to do with how much time I've invested in this game....might as well go all the way with it.

Re: Apathy or unquenched desire?
 

[ QUOTE ]
i dont see anything wrong with pursuing an impractical and romantic concept if the result is working on your game. obv you need balance to succeed, i would argue that is part of being "the best". And I don't think its useless...wanting to be one of the best is a lofty and noble goal imo.

[/ QUOTE ]

From your other post:

[ QUOTE ]
why do you think i talk so much [censored]? why do i berate every other "good" player? Why do i spend like 8 hours a day on 2+2? Cuz i gotta prove to everybody including myself that i can be the best at this silly game.

[/ QUOTE ]

Your "lofty and noble goal" seems to involve a lot of levels of human interaction that are unpleasant in my view, and I personally wouldn't direct much of my energy that way. Obviously, you can do what you want with your life and career, but it's not my style.

Re: Apathy or unquenched desire?
 

I can say that Jimmy has made a definite slide since he's become more apathetic. When he played the PCA and Aussie tournaments he was wound so tight, and HUNGRY to win. Since then, he's lost the burning desire and it's affected his game quite a bit.

In my own very short playing time, I know that the more I want to win, the more I concentrate and keep my focus.

Re: Apathy or unquenched desire?
 

[ QUOTE ]
I can say that Jimmy has made a definite slide since he's become more apathetic. When he played the PCA and Aussie tournaments he was wound so tight, and HUNGRY to win. Since then, he's lost the burning desire and it's affected his game quite a bit.


[/ QUOTE ]

This just illustrates the importance of taking the good runs in stride, too, and to actively balance that necessary hunger-to-win with an awareness of the larger picture.

Re: Apathy or unquenched desire?
 

[ QUOTE ]
and yeah, it is about the competition. why do you think i talk so much [censored]? why do i berate every other "good" player? Why do i spend like 8 hours a day on 2+2? Cuz i gotta prove to everybody including myself that i can be the best at this silly game. The sick part is, i actually feel like i'm getting there.

[/ QUOTE ]

stopped reading after this w/ leo's posts.

perfect.

Re: Apathy or unquenched desire?
 

I wrote this a while back in a thread about life on the tourney trail:

[ QUOTE ]
Be prepared to be losing most of the time. I busted in the first two events I played as a pro, which were fairly deep stacked events, in under 30 minutes. I'm currently on a 16 tournament streak without a cash. You have to walk a fine line between being brutally honest with yourself and not simply chalking up bad results as bad luck while at the same time recognizing when you are playing well but not winning and not make changes solely because you are not winning. You will frequently have doubts about whether you can make a living playing tournament poker, which might go away after you cross $5 million in gross career earnings, but I doubt it.

[/ QUOTE ]

IMO, succeeding in MTTs takes unquenched desire to succeed along with enough apathy to emotionally handle the swings, but not so much that you don't do everything you can to improve your results.

Re: Apathy or unquenched desire?
 

[ QUOTE ]

Your "lofty and noble goal" seems to involve a lot of levels of human interaction that are unpleasant in my view, and I personally wouldn't direct much of my energy that way. Obviously, you can do what you want with your life and career, but it's not my style.

[/ QUOTE ]

I don't direct a ton of my energy into being vocal, but it certainly provides a good release. Poker makes me incredibly pissed at times, it makes me incredibly happy at times. I don't consider it an unpleasant level of human interaction when its banter between rivals that doesn't result in any damage.

prob just a difference in personality/age/environment/what have u just like every other difference between humans

Re: Apathy or unquenched desire?
 

god i [img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img] you shane. awesome posts here. also sorry about my headphone volume at foxwoods, haha.

Re: Apathy or unquenched desire?
 

I think having an apathetic mindset towards your results in MTT's is essential for long-term success in this form of poker and in your long-term mental health. MTT's are addictive in nature due to their payout stucture which is on a variable ratio similar to a slot machine. Pulling a slot lever and the short-term results are out of the user's control. Results in tournaments will largely be weighted to who wins those coinflips when the blinds rise and the short-term results are not really up to the player's control. I tend to think of tournaments as playing cash games with the stakes keep increasing or a form of martingale blackjack system with slight edges that will take a long time to manifest itself.

For those who make big scores early in their career it will be hard to continue when they start regressing to the mean. It is much more psychologically damaging to go from 500,000 to 100,000 than from -300,000 to 100,000.

Re: Apathy or unquenched desire?
 

[ QUOTE ]
- no, i am not the DeebSpellCheck gimmick [img]/images/graemlins/frown.gif[/img] I think it might belong to Nath though...

[/ QUOTE ]
it's not me

Leo is right of course and right now he and I are talking about what he mentions in his first post (and what I feel is a major, major impediment in the development of some players on this forum)-- namely that some people would rather be known as a good and unlucky player, and are afraid to get their money in bad and look stupid. Meanwhile they sit back and criticize people they think of as clowns without even stopping to think that maybe they're doing something that, if not technically IMMEDIATELY +EV PERFECT POKER ZOMG, DOES in fact help them win TOURNAMENTS.

But people aren't really interested in hearing this. I've told a few of you this already and you've blown me off. So I'm going to go join the lucky clown camp.

Re: Apathy or unquenched desire?
 

Why don't you be more specific? All this vague stuff does nothing for me....are you implying that -EV moves are necessary to be a good player?

Re: Apathy or unquenched desire?
 

hi clayton,

your poker skills are way above mine, but when you are having these types of concerns, it might be helpful to look at the experiences of some of the great winners in sports and see what we can learn from them.

the great bill russell wrote a book years ago called "the russell rules" where he goes into 11 concepts that lead to winning. one of his first couple of quotes is one which is so simple, yet quite elegant. he says:

"the game is on the schedule... we have to play it.... why not win it?"

it sounds so simple... whether or not you may want to be in a certain tourney in a certain place at a certain time, you are here... it makes no sense to cheat yourself not to use all your skills and abilities to prevail.

the second winner i'll quote is joe montana. in the 1989 super bowl, montana and the 49 er's found themselves trailing by three on their own 8 yard line with the ball with 3:20 to go in the game. he trots on the field with all hell breaking lose in his huddle with teammates screaming at each other.

he grabs tackle harris barton aside and looks in the stands and asks him,"isn't that john candy up there ??" everyone in the huddle shuts up, looking at montana like he has 3 heads. then he turns to the rest of the huddle and says, " is there another place on earth you'd rather be right now ???"

of course, they drive the ball 102 yards and win the championship, but his meaning was quite simple and elegant once again.... embrace the challenge.

i think this is the sort of attitude one need to have in order to be successful at tourney poker, or any other endeavour.

it never hurts to emulate champions to learn to become one , yourself.

Re: Apathy or unquenched desire?
 

[ QUOTE ]
Why don't you be more specific? All this vague stuff does nothing for me....are you implying that -EV moves are necessary to be a good player?

[/ QUOTE ]
I'm saying that you need to play hands and situations very differently in a tournament than you would in a cash game, because the need to accumulate chips is so desperate. So you need to be more aggressive with your hands and you need to attack weakness, and you need to move at pots where you have any decent equity and can win a big one-- and ANY time you think you can make people fold, you should. Taking a pot without showdown is the surest way to not be outdrawn. Many people want to think that just waiting around for their big hands and always getting the money in good is enough, but it's not. You simply don't get enough hands to take that approach and have consistent success.

I personally prize getting the big stack in tournaments because it gives me the leverage to pressure people and boost my folding equity-- and it gives me a healthy cushion if I lose a pot. I try not to play for large chunks of my big stack in marginal spots, but I will flip short stacks for small pieces of it all day. I'll move in on draws against smaller stacks all day. So what if I'm 25% or 30% to win when called? That's great-- they fold so often that I usually have enough equity when called to make the move +EV on the whole.