Poker is a game which can be very cruel to you. It pushes you high up into the sky when money keeps poring in and you are winning but when losses start queuing up you are brutally thrown down to the  ground. As a counselor for Poker I see a number of messages in my mailbox asking for emotional support required to face the failures in the game. This supports the fact about the true nature of this game.

A renowned player, Penn Sate, once said a very simplified version of the psychology of human beings which stand very true in all situations. He said that a winner is not always as perfect as he thinks he is on winning and likewise a looser is not as pathetic as he thinks himself to be on failing. This is very true for Poker as well. We are usually unable to segregate the expertise part from the coincidence part in the game. Hence we construe are play in different ways.

Succeeding:

As success is enthralling, the ecstasy brought about by it instigates us to play more, rather than the money part of the game. Our self-esteem puffs up on winning and we start feeling powerful and invincible. We forget about the luck factor completely and start thinking that we are much more skillful than the others and hence we should get all they have. This over confidence blinds us towards our own assessment and improvisation. We float around in our greatness and to not try to improve our techniques. However, when we are still basking in this feeling of greatness, we are unable to handle the sudden strike of failure as we were never ready for it. So you see we were never as perfect as we had thought we were during our encounter with greatness. The feeling of greatness had actually led to a state of mind which was not good for us.

Failing:

When we start losing, we do not want to quit as we feel that we need to win before moving out. But as we keep losing, our confidence starts shaking and we start thinking that we can never win. We start losing interest in the game as well. However, before the game becomes a mundane task, we must pull ourselves up and keep trying. However, this can be a very vicious circle as we will then be playing in a very anxious state of mind which could be unhealthy for us as well as the others around them. We place so much responsibility on ourselves for the losses that we feel too ashamed and fall into a bad temperament. We are so engrossed in self blaming that we forget bout the other factors which determine the result of a game. He is not being much help to himself by doing this. But we don’t realize that we are not as bad as we think we are when we are losing.

There are other types of people who are complete opposite. They put the blame of all their losses on bad luck. They are very good for their opponents as they keep losing money but keep playing. They will moan once or more about their losses but again blame the destiny for it and screen their minds against any turmoil. Making luck their shield they carry on losing all the money to their opponents, without once weighing up their game to play better. They always await a better luck to turn up any time and keep playing as the others enjoy collecting their lost chips. Hence again we were not as perfect as we thought we were even when losing.

Hence it is important to not let your state of mind waver during the peaks and troughs of the game. It is important to keep assessing your game and your own self all the time instead of thinking that you are a genius when you win or a mule when you lose. Think about the strategies- your position, maximizing profits and minimizing losses, right time to quit, the opponent’s signals about their strategies and avoiding tilt. It is important to keep your emotions under control and keep playing the game without evaluating your self by the failures and successes because poker is a very volatile game.