Poker and Happiness

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So I decided to make a poker article about happiness. It might not seem like an appropriate subject, but if you think about it everything you do in poker in the end is really just to increase your level of happiness. Whether you say you're  in it for the money, the fun of it, the challenge, or whatever other reason in the end its really all about trying to get happy . Even if you says it's 100% for the money, why do you think you want money? Because it's awesome that's why! You want it because you think of all the things money gets you like freedom, respect, and cool sneakers. And you feel like those things will make you happy, if you didn't feel that way you wouldn't covet it so much. 

The thing is, playing just for success and money isn't exactly a recipe for happiness . You get a certain amount of success/money and your happier for a little while and then you inevitably want more.  So, in my opinion, playing for just these two reasons is not good on its own. Some might say "well I don't care about that happiness nonsense all I care about is making bank SON! ".  The problem with this is studies show that people who are happy/positive and enjoy what they do greatly outperform others. Watch this Ted Talk called " The Happiness Advantage". It will help explain what I mean.

So what this says is (assuming you watched it, agree with the above already or blindly took my word for it << bad idea) that even if your just in it for the money ENJOYING THE GAME YOU PLAY IS VITAL TO YOUR SUCCESS! So I think it's pretty important to talk about how to maximize your happiness while playing, whatever your motives are. So how do we  enjoy this fucking ridiculous, frustrating , mind raping game we play? The fuck if I know , but I'll try and give you a few pointers. The problem is that achieving happiness isn't going to be the same for everyone and the solutions to problems in poker and in life are often variable even for the same person. So just like in a poker hand I can't say always do X in Y situation because it's so dynamic and I couldn't possibly go over all the variables. Also I really don't know shit about happiness .

EXPERIENCE VS MEMORY

A big problem with poker players is the battle of experience vs. memory. Watch this Ted Talk by Daniel Kahneman. In this talk he talks about two selves, the experiencing self and the remembering self, and how it relates to happiness. The experiencing self is how you feel in the present moment. Your sense of well being, happiness, and all that crap. The remembering self is how you remember events that happened in the past  and how you feel when you think about them. There can be a huge gap in the happiness of the experiencing self and the remembering self. For example say you played a poker tournament or watched a movie and all through the tournament or the movie you were having a good time/enjoying it but the last 5 minutes felt awful. So you leave the movie or the MTT feeling like the ending ruined it. You might say "the ending ruined the whole movie" and by "it ruined the whole movie" what you really mean is the experience of watching the movie. And when you think about the MTT you effectively feel the same way. But it didn't ruin the  experience it just ruined the memory of the experience. This is an inherent problem in almost all of us, we put way too much emphasis on the ending of the story or experience and  devalue/forget about the time before that.  In these two scenarios all the time you enjoyed before then now counts for nothing because that's how you are going to remember it. I really hope you watch the video because he explains it much better than I can.

When playing poker this can be very problematic. If you only think about whether you won or lost at the end be prepared to have a miserable career unless your shaundeeb or mement_mori and win what seems like every day. So what I think is important for all of us to do is to be cognizant of this and try to enjoy ourselves not just in poker, but in life too .  So many experiences in our lives get ruined, tarnished or forgotten because of the way we think about our experiences . Life isn't all about whether you win or lose and even if you think it is, thinking about your experiences when playing poker in a more positive light will lead to more success. If you still don't agree with me take this example, you have a chance to stake either player A or player B , they both have the same exact skill level but A is generally happy/positive person and B is a miserable prick. Who would you choose?

HOW TO ENJOY THE GAME YOU PLAY FOR A LIVING

To remember our good experiences we need to first have good experiences to remember, which isn't always easy to do. Poker can be so boring and monotonous especially if you live in the US and are forced to play live. There are a few things you can do to make the game more enjoyable whether you play online or live.

 1)  Start a conversation with someone sitting next to you. Meeting new people is something most people enjoy and can make playing a lot more bearable. Unfortunately a lot of the time you will be seated next to tourists/randoms who want to talk poker and explain to you that AK sucks because it doesn't even beat 2's and throw around cliches like there aphorisms.  Also, sometimes talking at the table can be  bad if it means you're not going to be paying any attention to the action at the table.

2) Don't autopilot. Playing without really thinking or trying is akin to factory workers in an assembly line doing the same thing over and over again every single day. Pay attention try to engage your mind and make it interesting even when you're not in a hand . I'm not telling you this so you get reads and play better I'm telling you this because doing something that engages your mind is going to be a lot more interesting and make you feel better than just playing with your iPhone and folding for hours on end without ever making decisions . This can be extremely hard to do when playing small live tourneys. If you just can't muster any motivation to concentrate and if actually paying attention to the table and what people are saying at it just tilts you  your better off not going this route. Also if your mass multitabling online you have to autopilot a good amount so it doesn't really apply to you. Which brings me to my next point.

3) Play less tables. If you hate playing poker at the moment, and are playing a ton of tables and aren't seeing any results, then it might be a good idea to play less tables. When you're playing less tables your able to do the stuff above which can make the game more interesting/pleasurable.

4) Don't play when you're in a bad mood and feeling negative. Playing when you're already in a bad mood perpetuates the negative feelings you have towards poker and makes it more likely when you get ready to play or think about playing next time that you will have those same feelings again or  maybe you will feel even worse about playing. Not to mention that its harder to win when you have these negative feelings . If abiding by this rule basically means that you're never going to play then maybe you should tough it out and play sometimes until you figure out the reason you don't feel like playing and try to fix it.

5) Get over losses ASAP. This is hard and what you should do varies for everyone. Some would prefer to meditate, some prefer hanging out with friends , some like to watch a movie or read a book . Basically do anything to get your mind off it ASAP. Complaining about bad luck and being mad at yourself for your mistakes just makes things worse. Go over your play later on when you can be more objective/positive. 

6) Motivation. Do whatever you can to motivate yourself before you play. Whether it's a song that inspires you, a motivational speaker, a quote , or a picture. Here is a link to a 7000 reply thread just with motivational quotes, pictures and videos. You need to make an account to view it though.

7) Have a balanced life. It's hard to be positive when playing poker if your miserable and depressed about your life. There is plenty of shit about how to live your life on the net. I'm not going to bother to give you advice on that. 

8) Win.

That's basically it. I hope you enjoyed the article and found it useful. Good luck!