I'm continuing my theories on how human's nature affects poker players in this article. You can read the first part of my speculations here: Why is it Still Possible to Win?
There are all kinds of tracking softwares in today's online poker games. You can even see player stats online by subscribing to sites that gather results together. Some of these results give clear indications of who are losing and who are winning poker players. It's a great way for a winning player to keep track of losing players, but on the other hand, wouldn't it be sensible for a clearly losing player to just quit poker if the results clearly indicate his failure of doing better? Yes it would. This kind of decision would also save losing players a lot of money. The world is not black and white, though, and while some definitely do quit, so many keep on playing.
Nobody wants to admit being a loser in a skill game.
You'll see bad chess players quitting the game because they meet their match. They realize it's a pure skill game and maybe they're not so good at it. OK, nothing crazy here. Their opponents are better and it's frustrating, yes, but because they realize getting beaten up by pure skill, it's easier to move on. There are no extra questions about it, they are worse players.
Poker is (fortunately) a skill game mixed with sometimes heavy influence of luck. Getting lucky occurs daily, as well as getting unlucky. While some players don't like the luck factor (like Phil Hellmuth; "if there was no luck involved, I'd beat everyone"), I think it's a crucial reason for poker's popularity, and the amount of losing players. It's so easy to not blame yourself for poor results, maybe even live in some sort of self-pity and finally blame luck for everything you've ever lost. Then coming back to poker games and think "I'll be a winner here if the bad luck doesn't hit me again".
Some quit forever, thinking "this is such a stupid game" while some are stubborn enough to get into a never ending cycle of winning a bit, losing, blaming luck and losing again. Human's mind doesn't want to give up, and since parents teach their kids to "never give up" - well, they won't. People who get stuck in playing, they've seen how some can actually win a lot of money and can't get out of thinking "if he can win, why not me?".
Another quality of a human... not understanding the possibility of someone simply having better qualities for different stuff. Some people simply are naturally gifted for something - while some are naturally NOT gifted. While poker is definitely a game where you need loads of hard work to get good at, having natural qualities plays such a major part in it. It's brutal... and sad, really, but so true. The catch is that a player who doesn't have the qualities for winning poker is usually incapable of making that particular judgement.
Poker is a simple game to learn. Not being a winner at something so simple is very frustrating, and some players just can't take it. "Next time I'll play good hands only", then you find yourself reraising with QQ out of position and the flop is A32, you go all-in and someone wins the pot with AJ and you're so "unlucky" again. Newsflash, only learning poker rules is simple. Other than that, winning is a complex and not for everyone.
The inability of self-judgement is why bad poker players keep losing. It's not a necessary quality for a winning player since you just have to keep doing whatever it is that you're doing to make you win. It's also much harder for losers, because by definition, they are *losers*.
And obviously it's much harder to give up doing something you like rather than just keep doing it. Losers are in a somewhat unfair situations when being compared to natural winners at poker, but that's just how it is. Losers bring the winners money, until winners become losers against bigger winners and so on. Money moves up in poker pyramid.
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