Let's Get Uncomfortable
What do taking the escalator and playing poker have in common?
You can do both in a casino, I suppose, but today, we’ll be discussing a more interesting and useful similarity.
Making it Rain
During a couple of the years I lived in Vancouver, the first thing I did each day was take a long walk. I spent at least 30 minutes – usually 60 – striding through that beautiful city, even when it rained.
(If you didn’t walk when it rained, you wouldn’t be walking very regularly!)
During my walk, I’d stop at one of many Starbucks locations for an iced coffee, black.
In the US, that means the same thing at every Starbucks. In Vancouver, at least in 2011-2013, it seemed to depend on who you talked to.
At first, over half the time, my iced coffee would be sweetened. Then I started saying “black, no sugar,” which mysteriously only dropped it to one in three.
Starbucks was always crowded in the late mornings. To get the attention of a barista and correct them was… I don’t know… not fun.
So, I quickly developed a foolproof system:
When my order was wrong, I’d thank them, walk out the door, drop it in the trash, and head to the next Starbucks until they got it right.
I could afford it, was going to keep walking anyway, and you know – doing my part to support multinational corporations.
The Escalator
Was I scared to go back and correct them?
No. I didn’t like to, but I wasn’t scared.
Was I saving time by ordering elsewhere instead?
No, I had to wait in line again.
There wasn’t a strong reason keeping me from doing the more practical thing – managing to get a worker’s attention while they were doing something else and telling them they messed up.
It was simply more comfortable not to.
Taking the stairs is healthier than standing on an escalator.
Most of us want to be healthier, can take the stairs without pain, and aren’t afraid to.
But how often do we choose the comfortable route anyway?
Emotions At The Poker Table
We know that fear keeps people from making scary bluffs or calldowns. We know that tilt, excitement, or a desire to gamble can make people put in money too light, hoping to win a big pot.
What we don’t discuss as much is comfort.
And I believe that comfort, among competent players,
leads to far more mistakes than these other emotions.
Once we’re practiced enough, we don’t rip our stacks in with hands that are clearly mistakes to do so with. We don’t let fear stand in our way too often.
But our human desire for comfort is sneaky enough that we don’t always register it as a threat to our game – our #1 leak creator.
Discomfort
Maybe we have a hand that could bluff-shove the river, or could check. It’s close in theory.
Are we afraid to bluff? Maybe some of us.
But for others, it’s not fear. It’s simply more comfortable to take the safe route and not come into contact with any slightly negative emotions.
If you are afraid in that spot, what about in a much smaller pot? There’s a threshold at which it’s no longer fear holding you back from making the riskier play, yet you still shy away more often than you should.
For some people, bluffs are comfortable, but something else isn’t.
Maybe it’s calling a big bet with a good hand on a draw-heavy board.
We know the solver-approved play would be to call, keeping in our opponent’s bluffs and thinner value bets, which will often jam the river.
Instead, we shove for value, protecting our hand and torching EV.
Maybe it’s checking back the turn with a weak top pair, opening ourselves up to facing bets on scary rivers.
It just feels a little nicer to fire that turn c-bet and check back the river, even though it’s too thin in theory.
Maybe it’s raising flops to find out where we’re at and protect our hand. Calling and guessing can be mildly unpleasant.
Putting our marginal holdings in a range protected by monsters feels safer.
Whichever plays you find more comfortable will often creep into your game much more than you realize.
Opportunities
If you’ve read this newsletter long enough, you should know that this means two things.
Thing #1: You have an opportunity to improve your game by identifying and fighting against the desire for comfort that’s poisoned your strategies.
Thing #2: You have a (more fun) opportunity to exploit your opponents, who are inevitably falling victim to the same mental leak.
How do you do this?
My advice — you can take advantage of both opportunities by starting in the same place.
Introspection
Self-awareness is one of the most valuable attributes a poker player can have.
To become more self-aware, you have to… checks notes … be more aware of yourself?
This means paying attention to your thoughts and feelings. It means looking inward and reflecting.
What makes you uncomfortable at the poker table?
Or, perhaps better yet, what plays feel good and comfortable to make? And what are the opposites of those plays?
If you really want to improve, take it further.
Start paying closer attention to what makes you uncomfortable away from the tables, too. And what makes you feel scared, excited, sad, lonely, inadequate, fulfilled…
You don’t need to be on a mission to change these feelings.
You just need to recognize them.
To approach your environment, and its effects on you, with more curiosity.
“Why did I snap at that guy? What emotion was triggered in me that caused me to react? What is that reaction ‘protecting’ me from feeling?”
Consider how your emotions vary across different environments – with colleagues, friends, or in family settings. Ask yourself, "Do I feel more relaxed or tense than usual in this situation? Who or what is causing me to feel that way, and why might that be?”
Some of these answers may come to you easily. Some will be buried deep.
Some of your emotional reactions will be rational and proportional. Many will not.
We’ll get back to poker talk now, as I expect I lost a few of you. Just know that if you lost interest in the above, you’re the person it’s most important for.
From Self-Awareness, to Empathy, to Reads
Introspection leads to self-awareness.
Self-awareness is a building block towards developing more empathy.
I don’t need to tell you all of the ways that empathy is valuable away from the tables.
At the poker table, it can be invaluable when used correctly.
The biggest edges in poker come from knowing what your opponent would do with certain hands better than they do – when your understanding of them exceeds their own self-awareness.
I’ve experienced this many times during my career – playing against someone who’s representing a hand that I know they can’t have. For me, it’s the most fun part of the game.
When you know what makes you uncomfortable at the table, you develop more of an intuition for what makes others feel the same.
They won’t be exactly like you, so you’ll need to look at how they play.
When they show down a hand that seems poorly played, ask yourself:
Do they think that’s the correct strategy?
Do they have a read on me?
Or was that line more comfortable (or otherwise more enjoyable) for them than the correct one?
Accumulate clues from showdowns, and from statistics or table talk, depending on whether you’re playing live or online.
Create a hypothesis, and see if the
evidence continues to support it.
The nice thing about developing your self-awareness is that, in my experience, this part mostly comes naturally.
You’re already looking at showdowns and stats. You’re already developing reads.
So, more focus on emotions, and more awareness of your own, lets you interpret that data better.
Just be careful with this – you might accidentally improve yourself away from the tables, too.
