Controlling your ego

Marcus Bateman / Marcus Bateman / 16 December 2008 / Leave a Comment

Ego has bust more players than any other single factor - except perhaps bad tilt (which is very closely linked to ego anyway).

The inability to swallow your pride, quit games you have no edge in, drop down stakes, or stop playing in all the big buy in tournaments on the live circuit/web has decimated many a bankroll.

The simple fact is that poker is a game where you regularly have to acknowledge that you are not the best in a given situation and not play. The best example of this is just playing heads up poker. When playing heads up, it is usually pretty obvious who is the better player within just a hundred hands or so. In these spots good heads up players will stick on any player that they can observe a weakness in, but quit as soon as the see that the player is good. This is because there is no real point in two players who are skilled playing each other in these spots - there are simply too many fish out there to bother playing a tough heads up match.

This is equally as true with bankroll management. Good players just drop down during runs where they are losing large amounts of money. Be it that a few leaks have developed in their game, getting the rough end of variance, or a bit of both (which is what it usually is), good players know all to well that the best place to fix these things is not playing in the high stakes games.

If you let your ego take over, and refuse to drop down in stakes, you will lose everything 99% of the time. In poker you simply cannot fight the fact that mathematics dictates that you need to only ever play with a relatively small percentage of your bankroll - if you don't stick to it you will lose all your money.

One of the most infuriating things that can happen to a player at the table is see a good player lose a couple of buy ins, look like they are about to tilt and spew chips in every direction, and who then just stands up and leaves.

This is the signature of all the truly greatest players in my opinion, and is a sign that they have an ability to basically fully control themselves - even in the face of large losses. By stopping your ego from getting in the way you will instantly save a huge amount of money.

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