In one of my early posts I regurgitated a lot of the poker tips I’d heard from different sources, including the following from Antonio Esfandiari: “Never tell bad beat stories.” Shortly after that post a friend asked me why I thought this particular bit of advice was valuable. I think I replied with something about wanting to project the image of a winner and that telling stories about losing would have the opposite effect. While there is some truth in the answer I gave, I have since found a more important reason for not telling bad beat stories; because by doing so you attempting to convince yourself that you are a better poker player than you are and that your losses are only due to bad luck.
To give credit where it’s due, this revelation comes from a book I am currently reading, Your Worst Poker Enemy, by Alan Schoonmaker. Schoonmaker, a Ph.D. in psychology, outlines the common self-delusions that most operate under which end up costing them money. The central theme of the book is that virtually all poker players (and this includes you and me) over estimate their own abilities and under estimate the abilities of their opponents. Because luck plays a big part in winning and losing in the short term, people can easily blame bad luck rather than bad play for their losses. Telling bad beat stories is a common way to convince yourself you are a great player who has been unlucky. If you accept responsibility for your losses, then you must go through the process of identifying your mistakes and correcting them. Few people want to be honest about their short comings so not surprisingly most of us would rather wait for our luck to change.
As I read over my posts, I see that I have glossed over or ignored a lot of my own short comings. Thinking that I am a better player than I am has stoked my ego but almost certainly hurt my results. I hope I can use this blog to examine where there are holes in my game rather than pretend they don’t exist.
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