Ego.

I talk about how my ego gets the better of me in a multitude of situations in the 25k HUNL Championship

As soon as I found poker, I immersed myself with the game. The strategy, community and relationships cultivated from a game has led me down a path I couldn’t have imagined. Once committed to the path, I’ve spent countless hours studying and playing (more play than study to be honest).

Most of you know I started with cash games and have since made a shift to becoming more MTT focused these days, but what you might not know is how much of my own self worth has been tied up with poker. My relationships with family and friends suffered on the climb to improvement. I stopped talking to people that weren’t on the same path. Everything to me was about the chase to play higher stakes, learn new mechanics, and become great.

At the time (and to my detriment now) money wasn’t important, but curating the skill set to be able to sustain was. How can I prove to myself that I can have a winrate playing x strategy over y number of hands. How can I answer questions like, “Who are you and where does your self worth come from?”

For example, If i could play 1 million hands at a win rate of 5bb/100 at 10/20 i would be able to make enough money to live comfortably (that’s 1 million dollars). I was entrenched in an “all for one” type of mentality, and that my “success” came before the needs of others that I cared about. It caused rifts in friendships where I certainly didn’t act in a way that was mutually beneficial to those who’ve helped me improve in other facets of life besides poker.

Moving up stakes was paramount to “making it” as a poker player in my eyes. If I got to the highest stakes (2knl at the time) that’s when I would know that I’ve accomplished my goal. I tied my sense of self into the game. If someone was proficient at online cash, we’d have a “working relationship” and as soon as I passed on to higher stakes, those relationships stopped being cultivated in the same way. During this period of life, the only important piece of information to me was, “how good are they at poker?” While there’s a certain hunger to climb to the top, there’s also a path of burned bridges in its wake. Life didn’t have to be that way, but it was the way that I chose under the guise of ignorance. “Oh i didn’t even realize that we stopped talking as much, let’s catch up.” Texts along these lines were ways of that being the case.

“Why is this important?” You may ask, and it’s due to realizing that there’s life outside of poker. The relationships that matter aren’t just the ones with people who know ranges or bet sizing schemes, but the ones that fill the other parts of what makes us all human.

A big factor of what makes us who we are is having a societal pressure to be accepted and belong. We’re inherently social creatures and we are where we are from collaborative efforts and tribalism. This comes into play on a small scale in poker and the main reason for why I wanted to write this in the first place.

“What does theory say? What do my friends say? What would they think about this line that I took? What would my opponent think? Would they see me differently if I missed this bet/jam/etc.”

Thoughts like this creep into my mind constantly, with one example that I’ll never forget.

In the 25k Heads Up Championship at the WSOP I played Stephen Chidwick R2. We go back and forth on taking a slight lead over the other, where it gets to the point a couple hours later into the match where we both have roughly 30 big blinds. I limp A4cc on BTN and he raised to 3.5x.

After this raise happened, I thought to myself, “I think this hand calls here but I imagine A2-4 offsuit is too weak to limp jam for 30bb in this spot, and if I end up getting to showdown on river with A4s when it’s a pure jam, he’s going to think that I’m not good at poker. If I jam here and he folds, he’ll never see the hand anyway and I won’t have to deal with that feeling.”

I lacked knowledge and confidence, so I relied on ego. With this in the back of my mind, I jammed over the raise, with a really bad feeling about the situation. He snapped with JJ and looked at my combo with a bit of a visible surprise. When I saw that, I was instantly aware that I made an error. Sometimes with gambling, you can make a winning play but not the best play. This was one of those times. Although I ended up getting lucky and spiked an Ace on the turn I won round 2 with a defeated mentality.

The root cause of the jam was purely ego rather than doing what I thought was correct at the moment from strict game mechanics. A positive about myself is that I am able to view mistakes as a certainty in life and wield a short term memory. The power of correctly adjusting in the future is more beneficial than dwelling on the past. However, some mistakes aren’t so easy to fix. Fast forward to R4 of the 25k HU Championship vs. the eventual winner Chanracy Khun.

He ends up having a roughly 2:1 Chiplead over me at this point, where he limps, and I check back Q2 offsuit with no diamond. The flop comes out Q96 with two diamonds. I check and he bets 1 big blind into 2. I call, and the turn is an offsuit Q. I check and he bets 3 big blinds into 4. I called again. River is the King of Diamonds, and I check. He jams for roughly 1.5x pot (15 big blinds). Here we are on river with the impression that a King probably doesn’t jam and the creeping thoughts in the back of my mind, “if i call with this bluff catcher and lose to a flush without having a diamond in my hand, my friends who bought action will think that I didn’t listen to the advice given to me of just be careful with tough decisions and bluff catching.” In the back of my mind I'm sitting here with three queens in the widest node in the game tree check and not very many big blinds, and the ego of “if you call and lose here, your friends will look down on you for your decision.” After a couple minutes I end up folding, making a bluff catch later and losing, and talking with him after the match.

“Yeah in that spot I had J8 with the Jack of diamonds.” He said it to me as calmly as can be, and at least 118k richer advancing to the Final Four.

“Oh nice, yeah I folded a queen without a diamond because I really wasn’t sure to be honest. Good game you played great.” I said with a smile hiding the self disappointment as much as I could.

While cashing for 75k and a T8 finish is something to be proud of, at the same time I made the exact same mistake again, however with the awareness of ego from the previous blunder against Chidwick. It’s a constant struggle with the ego about making decisions that I personally think are good paired up with the future analysis or understanding of the ones who aren’t just financially invested, but emotionally invested in my case. Additionally, making clear errors under the same guise while costing friends EV is also a tough one to deal with mentally. When I’m the one to take the brunt of the loss from a decision, I can accept the consequences of my actions much more easily than when others are.

Poker’s a tough game for many reasons. Theory, practice, exploits, decision making, and interpersonal relationships intertwined with business endeavors make it a tough field to navigate. All of this being said, I wouldn’t have it any other way. Poker’s a great way to learn about yourself and who you are. The choices taken can lead down many different paths, and maybe some decisions had to happen for growth. I’ve failed time and time again with some decisions that I’ve made, and what comes with that are the consequences. Fortunately for me I have some of the greatest people I’ve ever met in my corner who are able to pick me up when I fall. Onwards and Upwards.