Lessons from Losing

Tonight I feel like Kevin from The Office.

No, I didn't flunk an IQ test. No buckets of chili were spilled. I'm talking Casino Night Kevin.

You might remember the scene. A charity event in the warehouse. The whole Office looking fancy for some drinking and gambling. No one more excited than big-ol' Kevin, rocking his shimmering gold bracelet. Remember, he won the 2002 No-Limit $2,500 Deuce-to-Seven Draw at the World Series of Poker in Vegas. So...yeah. He's pretty good at poker.

The same scene unfolded tonight among family: I got a poker set for Christmas. My family doesn't play poker. I do. No gold bracelets on my wrist, but I did play poker every day for a week recently. Meanwhile, my mom and sister don't even know the rules. So...yeah. I'm pretty good at poker.

That's how I felt tonight while teaching the basics. Straights beat pairs, but flushes beat straights. It's easy, you'll learn as we go. Dealing the first hand, I surveyed my prey. I couldn't wait to stack up my chips and end their nights early.

First hand. Lost. Second hand. Lost. Third hand. Fold. Slow start to the night. Fine. We're just getting going. My cards will come.

Fourth hand. Fold. Fifth hand. Outbluffed by my Dad. Ok, that one stings. Too many losses to brush away. My ego's a tire with a slow leak. Still sturdy, but air pressure moving in the wrong direction.

Ten hands in. Still no wins. But finally, like a slurpee in the desert, here's my ace-seven two pair. I play slow at first, dial up my bets each round, and shove a pile of chips to the center after the final card. Only my mom is left. My sweet mother, bless her heart. She's had a lucky start, but it's time for her lesson in poker hard knocks. With my monster raise, she'll probably fold. Either way, my ace-high two pair has me covered.

How many chips did you bet, Will? 36? Sure, I've got that many. Why not! Out go her chips. My heart leaps with excitement. The pot size just doubled. This win should launch me into first place.

You ready for your lesson Mom? Let's flip our cards. Three, two, one...I triumphantly slap down my ace-seven two-pair. She can only match the ace. My ego floods with a double-swirl of relief and pride. I start scooping my chips.

Wait a second! my sister cries out. Mom, you have a 10! That's a 10! I can't believe it. Neither can she. Hiding in her hand was an ace-ten two-pair, enough to trump my ace-seven. Without her glasses she saw the ten as a nine. Wow, that is a ten! How cool! The tire collapses. Air gushes out. My poker player pride dissolves into the sky. Mom owns biggest pot of the night, while I'm down to single digits.

Suddenly I'm Kevin Malone on Casino Night, getting worked by a newbie. Look at all the clovers.

We play on. I bottom out twice and get dealt back in. With each loss, my ego stings worse. As the night began, I identified with being a skilled poker player. I planned to massage my ego with a mountain of chips. Instead I'm negative, while my mom and sister crack jokes about making change with their towers of singles. My mind twists stories to explain away the failure: Bad timing. Worse cards. Good fundamentals with rotten luck.

Incredibly, I bottom out yet again. Time to embrace my fate. No story can save me: tonight is a capital-L Loss. I refuse another charity round and offer to deal full-time. And suddenly, I feel better. Way better. I watch the hands unfold, free from whims of fate on plastic rectangles. Instead of feeling burning frustration toward my opponents, I feel love for my family members as I help them deal. My ego melts. I lost, and I'm...happy? What happened?

Some lessons here:

Accepting my loss dulled the sting. As my poker night collapsed, my frustration grew. The more I resisted my failure, the more my ego squirmed for excuses and justifications. As soon as I accepted my results, my ego vanished. Acknowledging defeat without resistance felt downright pleasant. I'm reminded of a Mark Manson line: "The desire for more positive experience is a negative experience. And, paradoxically, the acceptance of one's negative experience is a positive experience."

This doesn't mean don't compete, or let others win. We will play poker again tomorrow night, and I won't go easy. I'll be fiercely competitive. But I'll be competitive without neediness. I won't need to win to enjoy myself. I will give my best, control what I can control, cherish the competition, and see where things finish. My pride won't be tangled up in some straight draw.

Don't overly identify with any activity. Did I pull some bad cards tonight? Sure. Did I also play some bad poker? Definitely. Poker is a mix of luck and skill. But any semi-pro player would have owned the room with my same cards. I'm no expert. I played poker a bit in college and then zilch til earlier this month. But the way my ego felt tonight, you'd think I'd been playing for decades. I linked my self worth with my poker hands, needlessly.

Here I'm reminded of Timothy Galleway's classic book The Inner Game of Tennis. He urges new players to approach their tennis game how they'd teach an infant child to walk. Galleway explains:

"A child's progress in learning to walk is never hindered by the idea that he is uncoordinated. Why shouldn't a beginning player treat his backhand as a loving mother would her child? The trick is to not identify with the backhand. If you view an erratic backhand as a reflection of who you are, you will be upset. But you are not your backhand any more than a parent is his child. Remember that you are not your tennis game."

Wise words. You are not your poker game. (Or any other result you overly identify with.)

Don't get too high, either. A few weeks ago I hit a hot streak. Playing Hold-'Em one-on-one with a friend, I won nine out of ten hands. This felt good. Really good. I saw myself as a natural born card shark, brimming with talent. Tonight zapped this image completely.

In a sense, I'm thankful for my colossal loss. If I had owned the room tonight, my self-pride would've swelled back up. Head would've hit pillow re-convinced of my poker greatness. It's funny how we're skilled when we win, and unlucky when we lose.

Instead, some bad bets and bleh cards brought a dollop of humility. There will be future days when I run the table. But after tonight, I'll be quicker to notice the luck that helped me get there.

As Casino Night ends, Kevin has lost all his chips to Phyllis. "I suck," he mumbles into the camera.

No Kevin. You don't suck. You'll win again, soon. In the meantime, disentangle your results from your pride. Say it with me, Kevin: you are not your bad beat. Or your chili spill.