Tommy Angelo is a poker player, writer, and coach who's been shaping the game for decades. Tommy practices and coaches painless poker, and his books, articles and videos have helped serious poker players around the world.
If you prefer your coffee with cream, and that doesn’t happen, you don’t have to be unhappy about it.
If you prefer to win with pocket aces, and that doesn’t happen, you don’t have to be unhappy about that either.
Do you believe what I just said? Do you believe that painless preferences are possible? Or do you believe that it’s your destiny to feel bad every time you don’t get what you want?
I used to take my coffee with preferences, until I realized it was ruining my life. Not the coffee. The preferences. And not just the coffee preferences. Everywhere I went, no matter what was going on, I preferred this over that, in fine detail.
By wanting things to be just so, I’d made the game of life unbeatable. I had created conditions guaranteed to result in disappointment and resentment – at the coffee shop, and the poker room…
This table sucks. The coefficient of friction is all wrong. How am I supposed to impress the dealer with my mucking skills if the cards won’t even slide right?
Nothing was too trivial to trifle over. I grumbled about lighting, sound systems, parking, you name it. A public poker room was a bitcher’s banquet, upon which my fault-finding mind feasted.
Brrr! How can it be a hundred and four degrees outside and subzero in here? They should be giving out parkas at the podium.
C’mon you guys. We all know seat five is supposed to be straight across from the dealer. He’s a full foot left of center! And seat seven is a widebody with giant elbows. And here I am, slivered into seat six. Argh! I need my space!
The cantaloupe here is always underripe, and the honeydew is always overripe. They can’t even make a decent fruit plate at this joint.
And God help me if I didn’t like the coffee.
A cloud of irritability
Was it really my right to have each and every one of my preferences met? Apparently I believed it was. Hence the tantrums, large and small, vocal and silent. I produced so much moisture from sweating the small stuff that it formed a cloud of irritability that followed me around, raining ruinous rancor onto my A-game. So much blaming… so much complaining… ugh...
And now I’m complaining about complaining. Enough!
As to the poker, I had three main preferences. To win, to play brilliantly at all times, and to be worshipped for doing so. If those conditions were not met, sadness would ensue.
Man, I play bad. How could I pay off a guy named Squeaky? I hate this stupid game.
That was a no-brainer half-pot donk bet on the turn. I missed it because I wasn’t ready. Nice choke, choker.
Okay, so I’m stuck three buyins. It’s not the end of the – F%&K I HATE LOSING! – world, I mean, it’s not like I’m not up a ton in this – ESPECIALLY AGAINST THESE CLOWNS – player pool overall.
Then I saw it. The pattern. A preference was unmet, followed by the end of smiling. This awareness changed everything. Instead of turning a blind mind to my inanities, I started calling them out.
Why is it that one minute I’m content and then suddenly I’m not? Why all the toggling? Am I destined to drift on an oarless emotional raft until I run aground? Do I have no say in these matters?
If I’m supposed to leave at midnight, but I’m stuck and steaming so I keep playing, what does that do to my chances for a cheery tomorrow?
If getting upset during poker costs me money, and if poker players upset me, then what chance do I have for optimization?
Among the great and terrible things about poker is that the rate of disappointments-and-irritations-per-hour is way higher than in real life. What better place to root out the root cause of unease?
What would it be worth, in dollars, if I could be happy with what is, instead of unhappy with what isn’t?
The answer was obvious. I’d be untiltable and therefore rich.
Eliminate the pain of unmet preferences
So, that’s where my head was at – twenty years ago. Full of tall questions and long hopes. And then this happened…
I hit bottom, like never before, and I rebounded, also like never before, this time with a new goal. Besides playing poker to earn a living, and besides playing poker to satisfy the fundamental human need to play poker, I now had a new intention. I would eliminate the pain of unmet preferences.
So far, so good! I still very much prefer to win and I don’t much like it when I don’t. But that cloud of irritability I told you about, well, it evaporated long ago, and everything is so much simpler now.
I was served cold Folgers the other day, and I actually enjoyed sipping it and swallowing it, even the tar at the bottom. And I wanted to share that peaceful easy feeling, or at least let you know it’s possible.
You can find more from Tommy Angelo at tommyangelo.com.
