Beast vs Human

This is the 12th installment of my weekly poker column in the Economic Times, Range Rover.

One of the most important lessons I learnt as a live cash game player was to treat all cash games as one long session that lasts a lifetime. This helps us avoid the two classic bad habits that a live pro can develop: playing too tight when one is up during a session, to preserve profit; and playing too loose and recklessly when one is down, to recover losses. Ideally, you should try to play each hand in the most profitable way you can, without regard to whether you’re up or down, or what stage of the session you’re playing in. That is analogous to a batsman playing ‘one ball at a time’ in cricket, as the cliché goes. But it is easier said than done.

We might pride ourselves, as a species, on our superior intelligence, but however much we aspire to be perfectly rational creatures, we are wired to be emotional beings. Theodore Dreiser once described civilization as “still in a middle stage, scarcely beast, in that it is no longer guided by instinct, scarcely human in that it is not yet wholly guided by reason.” I’m not sure if Dreiser played this great American game, but in every session of poker that I play, Beast battles Human. It’s fascinating as a spectator, and frustrating as a participant.

It’s easy to say that we should approach every hand with the same cool-headed dispassion, but there is a fundamental difference between the start of a session and the end of it. At the start, most players usually have between 100 to 250 big blinds. By the end, it is common for the average stack to be 1000bb, and for a couple of the big stacks to be approaching or surpassing 2000bb. In technical terms, decisions get harder as stacks grow bigger: at 100bb, I’m always content to raise with a pair-and-flush draw and go buckwild; at 1200bb, near the end of a 22-hour-session, I’m inclined to be more careful. I’ll gladly go broke with AA at 100bb; but if I stack off with it at 1200bb, I probably made a big mistake somewhere. Stack sizes make decisions exponentially more complex, and the consequences of mistakes more brutal.

But that’s a banal point. Of course it’s technically harder to play big stacks than small ones. But it’s the mental aspect that makes this a tough game. Remember, there is real money at stake here, and a bad day in poker feels much worse than in any other profession because in poker you actually lose money. In no other profession, if you have a bad day on June 25, can you lose your entire salary for April and May as well. Losses are felt viscerally, and taken personally. We rant at the guy who gives us a bad beat. We feel smug and superior when we’re running good. As a session progresses past the 12-hour mark, and people start getting tired, the beast starts taking over. We crave action, revenge, retribution, dominance. We want the biggest dick in the room.

I have seen grown men cry at a poker table. I have seen respected middle-aged businessmen tear up playing cards and demand a change of deck and dealer. I have seen (and felt) anger and humiliation and contempt and loathing and desperation. If sport reveals character, poker plonks a mirror in front of us and says, “Here you are, your ugly majesty. Where are your clothes?”

The longer the session, the deeper the stacks, the more there is at stake, the harder it gets. In your tumult of inevitable emotions, you’re supposed to be calm and rational, and exploit the infirmities of others. You’re supposed to do math, set up metagame, play ‘optimally’. You’re supposed to fight the beast – but the beast is who you are.

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Previously on Range Rover:

Unlikely is Inevitable
The Colors of Money
Finding Your Edge
Raking Bad
Om Namah Volume
Make No Mistake…
Kitne Big Blind The
Sweet Dopamine
The Balancing Act
The Numbers Game
The Bookshop Romeo