So what happens when there is fear of certain events in poker, such as flips or bluffing on the river? Throughout a poker career, one can encounter many such players. And even if they are doing well, they constantly expect to lose every flip or fail when bluffing on the river. If the situation triggers a strong fear reaction, they will simply avoid such spots altogether, even if it costs them EV.
Fear can be insidious because it prevents us from gathering accurate information. Due to the subconscious's inability to accurately record the frequency of outcomes, it often seems to us that some scenarios occur more frequently than they should or vice versa, and fear only deepens this problem. When afraid of a certain situation, thoughts will psychologically become quieter, and strong memories of failures will be etched in the mind. This will distort your perception. How will you ever figure out that bluffing on the river works 50% of the time if you are deathly afraid of it, your heart races, or you have even convinced yourself that you have lost? You must overcome fear by first considering what is actually happening at the table. So how does a player overcome fear? There is no universal answer; fear is a web that is difficult to untangle. However, there are two main aspects of fear: cognitive and emotional.
The cognitive aspect of fear arises from your beliefs. Generally, this is the easier part, but it still requires some self-analysis. If you are afraid of flips, you might understand that your main belief is that you expect to lose every time. Clearly, this is not a rational belief. So, in this case, you should try to replace it with a more rational one: “I will win about half of all my flips, so in the long run, EV will remain neutral.” If you first acknowledge that the old belief is irrational and then repeatedly remind yourself of the new one, you can effectively replace irrational thinking with rational thinking.
The emotional aspect of fear is more difficult. Usually, it is a conditioned, subconscious reaction. For example, your run might be average, but you have a constant emotional reaction to flips. You just feel an emotional jolt of fear in your gut with every flip and believe you will lose. Let's say you have already done some work on changing your cognitive belief but still feel inner fear. In this case, there are two ways to deal with it: accentuated conditioning and strategic avoidance.
Accentuated conditioning means that you simply try to push yourself in the opposite direction. If you are deathly afraid of bluffing on the river, you can move to micro limits and constantly bluff on the river there, forcing yourself to believe that your bluffs sometimes work.
We call this accentuated conditioning because, in certain cases, such as flips, you cannot directly force the conditions to change; no one can make you win many flips, but you can accentuate less clearly represented aspects. For example, if you are afraid of flips, the next time you encounter one and win, you should emphasize that win by reminding yourself: “See, I win flips. This is not an anomaly; it is normal.” Usually, such an event is mentally de-emphasized or even ignored, so by emphasizing it, your thinking will shift in a different direction. Another way to change beliefs is to review your hand database and acknowledge all the flips you have won.
Strategic avoidance is a less attractive method but still important for dealing with fear. This tactic manifests as “skirting” the fear as cleverly as possible to minimize its effects. For example, if you are afraid of flips or bluffs on the river, you can simply fold or reduce your tables every time you flip or make a bluff, so you don't have to worry about the results and can calmly focus on other hands. There are different types of fear (such as playing against a certain player or certain limits), and you can simply avoid them all. Nevertheless, this is more of a temporary aid, but it would still be wise to use it to improve your finances and completely eliminate the fear reaction.
So, as we can see, there is a whole treasure trove of techniques to help deal with fears, but much depends on each player and the nature of their fear. The main problem is that fear causes distortions of reality, and our reality as poker players is currency. And we must constantly work to eliminate our fears and bridge the gap between how things seem to us and how they actually are.
