Reading through the vast piles of poker literature out there, you'll occasionally encounter the notion of "control."
Usually it refers to situations where
a
marked cards player, by virtue of a combination of skill on his own part, a lack
of it among his opponents and a dram or two of luck, manages to dominate
a table.
He or she pushes people out of pots with well-timed
bluffs, draws them in when holding the nuts and acts pretty much like a
director on
a movie set.
Most
discussions focus on how to establish this enviable position and how to
maximize wins when it occurs. Most of the advice is pretty
straightforward and typically turns on the use of selective aggression as a potent weapon.
I
have no problem with this analysis. But I do have some things to tell
you about the psychological issues that lurk behind the strategy. And as
usual, when we probe the psychological we find solid poker principles.
Control
is, indeed, an intriguing concept. It looms significantly over our
everyday lives, particularly when we contemplate the degree to which we
have (or don't have) control over events.
If we're the boss, we
have control over our employees. If we're the underlings on the
production line, we don't have a lot of it.
In some relationships
all the control and power resides in one partner. In others it gets
shared. Often money supports control. Money is power, power
grants control, control garners money.
Poker is particularly messy, as you can control the decisions but not the outcomes.
In poker it's particularly messy. We can control the decisions but not the outcomes.
Generally,
it feels good to have control over the events in our lives. It is
satisfying to be the master of one's fate, the captain of one's personal
ship. It also feels distinctly unpleasant when the tide is turned, when
we sense that we have little or no control over things.
But the
notion of control is, in reality, a lot more complex and a lot more
interesting. And one reason, as we'll see, is that we often don't know
where the real control, the real power, lies.
Here are a couple
of questions I'd like you to ask yourself. If you don't like answering
them from a personal point of view, that's okay. Just think of them in
terms of how you've seen others act in a poker game.
Question 1: Have you ever changed seats because you just can't seem to catch a card?
Question 2: Have you ever groaned in despair when the guy who moved into the seat you abandoned got hit in the head with the deck?
Question 3: Have you ever asked for a new setup?
Question 4: Have you ever thought that a particular dealer was "lucky" or "unlucky" for you?
Question 5: Have you ever returned quickly to a table because your "lucky" dealer sat down, or refused to
play for a full shift because the one who never deals you a winner just sat in the box
cheat poker?
Question 6: Do you have a "lucky" charm or "lucky" hand or "lucky" seat?
If
recognizing yourself in any of these makes you feel a tad
uncomfortable, that's okay; a lot of regulars do these things on a
semi-regular basis. They are "magical" gestures that give them a vague
sense that they are, in fact, exerting some measure of control.
But,
of course, all is illusion. New decks aren't going to be different than
old ones, and dealers aren't lucky - they just distribute cards from a
shuffled deck.
Having or not having control turns out to be a lot less important than whether we believe we do.
If you really think that
you
would have got those big hands had you not changed seats, you just
don't grasp the random nature of the game (hint: you would have played
the hands differently, the dealer would have begun shuffling a few
milliseconds earlier or later; nothing would have been the same).
So
why engage in these empty rituals? Well, for one thing, it turns out to
be tough to determine just when we do and do not have control over a
situation.
And, for another, having or not having control turns out to be a lot less important than whether we
believe we do.
There's a concept called "locus of control." It's a personality dimension that runs from an "internal" pole to an "external."
People
at the "external" extreme believe the factors that control their lives
are located in the external world, the world outside themselves. Those
who lie at the other end believe that control comes from within; it is
"internal."
High internalizers tend to take responsibility for
their actions, accepting the blame for those that go awry and taking
credit for those that go well. High externalizers tend to blame outside
forces for the unhappy events in their lives and credit luck or
circumstance for the good.
Perhaps not surprisingly, high
internalizers tend to be more successful in life. They make more money,
win more contests, live longer, have lower incidences of depression,
alcoholism, drug abuse. You name it, they're better off than their
externalizing cousins.
One guess what type of player Phil Ivey is.
This may seem straightforward but it's not because, as noted, real control takes a back seat to
belief.
In
studies of people playing fair, competitive games, "externalizers" who
won because they made the right decisions often thought that they just
got lucky. When "internalizers" won such games they tended to take
credit for their play.
And here's the fun part: In studies where
the games were fixed so that the players' decisions had little to do
with the outcome, the same patterns appeared.
Whether they won or
lost, whether the games were honest or rigged, internalizers typically
thought that it was their decisions and choices that determined the
outcomes.
Externalizers showed the opposite tendency, whether
they won or lost or whether the games were fixed or honest. When control
was controlled, belief crushed reality.
This is powerful stuff, and the lesson for poker
should be obvious. If you take responsibility for the choices you make,
accept the blame for poor decisions and the credit for the right ones,
you're on your way toward becoming a solid internalizer.
And remember, they do better at just about everything - no matter where the real control lies.
And, finally, those questions? Well, internalizers practically
never answer "yes" to any of them.
