Do You Have the Killer Instinct?

[shipitfish]

nick_marden has given me two conflicting comments in the last few months. A few weeks ago, he told me that someday, I'm probably going to end up getting the bulk of my financial income from poker. More recently, after watching the Boston crew play in Las Vegas, he mentioned that I don't have the "killer instinct" necessary to make a living playing poker.

My immediate answer to was that I was happy with it either way. I love poker, and if someday, five to ten years from now, I decide to not work a regular job because poker dividends are enough to live on, I would say that's just great. However, if it turns out to be true that you need that "killer instinct" -- to be a true predator -- to make a living at poker, I'm sure that I don't want to be that person.

I think Nick's thoughts on this were influenced by the way he saw some of the most talented players from Greg's game playing in Vegas. He saw one bright young player happily looking, every single hand, at a sight-challenged man's cards, as he lifted them up to see. He saw yet another bright young player order beers for a drunk "fish" when the house had cut him off from alcohol. In other words, he watched as our little group proceed to fleece the Vegas games without mercy nor empathy.

I am sure at least half of those guys will become pros, and have long, profitable cash game careers. But, do you have to be that type of person to really win? I have read a lot from the top players, and some do argue that the "killer instinct" -- the true heart of a darkness -- is mandatory to be a professional.

I just don't think so myself. There are some truly kind and caring people in the poker world. People who have good hearts, who love and are loved, and who even talk with some regret about the sucker they broke twenty years before.

There is no doubt that people with the killer instinct are successful. Around the business world, tons of them have made billions. In the computer world, Bill Gates, Steve Ballmer and Steve Jobs, for example, come to mind as true killers who have shown no mercy and mistreated themselves and others as they raked it in. To be on the list of the wealthiest people in the world, perhaps mercy and empathy are risky liabilities.

But, I've also seen some very shrewd and successful business people who didn't conduct their affairs as predators. They have been good people, who connected and understood others, and became successful through those qualities rather than cult of personality and the force of an unbending, spiteful will.

Indeed, I am quite sure I wouldn't be a very good poker player without the empathy skills I've spend a lot of personal time developing. When I am playing my best game, I'm in tune with the other people at the table. I understand deeply why they want to be at the table, what their motivations are, and how their feelings and moods are guiding them. I view poker as a contrived social setting where I attempt to connect and truly understand people ... for fun and profit. Like most things in life, there's a bit of a sense to which I'm preying on that understanding of them, but it doesn't have to be pure evil nor pure good to be acceptable and enjoyable. I don't think I need to want to eat them alive to win.

Maybe I'm wrong. Perhaps a sensitive and caring person can't, in the end, be all that successful at poker. What do you think? Is the killer instinct mandatory to win, or is it just one of many paths to successful poker play?

[Poll #533223]

Comments

The excellence instinct

[shipitfish.livejournal.com]

I believe the "inform them you can see their cards once" rule is mandatory, particularly if someone is elderly or sight-impaired. I have taken advantage of card-exposure once a warning has been issued.

As for ethical questions of telling people, I think it's mandatory as well. Twice I've grabbed someone away from the poker table and said, in true .*Anonymous fashion: "I believe you have a gambling problem. Always remember that I told you this. You should get some help." I am only inclined to do this when I have witnessed multiple occasions where the gambling problem is clear.

I would not go so far to say that "whatever is within the rules". Bob Ciaffone can't write down a sentence to cover every possible situation. There has to be some sense of what's beyond reason and decency.

I would not, for example, live life saying: "I'll do anything that isn't explicitly illegal." There are lots of swindles and exploitations that can't easily be legislated against, but are still ethically wrong all the same.

I guess I would say that my poker "instinct" would best be called the "excellence instinct". I always try to do the best job possible at anything I do in a fashion that is ethical beyond reproach. That's my approach to poker as well.