Three Manifestations of Ego

I’ve always been fascinated by philosophy and economics. Philosophy provides us with a structure by which to interpret human-nature, while economics puts the theories to the test. Capitalism is a great example: Adam Smith wrote that people are ultimately motivated by their own self-interest, but that such self-interest would actually benefit society as a whole. The role of ego and self-interest in shaping people and society is profound, and it permeates every aspect of life, including how humans play poker.

In 2018, The Economist Magazine published an article about how fear and greed drive human decision making in the marketplace and in poker. Both fear and greed are emotions of ego because they stem from the need to protect or enhance sense of self. Fear is a protective mechanism, and greed is an expansion of self.

Obviously, this isn’t a philosophy newsletter, so I ought to answer the question of how this applies to poker and what you should do about it. Firstly, poker is about as objective a game as they come. Even though it’s your job to take advantage of bad decisions (often driven by emotion), it is detrimental to make decisions yourself out of emotion. The cards do not care about your emotions, and neither do the outcomes.

In playing poker, I’ve observed three fundamental manifestations of ego that impact the way people play. If you can recognize these in others, you’ll be able to maximize profit by applying the correct exploits. If you recognize any of these in yourself, you can change course and patch up the leaks that poker sharks are undoubtedly taking advantage of on a daily basis.

1. Fear

2. Greed

3. Copes
   

Fear stems from the desire to protect your ego. It is a desire to prevent loss and feel bad. There’s no doubt that getting bluffed might make you feel like a fool, or a bad runout might make you feel that other players at the table think you’re a loser. Making a bad play can be embarrassing. Bluffing - and having to show your cards - can be humiliating. But why?

The simple reality is that humans didn’t evolve to understand statistics, and poker is a statistical game. Just because somebody thinks your play is bad doesn’t mean you do, and if you spend your time caring about what people think, it will literally be impossible to maximize your winrate.

Actually, that concept goes a lot deeper! Consider the fact that you can only make money when your opponents make mistakes. It follows then that to maximally take advantage of that mistake, you have to deviate massively from “correct / equilibrium” play. If someone literally calls any sized bet all the time, then it’s correct to raise-first-in “all-in” with your aces… It looks stupid, but it’s the correct exploit in this imaginary situation. Of course there are degrees of complexity and subtlety, but the correct play can often look really dumb to the masses. If you can get over this psychological hurdle, you’ll be way ahead of the curve.

Greed manifests itself in so many different ways at the poker table, sometimes in conflicting ways. One manifestation of greed is to aggressively play every pot in an effort to accumulate chips. This is a form of “winners tilt” where players feel entitled to win a pot or expect to win a pot because they’ve previously run pretty good. In reality, this kind of thinking is complete nonsense because in probability, it's a mathematical fact that past events don’t at all impact future events. On the other hand, some people win a lot of chips and then shut down. They don’t want to play any more hands because they don’t want to lose chips.

Does that last point sound like fear to you? If you think the motivation for shutting down is primarily fear and not greed, you’re in good company. Many people would think that, and maybe they’re right. But the fact that there’s such a thin line between these two emotions only underscores - if not proves - that they’re different manifestations of ego.

The last manifestation of ego is the use of coping mechanisms. Coping mechanisms are strategies that reduce difficult emotions, and those difficult emotions are almost always caused by cognitive dissonance. Here are some common phrases that indicate someone is going through cognitive dissonance:

• “Nobody runs as bad as me” - this is an example of ego because the quote implies the universe has uniquely singled somebody out to run bad.

• “I had to call” - have you ever heard somebody say this after winning a pot? I haven’t. The vast majority of the time, people say this after losing a pot in which they themselves know deep down they should have folded. Pro tip: you never “have” to do anything in poker.

All in all, if you can be self aware and monitor your own emotions and learn to identify these patterns in others, you can really become a master of yourself and be the one pulling strings at the poker table.

Summary

People are driven by emotions of ego: fear and greed. Coping mechanisms are a symptom of cognitive dissonance, which means somebody’s ego has been hurt. Generally speaking, you can exploit egotistic play by applying appropriate aggression. You can bluff fearful people more, and you can stack greedy people more when being at top of range. When you hear a phrase that makes you think “huh, this person is going through some emotions” - that’s the time to put your thinking cap on and figure out what to actually do about it.