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2. Winners Are More Motivated and Disciplined

To win at poker, one must want to win. More importantly, one’s subconscious mind must want to win! . . . The poker player who can’t control his mental and emotional state will never be a winner, and it doesn’t matter how much experience, natural talent, money, or knowledge he possesses.

—Jason Misa⁶

Winners have both an intense desire to win and extreme self-control. Like the “rational man” of classical economic theory, they do whatever it takes to maximize their long-term profits.

They work harder, study longer, remain more alert, act more deceptively, avoid games they can’t beat, attack more ruthlessly, criticize themselves more harshly, refuse to yield to their emotions, and always insist on having an edge. They make these and many other sacrifices that most people won’t make. In fact, they are so competitive that they may feel that they’re not sacrificing anything important. Everything but winning is hardly worth thinking about.

You may think that it is unhealthy to compete so compulsively. I agree and have argued forcefully that—from a mental health perspective—you should be more balanced.⁷

But this book concerns only winning, and everything you feel, think, or do that conflicts with that goal will reduce your profits. You must decide how important winning is to you and how high a price you will pay for it. Some people naively assume that they can win without making sacrifices. They will certainly be disappointed.

What’s the bottom line? Unless you have both an intense desire and extreme self-control, you probably won’t do all it takes to become a big winner.

An Intense, Ruthless Need to Win

That drive is the starting point. Without it you won’t be willing to make all those sacrifices. The best poker players are like Larry Bird, a member of basketball’s Hall of Fame. Red Auerbach, his coach, once said, “Larry doesn’t come to play. He comes to win.”

Poker winner’s competitiveness is almost unrelated to what the money will buy. They need to win, not so that they can buy more toys, but because they define themselves by how much they win.

They are also more ruthless than intense competitors in most games because poker is a negative-sum game. Business, the stock market, real estate, and many other “games,” are partly win-win, but poker is purely win-lose. Your profits always come at someone else’s expense.

Poker is much tougher than most win-lose games because they are zero-sum, but—because of the house’s charges—the winners’ profits are always less than the loser’s losses. Unless you ruthlessly seek and exploit edges, those charges will eat you up.

Poker is also a predatory game. All successful predators follow a simple rule: attack the weakest, most vulnerable prey. You make most of your money, not by outsmarting the better players, but by exploiting the weaker ones. It’s the exact opposite of the values you have been taught: Be honest. Fight fair. Pick on somebody your own size. Be gentle toward the weak.

His ruthlessness helped Jack Straus to become a Poker Hall of Famer. He once said, “I’d bust my own grandmother if she played poker with me.” Countless poker players agree, and their ruthlessness gives them a huge edge. “If you are not driven to win and play against equally talented, but much more ruthless competitors, you are going to lose.”⁸

Losers lack the winners’ single-mindedness. They want to satisfy many needs, but these needs conflict with each other. Focusing solely on profits may not feel right, and it’s not as much fun. They want to challenge tough games and players; they feel guilty about being deceitful; they ache to criticize fools who make terrible mistakes and give them bad beats; and they don’t want to beat up weak relatives and friends. They try to satisfy all their motives by doing a bit of this and a little of that, which prevents them from winning as much as more single-minded competitors.

Some winners don’t believe that their attitude is abnormal. They feel contempt for people who don’t put winning above everything, and they certainly can’t understand them. For “normal” people (aka “losers”) poker is just a game. They play it for many reasons, but primarily for pleasure. Of course, they like to win, but they can enjoy poker even when they lose. In many games some losers are having a good time and some winners are miserable (because they aren’t winning enough to satisfy their insatiable needs).

Insatiable needs are a sign of psychological problems and a source of constant dissatisfaction, but all I’m discussing now is profitability. If you want to maximize it, you have to put the bottom line ahead of everything.

Extreme Discipline

This quality is as important as the drive to win. Without that drive you won’t be willing to make the sacrifices, but without extreme self-control, you won’t be able to make them. Winners are extremely disciplined.

Barry Greenstein, a great player, certainly agrees. His book, Ace on the River, contains a list of the twenty-five traits of winning players. “In control of their emotions” was fourth, and his list included several other self-control qualities:

• Persistent was sixteenth.

• Able to think under pressure was eighth.

• Honest with themselves was second.

• Psychologically tough was first. The best don’t give in, no matter how severe the psychological beating.”⁹

Winners’ discipline affects every element of their game. They fold hands they want to play. They resist their desires to challenge tough players. They push aside their pity for vulnerable players and mercilessly attack them. They force themselves to concentrate. They resist the impulse to criticize bad players. They objectively assess their own play and get feedback from coaches and friends. They have the discipline to do the unpleasant things that losers won’t do.

The Need for Balance

Without enough self-control, an obsessive need to win can destroy you. You would be like an extremely powerful racing car with a broken steering system. I call these uncontrolled people “supercompetitors.” They have two major weaknesses:

1. They can’t accept their own limitations.

2. They always need to win, even when the issues are trivial.

Both problems are caused by denying reality about themselves and poker. Winners accept their limitations and recognize that they can’t always win. They make intelligent trade-offs, sacrificing some satisfactions and accepting unimportant defeats to do the only thing that really matters, getting the chips.

Supercompetitors look macho, but they are really so insecure that they have to prove something. They pay a high price for their insecurity. Some very talented supercompetitors severely harm themselves by:

1. Playing above their bankrolls.

2. Choosing games that are too tough for them.

3. Challenging the toughest players in those games.

4. Overreacting to bad beats and other losses.

5. Continuing to play, trying desperately to get even, because they can’t accept a losing session.

6. Criticizing weak players and arguing about trivial issues.

Supercompetitors generally deny the truth about themselves. Instead of admitting that they are insecure, they rationalize that they take many of these actions (especially numbers 1–3) to gain the experience they need to develop themselves. They also would not admit that showing off their “superiority” by winning arguments is more important to them than increasing their profits.

The opposite extreme is also destructive: if your self-control outweighs your motivation, you won’t act decisively. Hamlet was a classic case: His famous “To be or not to be” soliloquy summarized his entire life. He could not make up his mind about anything, not even killing himself.

Indecisive poker players haven’t got a chance, but you may know some of them, including a few who understand poker theory. They try to avoid commitments by checking when they should bet and folding or calling when they should raise.

Winners balance their intense drive to win and self-control. If the stakes are too low or they have won so much that they feel complacent or they have other things on their mind, they won’t care enough to play well. Conversely, if the stakes are too high or they are losing heavily or they are risking the rent money, they will lack the essential detachment and control. Winners constantly monitor themselves, and if they are not both motivated and controlled, they take a break or go home.

Winners’ Laws

As in the last and most future chapters, the Winners’ Laws shift from analysis to action. They tell you what you should do to apply a chapter’s principles.

1. Accept a painful reality: intense, ruthless competitors have a HUGE edge.

You may wish that normal, balanced people were not at such a disadvantage, but you must accept that reality. If you compete against people who are equally talented, but much hungrier, you will lose.

2. Accept another painful reality: you can’t make huge changes in your competitive drives and talent.

They are like your poker cards. Since you can’t change them, you must accept them and use them well. Many self-help books about other subjects exhort you to be totally committed to success, to ignore your limitations, “to reach for the stars,” “to dream the impossible dream,” and so on, but such exhortations are silly.

• You want what you want, not what other people say you should want.

• Your talent is like your height; you may want to be taller, but it won’t happen.

So accept yourself as you are, and don’t feel guilty about not being what you can never be.

3. Assess your own talent and motivation honestly.

Since you can’t change them, you must know what they are. The next chapter contains procedures for assessing your motives. Now we will focus primarily on one question: How talented are you?

Without answering that question, you can’t make intelligent plans. For example, unless you have immense talent and commitment, you have no chance to become a world-class player. That fact is obvious, yet many merely competent and a few mediocre players have told me they can become stars.

After looking at yourself, apply the same logic you use with your cards. It is not how good they are, but how they compare to those of the other players. A flush is a good hand, unless someone has a better one. You may be more talented, motivated, and controlled than most people, but your competition is not average people.

The average IQ is exactly 100, but that average includes everyone from idiots to geniuses. Retarded people rarely play poker, but many extremely intelligent people do. I’d estimate that the average cardroom player’s IQ is about 115, and the average is higher in larger games. The same pattern exists for most other qualities such as motivation, discipline, theoretical knowledge, and skills: the bigger the game, the tougher the competition. The critical question is not how intelligent, motivated, disciplined, and so on you are; it is How do you compare to the people in your game and in every game you want to play?

Motivation is essential, but it cannot overcome a huge difference in talent. If I played tennis with a top player, I would be extremely motivated, and he would be bored. But I would not have a chance. The opposite principle applies if talent is nearly equal. If two tennis pros have slightly different talents, but the less talented one is more committed, he will probably be more successful. He will practice harder, analyze his game more critically, keep in better shape, and do other things that his more talented, but less motivated competitor, may neglect.

Unfortunately, the same factors that cause losers to overestimate themselves cause them to underestimate the competition. They think that their competitors aren’t really more talented and committed. They are just lucky or whatever other excuse the losers can invent. To succeed you must objectively compare yourself to your competition.

4. Work on your self-control.

You can increase it, but it won’t be easy. Of course, no poker authority ever says that winning is easy. Understanding and accepting your limitations are critical steps toward increasing your self-control. Then you must constantly monitor your actions and motives.

When you are making important decisions, ask yourself: Why am I making this decision? If you have thoroughly analyzed the situation and sincerely believe that your decision will increase your profits, it will probably do so. If you have not thoroughly analyzed the situation or if you are driven by other motives, you will probably reduce your profits.

How Do You Rate?

Most chapters end with this question, and it may be the most important one. You may dislike self-analysis, but deliberately comparing yourself to winners will help you plan your development. You will get the most benefit if you take four steps for every rating scale:

1. Rate yourself as objectively as possible.

2. Ask one or more people who know you well to rate you.

3. Compare your ratings and discuss any differences. Why did your ratings agree or disagree?

4. Discuss the ratings’ implications. What should you do about them?

You will compare yourself to winners by indicating how much you agree or disagree with various statements. These statements often contain extreme words such as “always,” “completely,” and “never.” Of course, hardly anyone is extreme enough to be rated a 7 or a 1. In fact, if you have several extremely high or low ratings, you are probably not being objective. Rating your agreement or disagreement with extreme statements is a standard psychometric technique.

There are two rating scales, one for motivation and one for self-control.

Your Motivation

Rate only your desire to maximize your profits. You may also be extremely competitive about sports, sex, winning arguments, or being the center of attention. These drives suggest that you’re a su-percompetitor, and they are usually liabilities. They divert your attention and cause other people to react negatively to you. Winners focus their extreme competitiveness on winning the chips. If other competitive drives are so important that they cost you chips, reduce your rating.

Circle the number that best describes how much you agree with this statement: While playing poker, I am intensely competitive. I will do almost anything to maximize my profits. (7) Agree strongly, (6) Agree, (5) Agree somewhat, (4) Neutral, (3) Disagree somewhat, (2) Disagree, (1) Disagree strongly.

Circle that number in the appropriate place in “The How Do You Rate? Data” section on page 258.

Your Discipline

Circle the number that best describes your agreement with this statement: While playing poker, I am extremely disciplined. I can control myself no matter what happens. (7) Agree strongly, (6) Agree, (5) Agree somewhat, (4) Neutral, (3) Disagree somewhat, (2) Disagree, (1) Disagree strongly.

Circle that number in the appropriate place on page 259.

When you finish the book, that chapter will contain all your self-ratings to help you see the overall picture. It then recommends ways to become the winner you want to be.

The Critical Questions

Review this chapter, especially the Winners’ Laws and How Do You Rate? sections. Then answer two questions:

1. What are the implications of both my self-ratings?

2. What should I do differently? List the specific actions you should take to increase your self-control.

Discuss your answers with someone you trust and take good notes.