What You Should Do: Finding the Hidden EV

A few months ago, I was working with a student – let's call him Sam – trying to map out his poker career. As we talked through his goals, I noticed something: two of the things he wanted seemed to be at odds with each other.

So I asked him: which was more important to him? Being the best player he could be – figuring out what he’s truly capable of – or making sure he made a certain amount of money from the game and reached ‘financial freedom’?

The Struggle

I wouldn’t have asked this if there were a clear answer. Sam very much wanted both of these. And to be clear, the path to one will usually help out with the other. But poker players (myself included) tend to be optimizers, and I needed to know what we were optimizing for.

Sam wrestled with this for over a month. We discussed it several times. He did a lot of self-reflection.

Sam grew up in an environment where the kind of money he was making from poker now was unheard of. As a result, he had a deep respect for the money, and he would never take the earning potential he had for granted.

The internal struggle, as I sensed it, was a battle between his competitive drive and passion and this respect for money – the regret he’d feel if he “passed up” the opportunity to make the most of this amazing opportunity.

Eventually, he came back with an answer: "You know, I do want to be the best. But I also don't know how long I’ll have this opportunity and I want to make the most of it. I've decided to focus on maximizing income."

Great! We had a path.

Wrong Path, Right Answer

We set out on a path to maximize his earnings.

What did this look like? In his case, we decided it meant focusing on softer games, more grinding, less study. Spending some time on setting him up financially outside of the game, too.

For others, the path would be different, even with the same goal in mind.

A couple of months went by, and all was going according to plan.

Then Sam came back: "I've been going down this path, and… it's become clear to me that I actually do care more about being the best."

We’d spent around two months planning, another two months going down the path, and now he wanted to reverse course.

Some people might see that as a waste of time.

I was thrilled.

We started with very little clarity, and Sam making a really tough decision, with a lot of uncertainty, about an important goal. (If you’ve read enough of these, you may know that I view having clear long-term targets as extremely valuable. Yes – clear and defined and written – not living somewhere vaguely in your head)

Now, after only a few months (nothing when we’re talking about a 5-year or 10-year plan), we had clarity about where he wanted to go. True clarity can be elusive. This was a huge win.

Clarity from Movement

You can theorize forever, bounce ideas back and forth, and convince yourself you’ve thought of everything, but there is a difference between theory and practice (which we’ll talk about next week, but directly at the poker table!).

Sam is extremely thoughtful and self-reflective – he wasn't avoiding the question or lying to himself. But he still didn't know. Sometimes you don't know until you try.

And, in most cases, you can simply change course after trying something, just like Sam did.

We didn't intend for this to be a test – I tried to guide him towards deciding what he really wanted and heading that way.

But for Sam, that's what it took – action – to realize what was more important to him. He wanted to see just how high he could climb. That's what excited and drove him most.

He'd felt like he should pursue the money – it was a powerful “should” for him given his background. In this case, that stood in the way of him accepting the “want to” path.

From Need to Love

A mentor of mine often refers to a spectrum around the way we view the things we do.

On the left side are things like "need to" and "have to."

On the right, we have things like "want to," "get to," and "love to."

The further right you move, the more energy there is behind what you do.

I've learned over the years – through my own work and through coaching others – that paying attention to energy matters a lot.

Certain things give you energy. Others drain it. The more you optimize for what gives you energy, the better your performance tends to be. When we look at our EV in one game vs. another, or in one career vs. another, or even the effectiveness of one way of studying vs. another… we often assume equal performance.

But that’s rarely our reality.

When you spend more time engaged with the people, places, and things (nouns!) that energize you, and less time with the nouns that drain your energy, you will have… more energy!

So the path that looks higher EV on paper can very easily be outmatched by the “lower EV” path if that second path creates more energy, passion and focus.

What ends up happening is you pursue a path that's "lower EV" on paper, but you bring more energy, passion, and focus to it – and that makes it higher EV in real life.

An EV calculation can come up short if it doesn’t account for hidden EV – Energy Value. If you pick the path that looks smarter but drains you, you'll pursue it with ever-decreasing energy. It will compound over time. Your focus and enthusiasm fade. You bring a diminished version of yourself to the table.

Ask anyone who’s worked closely with me, in any of the businesses or projects I’ve run, and they can tell you the stark contrast between when something is my passion — a ‘love to’ — and when it turns into an obligation — a ‘have to.’ And I don’t just mean the parts of the job – my passion shifts over time (namely, when I find or revisit another passion that consumes my focus).

I started off writing these newsletters because I wanted to. Yes, there was a little bit of “should” in there, but I love to teach and I love to write. I was excited about it.

In time, the weekly cadence wore on me. I was writing not because I wanted to, but because I had to. I had a deadline. And it was neverending – spend hours completing one email, celebrate for a moment, then “oh yeah – I have to do it again now.”

I had a few emails that, while still useful, I’m less proud of, and it’s because they came during that low-energy time. So, lately, I haven’t been writing as much. I’ve waited for wanting to.

I won’t bore you with the details, but I have shifted some priorities in my work lately, and I expect to be writing to you more often. Maybe not every single week, but I don’t know… maybe I will.

Obsession + Love = Energy

This reminds me of this past summer. We ran the BTG Summer Summit in May, during which I hosted a panel with three poker legends: Brian Rast, Jeremy Ausmus, and Scott Seiver.

We took questions from the audience, and while there was a lot of interesting conversation and wisdom shared, exactly one thing stood out to me the most. It was realizing that all four of us had a deep love and obsession with the game of poker, and all four of us agreed that’s what it takes to get to the top.

Poker was never a “have to” for me. And I expect they’d say the same.

This obsession and this love created energy. And that energy fueled the work, the study, and the resilience that led to long-term success.

If you are mostly grinding through pain to get there, I don’t think reaching an elite level of play is realistic.

Follow the Energy

One of the cool things about working with people one-on-one and in groups is that I'm getting a much larger sample size and really understanding what works and what doesn't work for people on average.

Before, I was thoughtful about these things, but I only had myself as the sample size. This energy and passion thing – it's something I always observed in myself, but it's become a lot more clear to me as I've seen it in so many others and been taught the same by mentors in and outside of the game.

This doesn’t mean you should let your ‘want to’ win out over your ‘shoulds’ across the board. I want to eat an entire large pizza every night, and I want to spend days at a time ignoring my responsibilities – those sound more fun than my usual routine. I’m not saying go do whatever you feel like doing at all times. I don’t think that would go well.

But I am saying to be mindful of your energy. To reflect on your current day-to-day life and take note of the things that deplete you and energize you. And to build your life – as much as you reasonably can – around the people, places and things that increase your energy, avoiding the opposite whenever feasible.

And when you’re not sure about a path to go down, which habits to incorporate, who to study with, what club to join, or which project to launch: consider flipping a coin and giving something a try.

You might be surprised how much a little bit of movement can teach you.