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Poker Peer Pressure – How Other Players Impact Your Games Just by Being There

Peer pressure is a subject that gets a lot of attention in discussions regarding juvenile behavior, but it’s a powerful force for adults as well. Poker is so reliant on interaction and power that it creates an environment where peer pressure can be an especially strong factor in decision-making, particularly for newer players or for people making the switch from online play to live poker. Peer pressure has an effect on players in all types of games, but there’s a uniquely powerful effect at work in No Limit and Pot Limit games.

Whether we like to admit it or not, winning the approval of others is a powerful need for everyone. Obviously, it matters more to some and less to others, but the fact remains that this basic social drive can alter the game plan for a session in several ways. The changes can range from very subtle to blatantly obvious – but they all carry negative repercussions for your performance at the table.

We’re going to briefly suggest a few ways that peer pressure gets you off an optimal game, and offer quick suggestions for countering the natural tendencies for wanting others to like and respect us. Hopefully this article will give you a few ideas to take with you to the table in your next session and get you thinking about how much of an impact the other players can have upon you – even when they’re not your opponent in a given hand.

Peer Pressure Makes You Act Faster

Why it happens: Let’s face it, there’s something cool in the quick action – it implies decisiveness, control, and a host of other characteristics we’d like to possess. Unfortunately, it all too often results in poor decisions that don’t take all the available information into account – and that’s a trade off that just isn’t worth it. It’s not just the ‘cool’ factor that drives us to make quick decisions – there’s also the very real, tangible feeling of impatience you get from other players at the table, especially the ones who aren’t involved and just want to move on to the next hand. People don’t like to feel like they’re annoying others, and when 8 other people are waiting on you, the stares and sighs can get to be a bit much.

How to check it: Try always taking a little longer to act. This will give you a better sense of how much time is actually passing when you think, will make taking your time seem like a natural act, and will condition the other players at the table to expect you to take a few seconds before you make your move, reducing their annoyance when you take a little longer for the big decisions. People might give you some static, but both they [and you] will get used to it pretty quickly.

Peer Pressure Over-Commits You to Pre-Flop Raises

Why it happens: So much of peer pressure is about power – by going along with the group, or by doing something that wins the approval of the group, you gain power. Back down in front of the group and you open yourself up to rejection and abuse – lessons we learned a long time ago on the playground. Now think about what happens when you raise preflop and someone calls – you’ve just picked a fight. When they stand up to you by betting into you on the flop or check-raising, you now face a situation where folding makes you seem [on some levels] weak – and all the more so because you picked the fight in the first place. Think of how much easier it is to lay down a bet that didn’t follow a preflop raise to a check-raise, or how less compelled you feel to take a stab at the flop when you didn’t raise the pot. Sure, there’s a little more money in the middle when you raise preflop, but rarely enough to justify the impulsive decisions players make to ‘protect’ their preflop raise [aka their image / ego] when another player challenges them on the flop.

How to check it: If this is a small problem for you, a deep breath will probably do the trick. However, if you find yourself consistently getting burned in this spot, you need to develop a safety valve. I suggest creating a checklist of factors that have to be met before you’re allowed to call a bet / raise in a hand where you raise preflop and forcing yourself to run through that checklist before making any move. Some things that might go on the list: Do I have reason to believe my opponent is bluffing? Do I have a good chance of improving in this hand? Do I have a plan for the next card if I get called or he bets again?

Peer Pressure makes You Personalize the Conflict of the Game

Why it happens: When someone lays a beat on you or makes a great play against you [or does both at once, as is sometimes the case] in the live play, it’s a lot easier to develop a mentality of playing for revenge, largely because you can put a face to your embarrassment, pain, whatever. This makes a huge difference – as mad as you can get at an invisible opponent online, it doesn’t begin to compare how pissed you can become at the living, breathing, visible opponent often just inches away from you. The fact that the person embarrassed you in front of the group creates a loss of face from your perspective that can only be erased by getting even – an eye for an eye and all that. Obviously, making decisions based on revenge is a generally terrible way to play poker and makes you very predictable and manipulable.

How to check it: This might sound odd, but try thinking about your opponents as seat numbers and nothing else. When I play online, the first thing I do is usually to turn off the avatars simply because I find that being able to think of my opponents as actual people lets me get angrier at them. Depersonalizing opponents in live play is tough, but it’s worth the work if revenge play is a big leak in your game.

Peer Pressure Makes You Buy In For More Than You’re Comfortable With

Why it happens: This is really only relevant to No Limit cash games, and especially relevant when there is no cap on the buy-in. No mystery about why this happens – sitting with a short stack feels weak. Especially in American culture, money equals power, and sitting without money at a table full of towering stacks can make you feel weak. The problem is that playing deeper than you want to or are used to can really jack your game in ways that you won’t understand until they happen.

How to check it: Make a firm decision before you get to the casino and stick with it. Keep your buy-in money in one pocket and your re-buy money in another, or don’t pull enough out for the re-buy until you need it [although having to go to the ATM has peer pressure implications all of its own]

Peer Pressure Makes You Feel Like You Have to Give Action Early

Why it happens: When you first sit down at a table, you’re the new thing – so it feels, accurately, like people are paying more attention to you than the rest of the players at the table. There’s a sort of ‘spotlight’ mentality that kicks in – all those eyes trained on you make it feel like you need to do something to establish yourself (roughly the poker equivalent of dogs pissing to mark territory). This feeling that you’re being tested can lead to rash decisions based more on a desire to ‘prove’ yourself than sound logic and rationality. There’s no doubt something to the idea that a loose move or two early can give your opponents the wrong idea for the whole session, but even those spots can be carefully chosen.

How to check it: Walk in with a clear plan dictating how you plan to play for the first round – the more of a problem you have with stage jitters, the more rigid your plan should be. Make solid, conservative decisions about what hands you are willing to play preflop and wait until you calm down to open up your game a bit.

Postscript

No one likes to admit that other people have an influence on their actions, but like it or not, they do – you might be less open to influence than some, but I’ve never met a person who escapes it entirely. The bad news is that newer poker players are more vulnerable than most. The good news is that once you’ve come to terms with how peer pressure impacts your game, not only will you have plugged some leaks that are hurting your bottom line – you’ll also be able to spot those leaks in others and exploit them.

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