[DbPhoenix]

RULE#17: Develop a true indifference to the game. George Leonard writes in Mastery that mastery's true face is often "relaxed and serene, sometimes faintly smiling." You sometimes see this with good poker players - a kind of smiling, ironic indifference to the vicissitudes of fate and the outcome of hands.

1. Under emotional distress, people shift toward favoring high-risk, high payoff options, even if these are objectively poor choices. This appears based on a failure to think things through.

2. When self-esteem is threatened, people become upset and lose their capacity to regulate themselves. In particular, people who hold a high opinion of themselves often get quite upset in response to a blow to pride, and the rush to prove something great about themselves overrides their normal rational way of dealing with life.

3. Self-regulation is required for many forms of self-interest behavior. When self-regulation fails, people may become self-defeating in various ways, such as taking immediate pleasures instead of delayed rewards. Self-regulation appears to depend on limited resources that operate like strength or energy, and so people can only regulate themselves to a limited extent.

4. Making choices and decisions depletes this same resource. Once the resource is depleted, such as after making a series of important decisions, the self becomes tired and depleted, and its subsequent decisions may well be costly or foolish. (Baumeister)