What Poker Has Taught Me About Life

Most people view poker as a game of luck that they play with their buddies sometimes on weekends. We all have our favorite hands, we all remember our favorite poker movies (Rounders anyone?), and we all remember are biggest bluffs, but when it comes down to it, what does poker teach us? For me, poker is NOT gambling in any way but a game of skill. It has been my main source of income for the last 19 months and has taught me more in the last one and a half years than any other period of time in my life. As I continue to grow as a poker player, make new friends at higher levels, and learn new lessons at the table, I feel I should share with you what poker has given me.

1. Greed is Good

I could probably write a whole post on this alone (heck… probably a whole book). Many people won’t agree with me but I tend to have the philosophy of Mr. Gordon Gekko: “greed is good.”

Here the same message is being repeated by my idol, economist Milton Friedman:

I am hit with the moral dilemma all the time that poker is not contributing to society (or so they say). I focus on myself and how I can further learn and better myself. It is a very selfish thing, yes, but it does provide value to the society as a whole. Most people are terrible at poker and treat the game as gambling. They understand that they will come to a table and lose money over the course of an hour or two and they are fine with that principle because to them it is entertaining. It is the same case as if a person decides that they are going to go spend $50 for them and their family to sit in a movie theater for a few hours to be entertained. It is mutually beneficial.

In this sense, I am like an actor in that I work to better myself which in turn provides more of a challenge, and more entertainment, to my opponents. Sure, some people have gambling problems. It is unfortunate but it happens. I have had this conversation with one of my good friends whom is also a very good poker player in his own right. I told him that I would stop a troubled gambler at the table if I was aware of his/her situation. Not necessarily because its “the right thing to do” (which it is), but because it is also in my best interest!

Cigarette companies don’t try to kill their customers. They take a little bit here and there and in the end they have a lot of money and have given their customer daily satisfaction. Cigarettes aren’t necessarily bad on an individual scale and customers are fully aware of the consequences of prolonged use. People are fully aware of these things yet they do it anyway. I fulfill their desires and give them what they want and in the end we both feel better about it. Poker is their escape from their hardships in life. It gives them a “chance” at the thought of them being rich whereas their dreams fulfill my reality. I am just the actor.

(This is my only controversial thought and the others should be more insightful and less opinion based)

2. Maximize the Positive and Minimize the Negative

In poker, the theory is to put in little to no money with a worse hand and to try and put all your chips in with the best hand. Notice how I said theory. It is MUCH harder to do than it sounds. This is probably the one thing that separates most players from the truly great players.

In the real world, you want to do things in your life that will have a positive influence on your life and you will want to stop the things that have a negative influence. I took some negative things in my life, cut them out the best I could and filled them with positive things. For example, I used to listen to a lot of metal. Though the songs were not necessarily mean or negative minded, the sound was more tense and had a more negative undertone. I bought Pandora on the internet which allows me to have a personalized radio. I then filled it with all positive music. I also read that staying up late and looking at bright lights like a computer monitor tricks your brain into thinking its daytime so it keeps you awake. When you try going to sleep, your body is still thinking it is day so your sleep quality is bad. I started logging off the computer earlier and just listening to podcasts instead of reading blogs late at night like I used to. I was absolutely amazed by how much happier I have been in the morning. All of these things add up to give me a much higher quality of life. If anything bad happens, I am happy with the fact that I made the best decision or with the fact that I can improve on my decision making for the next time.

3. Thinking Big Picture

This is another important one. A lot of people, including myself at times, only see whats in front of them. They do not see how things play into the big picture. In poker, you can play 100 percent perfect yet still lose. It is not something that is bad. It is something that is actually GOOD! The reason why bad poker players (fish) come back to the poker table is because they remember winning hands and they enjoy the thrill of winning against the odds. You might make the best play yet the fish still wins and he comes back to lose his money ten more times because he is chasing that seldom win. When something bad happens, don’t get caught up on the tiny things if there was nothing you can do about it. Things happen and you should be happy that you made the correct decision and had that event played out a million times, you would be ahead in the long-run.

Here is a hand that is 2,700,000,000:1… it happens

4. Don’t Get Emotionally Attached to Money

I find it ironic that the best poker players in the world play a game that is centered around money, yet they don’t get attached to dollar amounts. Here is an example of what I mean

Negreanu lost just under $300,000 in one hand and as you heard him say, he said, “If you have me beat, then it is a cooler.” Sure enough that is what happened. In his head, he made the best play and is fully accepting that the results are independent of his decision making. Sure, he is mad he lost a ton of money but he fully accepts it as it goes both ways and he knows he made the right decision.

To poker players, money is arbitrary. It is not a dollar amount but some sort of unit relative to how many total units the player has and how many units are already in the pot. Poker players refer to these units as big blinds or bb’s. In a $2 game with $.01/$.02 blinds, a $.10 raise isn’t $.10, but 5bb’s. In a $500,000 with $2,500/$5,000 blinds, a $20,000 raise isn’t $20,000. It is 4bb’s. Everything is relative and is only relevant to the stack sizes and how much is already in the pot.

Many people in life are too afraid to give up $x to take a risk. If you make $1,000 a month, then $100 is a lot to you. You still see people blowing money on worthless things though. If you made $100,000 a month, would you just go out and blow $10,000 in one night routinely? I’m really hoping you say no. Remember: money means nothing. What does matter is how much it is relative to anything else in your life.

Mark 12:41-43

The temple was big and beautiful. Many people came there to worship God. Inside the temple were some big money boxes. People put money in them. The money was for the temple and all that was used in worship to God.
One day Jesus sat across from the money boxes. He saw many rich people put in lots of money. Then one poor woman, a widow, walked up to the boxes. She put in two small copper coins worth less than a penny.
Jesus looked at his friends. “This poor woman put in more than the rich people did,” he said. “Here’s why: the rich people still have much money left. But this woman only had two coins. She did not have any more money. The rich people only gave part of what they had. She gave all of what she had.”

5. Emphasize Strengths and Pick on Opponents Weaknesses

Everyone is born with something they are talented at and everyone has something that they aren’t so good at. It is your job in life to focus on your strengths as they will guide you the furthest. If you ever want to gain an advantage, you will also need to focus on an opponents weakness.

I am a better No Limit Hold’em player than I am a Pot Limit Omaha player though I find the later the most fun game played today. I play NLHE 99.9 percent of the time I play poker online. This is simply because I have many strengths in the game and know how to maximize my profits and exploit my opponents.

In the real world, you can find what I mean by reading the book “Strengths Finder 2.0″ by Tom Rath. It is no secret that everyone is unique and better than others at their specific skill. It would take a whole book to discuss what your strengths are and how to utilize them so I recommend reading the book by Tom Rath. It will help you understand how to utilize yourself and how to manipulate the strengths and weaknesses of others.

6. Trust

This is always something that has baffled me completely. Most people view poker players as liars who nickle and dime each other for self interest. As this may be true to an extent, poker players are probably the most trustworthy people with money possible. I know it sounds weird but when you know someone who plays poker and they have a reputation, you can trust them with large amounts of money. People have trusted me with thousands of dollars before on stakes when I have never even met them in real life and I have trusted a few others with smaller amounts.

This is not something I expect or hope others to fully incorporate as I think this is something specific with poker, but just understand that there are friends in your life that you should trust with a lot of responsibility. People can’t get far in life on their own so trust in your friends and never let people you know down. Your reputation is bigger than you may think!

7. Learning: Someone Is Always Better Than You

That’s right: you are not the best at anything. Even if you were, it is only a matter of time until someone else is ahead of you. Be modest and have no shame in admitting your mistakes. Use your modesty to learn and grow. Following huge losses when I started playing poker, I promised my dad I would never deposit money on poker sites again. I kept my word and started playing the play money (free chips given to you that have very little to no value). I admitted that I was bad to myself and kept my promise with my dad. Exactly a year later, I had kept that promise and was playing 12 tables at once of the $400 games. That is the power of always improving. There is always room to move up.

Even right now, I had to move down several levels and admit to myself that there is still more to learn. I am now a better player and person because of it. My life is more stable and I am able to fully rely on poker income if I chose to do so. No matter what it is you are doing, always look at ways to get better. If you are not sure what you can be doing, look for those better than you and try to imitate them and figure out what they do that you do not.

8. Equality Does Not Mean You End Up in the Same Place

Everyone is born equal. We all have a body, a mind, and the rest of our lives with the world at our feet. When you start day one at the World Series of Poker (WSOP), ereryone starts with the same chips and mathematically the same odds. This does not mean that everyone will win the same amount. Some players are terrible yet they still make the final table and win millions. Some people are really good and give themselves the best chance to taking home millions yet they seem to not make any money.

In life, you can’t be envious of other peoples situation in life. Just because they are somewhere because of circumstances outside of your control does not mean that the two of you are unequal! Never make excuses for yourself and always give yourself the maximum chance of getting the most out of life. For example, some people will not graduate high school yet be billionaires. A lot of other people will push themselves through college and come out with a $50,000 a year job and stay there for 45 years. This does not mean that everyone should drop out of high school. It is actually the opposite. Most people should try to get through college because it will put them in an optimal position to go far in life.

9. Bankroll Management

This goes along with things being relevant. In poker, you want to be playing games that are only a certain percentage of your entire bankroll. Aggressive poker players will play with just 5 percent of their entire bankroll while more cautious players will play with just 2 percent.

In life, you want to stay within your means. If you make little money, you should not be buying much. When you make a lot, you can afford more or things in larger scale but you still have limits. Never EVER pass those limits. It only adds unnecessary risk to your life.

10. Decisions are Better Than Results

This is something I have been hitting on throughout this whole post as it is probably the most important thing I have learned. Here is a good example of how decision making works:

As you can see, there is a mathematically optimal way to chose what to do. You will notice that in this example, you cannot affect what the other player does but you can make the optimal play on your end. Assuming you both make optimal plays, you both get 5 years in jail. If for whatever reason the other player makes a mistake, you come out free! The point is that you make the right decision and though other factors you can’t control sometimes make things worse off for you, you made the right decision and should not second guess yourself. Don’t get upset with things you can’t control!!!

11. Self Control

As we just went over, things are out of your control no matter how much you can try to keep things going well. Never get frustrated at these things. Losing control of yourself will cause you to make sub optimal logical choices. Emotions are a necessary human emotion and should be enjoyed and used accordingly but you should never, never, never let emotion cloud judgment. This is possibly the hardest thing to control in this post.

12. Tortuse and the Hair

In the end, the long steady players who make little mistakes win all the money. There are no two ways about this. There are lots of players who come up really fast in poker and start making lots of money just to lose it all a month or two later. You must stay a disciplined person and keep to making the correct decisions and in the long run, you will be the one who is still around reaping all the rewards. Never lose focus of the goal and keep working hard to get there!

Grind for a few days at the beginning of last year.

Conclusion

I hope that what I have learned over the last 19 months can in some way shape or form help you in your life. Any one of these points can be written about in an entire book. I do not have time for that but if situations come up, I hope you refer back to this post and apply the knowledge to the situation. You will come out the better because of it. Best of luck!

Patrick