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Annie Duke’s tournament at the Commerce Casino was for the benefit of the Decision Education Foundation (DEF). It never ceases to impress me how much time poker players devote to good causes. As far as I can tell, Annie and Howard Lederer and Andy Bloch spend a lot of their time – sometimes, whole weeks or even longer – traveling the world to participate in charity events. For all the time I devote to steal things from professional poker players – playing advice, juicy stories for the blog, occasional mementos – I’ll try, at least a little, to mimic this aspect of their lives.

That’s why I decided to play her Annie’s event. Besides, she invited me to be billed as one of the featured celebrities. How often does ANYONE consider me a celebrity, even ironically?

This is how it came out in the promotional materials advertising the event:

This annual charity tournament gives fans and players an evening of fun in a “home style” poker tournament with pros and celebrities, including Anthrax musician Scott Ian, Broadway actor Andrew Hill Newman, American Internet entrepreneur Jason Calacanis, film and stage actor Joshua Malina, “NUMB3RS” Kathy Najimy, “Celebrity Apprentice” star and model Brande Roderick, film/TV actor and director Joe Reitman, professional poker players Annie Duke, Dan Harrington, Rafe Furst, Howard “The Professor” Lederer, John “Johnny World” Hennigan, Adam “Roothlus” Levy, Joe Sebok, hockey pro-turned-poker-pro Greg “FTB” Mueller, MIT blackjack legend Andy Bloch, Dave “Hollywood” Stann, WSOP Commissioner Jeffrey Pollack, game show personality Ali Nejad, and author Michael Craig.

The press release announcing the success of the event – it raised over $70,000 – changed the billing of the celebrities because of who showed up and who didn’t. My billing, however, stayed the same:

Following the presentation, guests headed upstairs to the Commerce Casino ballroom for a red carpet walk, featuring such celebrities as Broadway actor Andrew Hill Newman, American Internet entrepreneur Jason Calacanis, film and stage actor Joshua Malina, “Desperate Housewives” Kathy Najimy, “Celebrity Apprentice” Brande Roderick with two-time Superbowl champion and husband Glenn E. Cadrez, Olympic Boxing gold medalist Audley Harrison, “Melrose Place” Nicholas Gonzalez, actor/producer Michael Cory Davis, world champion snowboarder Jeff Brushie, Supercross icon Jimmy Button, reality TV’s Trishelle Cannatella, film/TV actor and director Joe Reitman, Who’s Your Daddy CEO Dan Fleyshman, as well as professional poker players Duke, Lederer, Bloch, Nejad, John “Johnny World” Hennigan, Allen Cunningham, Jerry Yang, Adam “Roothlus” Levy, Joe Sebok, Dave “Hollywood” Stann, and author Michael Craig.

Still, I was very glad I went.

I didn’t know much about DEF, but I quickly became impressed with its cause. DEF is a non-profit organization devoted to school-related programs to teach decision-making skills. DEF’s mission, according to its 2007-2008 annual report “is dedicated to improving the lives of young people by empowering them with effective decision skills. To this end, DEF works with schools and youth organizations, developing classroom-ready materials and training teachers, administrators, and mentors interested in making decision education a part of their curriculum and youth-focused programs.”

This is an ideal cause for poker players. It’s not as if there is a hierarchy among Good Causes, and habitual do-gooders like Duke and Lederer and Bloch are on a seemingly endless circuit of charity functions addressing other pressing issues like genocide in Darfur, animal rights, programs for at-risk youth, and cancer. For all those other causes, however, all I can do when they call is give a little money and time. But for something like DEF, I can be the poster child.

As poker players, we actually understand the importance of decision-making. Our successes and failures are built on a foundation of developing the best way possible of making decisions. It’s not like algebra or Spanish or biology, which have nothing to do with the real world. Decision-making is what our lives are all about, and they don’t teach it in school.

In the hour before the tournament, Howard Lederer, Andy Bloch, and Annie Duke held a seminar titled “Use Poker to Learn Skills for Life.” Howard spoke first, and began with one of the wisest statements I have ever heard in connection with poker: “Poker can be very humbling. But the only way to improve is to admit you’ve been outplayed.” (This is a brilliant statement and a personal favorite of mine because I have often said the exact same thing.)

Focus on the two elements of that: “humbling” and “improve”. Who can’t say that they aren’t periodically, or even frequently, pissed off about a bad outcome in poker? If you don’t feel “humbled”, however, you may be missing the lesson. It really sucks to match skills against somebody else, to come up short, and have it be apparent to everyone involved that you were inferior. The reason most poker players don’t feel this way more than they do is because we all employ psychological tricks to make us feel better.

It is rarely unambiguously clear why we lose. Therefore, it’s easy to attribute our failures to a combination of bad luck and opponents playing poorly and somehow benefiting. Based on the way I get treated when I win a big hand online, I’d say this happens nearly 100% of the time.

Even if I’m exaggerating, it is simply not common for players to feel humbled by their losses. This is a huge mistake because, as Howard correctly recognized, the only way to learn from losing is to take some responsibility.

Complaining about bad opponents, bad beats, and bad luck is so central to poker that we take it for granted. But the more focus we place on those factors, the less likely we are to improve as poker players. Can anyone reading this honestly say they don’t want to improve, or they don’t need to improve? But you can’t there if you don’t take some responsibility for losing.

Annie Duke’s short speech brought up an interesting variant on this theme. “Poker players tend to privatize their wins and socialize their losses.” By that she meant, that too often, when poker players win, they take all the credit. It’s rare for poker players to say, “I only won because I got lucky.” And this is despite the fact that nearly all poker players recognize, at least in tournaments, that it’s impossible to win without being lucky or to win in spite of being unlucky. On the other hand, poker players tend to socialize their losses, blaming them on bad luck. We can learn so much from this.

When I say, as I frequently do, that “poker can be a really difficult business,” this is what I’m talking about. You have to deal with losing; you have to deal with frustration. You have to deal with things like bad luck. But the only way you can improve – and you must improve because your best opponents are improving and the bar is always being raised – is to bear the brunt of losing as directly and painfully as possible. You have to say to yourself, “I got outplayed. The other player was better and smarter than me.” Only after you do that can you begin asking WHY. That evaluation is how you improve.

This is why top poker players, although they usually have large egos, also have a realistic sense of their capabilities and limitations. Even for the players at the top of the heap, to get there they had to spend a lot of time losing, getting humbled, and figuring out how to improve from it.

Conversely, I think this is why most poker players are bad players and can’t improve. It’s not that they have no skills; it’s that they can’t learn when they win and they refuse to learn when they lose. Anyone who you notice telling a lot of bad-beat stories has probably topped out as a poker player.

If you want to improve, start by cutting bad-beat stories from your diet. Sometimes, your perspective is wrong. Sometimes, your reasoning is wrong. And even if bad luck was busted you, focus instead on things you can learn from your earlier play. Or if bad luck crippled you, focus on how you dealt with the adversity and played after that. If you focus your energy and emotions on things you can’t control, you can’t improve.

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2 Responses to “#925 – Friends in High Places, Part 2 – Poker Players as Students”

1. Scott Diamond Says:
   December 2nd, 2009 at 12:24 am

   It’s Ok Michael, I am not a celebrity either, however I do give my autograph to the citizens of LA County almost everyday.

2. Supa Dav Says:
   December 20th, 2009 at 2:35 pm

   What up MC? thought id drop in and say hello! take it easy…

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