A kind of rambling C/T post

[jaxUp]

These ideas aren't fully developed, and is just kind of a thought I had a couple of days ago. I'm very open to discussion on this. It might go better in psych, but I'm posting it here because it's directed specifically at players who are new to winning, and because the micros rule. I would like to thank everybody who has helped me develop over the last year.

This post is aimed at players who have already established themselves as winning players (or plan on becoming winners in the future).

Now that you are getting better, you will be faced with new psychological problems, which can actually be tougher to deal with. Before, when you were losing, and didn't know anything about odds, the biggest problems you had were mathematical. You thought that you could win by just playing passive (and likely loose) poker, and not worrying about the EV of your decisions.


On Entitlement
Now that you are consistently (I hope) making +EV decisions, it is easy to feel like you should always be winning. In fact, one of the biggest problems that decent-good players face is a feeling of "entitlement." They feel like they have the right to win, since the people that they are playing against have little to no idea what they are doing. This, in my experience, is the primary cause of tilt. Good players get upset that somebody who is playing poorly is doing well in the short term. This usually culminates in a suckout on the river or "chasing" a gutshot with improper odds.
Hmmm...I'm just thinking about entitlement, and I guess over the long term, it is ok to feel entitled. The real problem exists with HOW we feel entitled. When you make a decision with a positive expectation, you only ever expect to win a certain percentage of the time. So, it would be ok to feel entitled to X% of the pot, since you can expect to win that often.
The problem with this, of course, is that you tend to think only in terms of the given hand. When you win the pot, your sense of entitlement feels fulfilled, and when you lose, you tend to feel betrayed. However, if you can wrap your head around the idea that every time you make a +EV move, you win X% of the pot, you will have a much more positive experience. Most people are not capable of this sort of detached thinking, and hence it is better for them to try and avoid any feeling of entitlement at all.
If you can manage to avoid feelings of entitlement, not only will it have a less emotional impact on you to lose or win (which can be very draining). You will tilt less, and be in a better frame of mind to be making mathematical decisions, increasing your earnings.


Most players will never learn to become detached like this while playing. On a related note, most players will never be winners.

-Brad