#140: “The Poker Player: A Sub-Species”

The more I play live, the more I realise that poker players are worthy of their own Attenborough-esque anthropological study.

The wealthier, more successful players seem to come to live tournaments with their own entourages. These ‘packs’ are made up of inferior players who flank their leader while stationary and, like their migrant birds, remain five feet behind their leader when in motion. There is also a pecking order within the entourage. The favourite gets to talk to the leader when no-one else is around and may occasionally contribute to the conversation with outside company. The runt of the litter is also evident. He is the butt of the leader’s unfunny jokes about his recent downswing or general nittiness.

There is, however, a more worrying concern for the poker species than these pithy nature documentary observations. A dangerous modus operandus has recently evolved within certain members of the community that threatens the longterm prosperity of the sub-species. It is a poker pathogen and like a virus, it needs to be eradicated before it infects more of the population. I am talking, of course, about ‘behaving like a dick’.

A story I heard recently gave me pause for thought. An up-and-coming poker pro took a trip to a recent EPT tournament overseas. He was traveling alone but at the airport, he encountered an Irish posse who were going out to the same tournament. They had booked a car to take them from the airport to the hotel (a 200km journey) and immediately offered him a lift with them. He accepted and kicked in 60 bucks toward the cost of the car. On arrival to the hotel, he was invited to go for dinner by the Irish gang. He accepted gratefully. An hour later, however, he called them up, explaining that he had changed his mind, that he was tired and preferred to hang out in his room.

A short while later, the Irish lads arrived to one of the nicer restaurants. As they were being seated, they passed by the table of well known poker pros of the more ‘baller’ variety and were shocked to see that at their table sat none other than the same guy who had snubbed their dinner invitation, the same fatigued guy who said he preferred to stay in his room and relax, the same guy to whom they been so hospitable all day.

The story continues but I’m going to stop it there as the remainder of it, while entertaining, concerns the one-upmanship and verbal confrontations that ensued as a direct result of this snub and for the purpose of this blog, I am more interested in deconstructing the behaviour of the up-and-coming pro.

Poker players are on the periphery of society and as such they share one thing. They understand what it is like to be misunderstood. They know what it feels like to be undervalued and disrespected. They’ve sat at Christmas dinner with their family and been made feel ashamed of what they do. In fact, some haven’t even left the poker closet for fear of the response by their loves ones and instead choose the difficult path of secrets and lies. Many were bullied in school, ostracised and, as a consequence, took refuge in a virtual or underground world. It’s actually a big part of the reason that many of them do what they do. The virtual world is less judgmental and playing poker gives you a way to make a living without having to leave your bedroom.

So, given this, why is it that so many of these same guys adopt the same schoolyard strategies when they have a bit of success? Why do they conform to the same elitist, hierarchical structures within the poker community that were the cause of their misery outside of it? Well, the answer is obvious and very anthropological. These guys have, through years of subjugation and societal marginalisation, put their faith in a false God. Instead of having a healthy level of positive self-regard that comes from within, their self-esteem is a measure of other people’s recognition of them. Trapped in this dynamic, they are doomed to see themselves through an unreliable mirror. Then, when they achieve some success, their low self-esteem is replaced by high self-esteem, manifesting in a need to control and dominate. They develop a narcissism that is characterised by a perception of themselves as exceptional or deserving of VIP treatment, a lack of empathy towards others and a tendency to be insincere and exploitative.

So I understand why people behave this way. It’s a pity they do as it demonstrates a very poor sense of self and an arrested development most likely the consequence of them being a victim. It would help if people like this were to live by the motto ‘It starts with me’ but it’s very hard to shake off how you’ve been conditioned to behave.

The poker sub-species may always travel in packs, hunt primarily at night and be viewed with suspicion by other sub-species. But they should try to look at how they treat each other. They should realise that their ability to assign accurate ranges, calculate pot odds and make +EV choices never made them freaks. They should also realise that it doesn’t make them special.