Quote:
Originally Posted by JayKon
Yup. It all boils down to knowledge. Knowing the game, knowing the math, and knowing yourself. I've been saying this for years and people still want to argue it.
If by knowing yourself your including controlling yourself, okay. But that's not really how it works with people. Take the ultimate perhaps example of Stu Ungar. He certainly had great knowledge of how to win poker tournaments, and knew he was an addict, yet that didn't keep him from sacrificing his final table Main Event opportunity to binge coke, whatever year that was.
One could make the argument that psychologically speaking he didn't know why he was addicted, and therefore didn't know himself ... and that's profoundly true. But say a he was a psychologist/psychiatrist and he did understand why and how he was addicted, from his demons to the way neurotransmitters act in addiction. He, or anyone, is STILL capable of indulging the addiction compulsively and irrationally.
There are plenty of doctors who smoke, plenty of nutritionists eating junk food, plenty of pharmacists abusing drugs, plenty of psychologists emotionally unstable, plenty of cardiologists overweight ... plenty of poker players who behave against their knowledge too. Human beings are not computers, and do not execute their knowledge automatically. Expertise and self-control are two different things. And that's why the greater one's knowledge of poker, the more room there is for playing/behaving below that level of knowledge. To wit: the GOAT tourney player perhaps bingeing unconscious in his hotel room when he knows how to win it. If a GOAT is capable of that, how much more possible is it to merely play considerably below your level under the sway of emotions?
There is a breed of player whose entire approach to the game factors out this whole emotional aspect. And there are many more who don't and/or can't.
Last edited by FellaGaga-52; 02-14-2024 at 03:58 AM.
