Ego in our society can be a very dirty word. It is obvious that ego drives many poker players forward. However, there is a widespread belief that being driven by ego is bad – this probably happened due to the concepts of ego imposed during adolescence or even the manifestation of immorality.
The truth is that many of the great men and women known from history were motivated by ego. Of course, not only ego. But the desire for greatness and self-realization is the oldest and most powerful means of human motivation. Poker players are no exception. Money does not motivate as strongly as challenges or the exciting process of self-realization. I do not want to convert you to the benefit of ego or convince you that being selfish is “good.” My opinion is simply that ego gives a great boost to players who put a lot of work and energy into improving their game. We should recognize the power of ego so that we can not only harness it but also use its strength at the right moment.
Almost all the best players were motivated by ego, not money, at least in the beginning. I have long wondered why this is so. Most poker players who start playing at low limits have the goal of making a lot of money to live a wide and luxurious life. But only a few achieve their goal. Why? What is the role of ego in this situation that its motivation is long-term?
It is probably because, in reality, making money in poker is not that easy. This may sound contradictory because there is a chance that you too have succumbed to the belief that poker is a great way to make a lot of money, maybe you have already made some. The truth is that in the long run, most players do not make money at all. Not only do they not make money, but they also waste their entire bankroll one, two, or many times before becoming successful. Poker is not easy. And if money were the only thing that motivated you, there would be many situations where you would question your choice.
But maybe there is something else. Why don't we see the best players emerging from poverty? Why don't such players come from the slums of Brazil, China, or India? Why, among millions of people who desperately need money, among whom there are certainly many intelligent, hard-working, resilient people, is there not a single famous poker player?
One could argue that this is due to the online poker culture, which is not widespread in those areas, but the same trends are observed in our world. Online poker players do not rise from the lower classes, and most of them are independent adults. It is ego that motivates them, drives them forward, not money or fame. Ego has its role in our lives. In the context of poker, ego is the feeling that we are better than other players. By nature, we want to be better than other poker players. In psychology, this is known as horizontal perception, not vertical.
If you think about skills horizontally, you evaluate your skills relative to other people in your environment. If you think about your skills vertically, you think about how you have improved by comparing yourself today and yesterday, today and last month (essentially, men value skills more horizontally, women – vertically). In a sport like sprinting, it is quite easy to notice your skills vertically. You simply measure your personal best times and try to improve them. However, poker often forces us to think more horizontally.
What is your win rate, how strictly do you select the game, which opponents do you isolate, even what you choose to learn – all this skill set is relatively related to your opponents. The one who successfully handles one situation against certain players may not handle the same situation as successfully against others. And the same skill level may be significantly less valuable after six months. So, continuing, we cannot escape the fact that we have to look at our skills horizontally because that is the structure of poker.
And it starts to seem that ego is inseparable from poker. We have also discussed that it is a strong and constant motivator. So where is the problem? What is the dark side of ego?
