Sometimes I write to share lessons I've learned – at the poker table and away from it. Other times, I write about lessons I'm still learning.
This is definitely one of those.
My wife and I are watching a show. She pauses it to go check on something, or because she's responding to a message – any reason. I ask how long she'll be, and she doesn't know. And I notice this wave of frustration – not at her (I think!) but at the situation. Because now I'm in limbo. I'm not watching the show, but I also can't go do something else, because she might be back in two minutes. If she said, "I need thirty minutes," I'd go do something productive for thirty minutes. That's efficient. But instead I'm just... sitting there. Not relaxing, not working – just stuck in between.
My wife wants to take a break from a TV show, and I'm running EV calculations on the lost minutes.
I didn't always think like this. When I was in school, I was lazy. I didn't do much of anything – but I also didn't care about what I was learning, so there wasn't much to optimize. The optimizer in me was probably always there, but it was poker that activated it. When you play poker seriously, you're trying to maximize your expected value on every single decision.
That mindset is incredibly useful at the table, but it doesn't stay at the table, at least in my experience.
I optimize my work hours – highest-leverage tasks, most efficient order. I batch things, I plan things. And when I'm not working, I want to relax efficiently too – which, I realize as I'm writing this, sounds crazy.
But that's what's happening when my wife pauses the show. My brain is saying, this isn't efficient relaxation and it isn't work, so what is it?
Sometimes I'll pull out my phone and waste the time scrolling. I don't like doing it, but it feels like the only choice. (It's not, Phil!)
The lesson I keep re-learning is that there's a lot of hidden EV in space.
Not outer space, though I'm sure there's a lot of valuable stuff out there, too. I mean pauses between the "efficient" things. When I don't reach for my phone, and I let myself sit for six minutes, patiently enjoying the nothingness, good things tend to happen.
Firstly, I notice I'm calmer and happier, but that's not a good enough reason for me and my fellow optimizers. Fortunately, there's even an argument for the efficiency of it:
A lot of my best ideas come to me when I'm not trying to come up with ideas. They just show up. Something I read three weeks ago connects with a conversation I had yesterday, and suddenly I see an angle I wouldn't have found if I'd sat down and said, okay, let's figure this out.
Sometimes, a valuable idea, or a huge realization, requires space – the kind of space that my efficiency-obsessed brain wants to fill with something "productive."
Your brain does some of its most important work when you're not asking it to do anything. Connecting things, processing experiences you didn't even know you remembered – that doesn't tend to happen while you're jumping from task to task. It happens when you're staring out a window or standing in the shower or, I don't know... waiting for your wife to come back to the couch.
Like most life lessons, this shows up at the poker table, too. You're playing your regular games, day after day. You're grinding.
But sometimes you take a little time off – either because something comes up or you just don't feel like playing – and something clicks. You realize you've been focused on the wrong things. Or you realize that you should've moved down in stakes two weeks ago. Or you come back and see a spot differently than you would have if you'd just kept grinding through it.
That small break in the routine – the one your optimizer brain is screaming is a waste – can be the thing that gives you clarity. High EV clarity, even.