What are our values? By ethical standards, we value moral equality. In cooking, we value taste. And in poker, we should value money most of all, because it is the only reason we try to optimise our game. But do we value it?
It has long been believed that poker players should be emotionless, unemotional and concerned only with money. In fact, even if it is not so obvious, players care about much more than that. We touched on this a little when we talked about tilt. Poker players tend to make financially unfavourable decisions often.
Let's consider some of the ideas they choose instead of money: reducing variation, reducing anxiety (by playing tighter), wanting to have fun, trying to avoid boredom, catching a thrill, satisfying the ego, feeling that you are better than your competitors, feeling that you are cool, feeling that you are part of a community, being competitive, venting your anger, getting a good night's sleep, having a balanced lifestyle, feeling that you are improving, and the list could go on and on.
As poker players, we make such compromises quite regularly. While you probably never thought of them as such very strongly, here's what they really are. You should spot these traitors trying to destroy your rationality. You should think of these choices as indicators of your values.
If you choose to finish a profitable match just because you find it boring, or if you choose to play more aggressively for fun, or if you choose to play 8 hours straight to get a draw, you should not think of these choices as merely irrational in the face of your choice to "make the most pings". In fact, these choices mean that your values are completely different and you trade them for $ EV. You may not choose those values rationally, but that's another matter.
You may find that when you have a session in which you are aiming for a draw, you are not really looking at the draw itself, you are looking for a draw at that moment. And it is not the same. This is an important observation - not all values are equal to each other. It is clear as day that we value money very differently from the way we value the parity we achieve. This difference is known as the distribution of desires in a particular order.
First-order desires are the ones you want at any given moment. And the things you want to want or the values you want to cherish are second-order desires. For example, if you are trying to quit smoking, then the first-order desire will be to smoke a cigarette immediately to make the craving go away, and the second-order desire will be to not want that cigarette. So you are trying to push yourself to eventually stop wanting to smoke the cigarette, to replace your first-order desire. There will almost always be a lot of conflict between the first and the second desires.
Needless to say, you should try to bring your current self closer to your ideal self. But problems arise when a poker player mistakenly believes that making money is the only second-order desire. He starts to think that money is the only thing to want. But money in itself is not very significant. Money is valuable insofar as it leads to happiness. Happiness should be a second-order desire, and money, as a means, is necessary in so far as it can provide that happiness. But happiness is also defined in other ways, such as being able to play fun matches, avoiding boring sessions, getting a good night's sleep or taking care of your body, reducing variation and stress, or maybe even challenging yourself by choosing a difficult opponent. Often we choose happiness over profit in many ways. And that is okay. Of course, there are emotions that we should want to avoid, but to deny all emotional life to a poker player is a big mistake. Poker has a place in your life. You don't have to want to become an emotionless robot - that's not even possible. Denying your emotions won't make you happy, and isn't that what it's all about?
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