Q for John Feeney

Hi John -


I am a relatively new player and am thoroughly enjoying your book. I can feel it improving my play already, making it easily worth the purchase price.


My question is whether, as a psychotherapist, you have worked at all with personality types. It's a given you're familiar with the Meyers-Briggs system, but do you/have you worked with the Enneagram (a richer, much deeper system, in my opinion)? If so, how, if at all, do you translate into application that knowledge at the poker table? I'm curious because I've done extensive training in this area and perhaps could use my knowledge as a tool at the table and would welcome your insight.


Thanks. 99.

Hi 99,


This is actually the first I've heard of the Enneagram. A few years back, when I was last involved in clinical psychology, I had never heard mention of it. With regard to broad personality traits, what was, and I'm sure still is, very widely used clinically was the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI). Also there is a fairly widely used test called the Millon Clinical Multiaxial Inventory (MCMI), based on the work of Theodore Millon. In my experience, Myers-Briggs was less commonly used than these two, though my memory may be off on that. The tests that do have the acceptance of psychological testing experts as a whole tend to have fairly well established "validity" and "reliability" - which are measured statistically. The Enneagram may fall into that category, but I simply know nothing about it.


Anyway, to tell you the truth I never felt an awareness of personality types and their behavioral manifestations was of too much use in poker. For example, say you have a player who lacks impulse control and so is likely to tilt. Can a savvy opponent who can expertly assess personality traits/types recognize and use this somehow? I think the problem is that you'll likely see the guy tilt repeatedly at the table before you ever become familiar with his personality style to make the link. (In fact, his tilt will be one of the indicators of a possible impulse problem.) That is, in poker, all you have to deal with are your opponents' playing tendencies. You can pick up on these just by watching. The player who doesn't know why Joe tilts, but knows he often does, has just as valuable information as the psychologist who can tie the tilting behavior in with other of Joe's personality traits, or even point to underlying dynamics that may be the cause of his tilting.


I always wished there were more ways to use my psych background in poker, but in reality I think it's probably more productive just to focus on learning to play well. To me, my background was more useful in dealing with myself, than in evaluating my opponents. But since I know nothing of the test you mention, perhaps there's a way of applying knowledge of it that I haven't thought of?

pocket nines:


We are not our behaviors and personalities. Our behaviors and personalities are merely programs and processes that we run inside our heads. What are we then? We are the programmers, not the programs (our beliefs, habits, values, capabilities, enneagram classification, etc.).


I suggest that at this present stage of your poker development, being both 5 and 1 would be most useful along with 3 which you already appear to be.


As far as using the enneagram on other players goes: if you're playing shorthanded, find a table that is filled with 2s, 6s, and 9s. Stay away from 8s at all costs if shorthanded. But if you're in a ring game, look for 8s and 7s if you don't mind the variance. But ideally, you wanna be up against 2s in ring games.


In *general*, 8=loose-aggressive, 1-3-5=tight-aggressive, 7 and 9=loose-passive, 2=tight-passive.

Genesis -


I appreciate the response, but I need to respond to some of the things you've said.


First, while I defintely agree that we are not merely our behaviors and personalities, I also disagree that these are programs and processes that run inside our heads (only). We have three distinct and powerful centers of intelligence - mind, heart, body. Since you are familiar with the Enneagram, you know, for example, that an Eight's instinctual style is heavily body-centered. To an Eight, truth is experienced in a body-knowing more often than in the other two centers. This in large degree is what distinguishes one type from another - the intelligence conatined in each of the three centers is real, thus someone operating in their type is not paying attention to the whole picture.


Next, I'm not a Three. I'm not sure where you got that, but you ought to be careful in typing others on an extremely limited amount of information.


Moreover, as for poker, my normal situation is I'm playing the game and concentrating on many higher-priority pieces of information. But occasionally someone at the table gives off such strong type information that it has piqued my interest in terms of theory - all things being equal about that person, would their type matter in a game? Had John thought about it - that was the basis of my inquiry.


Finally, as to your general classifications, here are a few of my initial thoughts on 5s, 7s, 9s.


5s - A Five who plays a lot of poker would likely be a tough opponent - the in-depth knowledge, the discipline for study, the natural tightness, the natural tendency to give little away, the ultimate Observer. A Five's weakness might be that as much information that can be rapidly processed upstairs, there can be a lack of gut intuition about another player's play. A guy who was probably a Five I played with a short time ago made a comment to me about the amount of information he could attend to at any one time, yet his difficulty was processing it on the spot and correctly applying the information in the heat of battle.


9s - You see a lot of Nines playing poker, it seems. It's a wonderfully engaging and complex numb-out activity that avoids a true life priority. Some Nines have the ability to play at the same quality level over a looong session. Virtues of patience and unlikelihood of going on tilt since numbing out anger is a specialty. This type is uncomfortable with conflict, however in a controlled environment such as poker where the conflict is routine and generally impersonal Nines won't be as troubled by conflict. However when table talk gets personal in the direction of a Nine, you might "wake them up" and their play may be less predicatble.


7s - I agree with you about loose, not so much about passive. Love the action, natural optimists and expert rationalizers. Have an aggressive side (this may depend on how much the Six or Eight wing is active in the person). Good at telling themselves it wasn't their fault something happened, it was luck. However, these are very creative mental types who can synthesize lots of information in creative ways and apply it quickly - a poker virtue. I suspect you won't find 7s in a dull, tight, sleepy game for very long.


I'm a new enough player to poker that I'm aware there are much more important concepts and strategies for me to focus on before worrying about types and how they might come into play at the table. However, you bring all of your own strengths and weaknesses to the table, which personality often reveals, so I thought it was worth a discussion.


9s9c

John -


Thanks for your response. You might, if you're interested, take a glance at The Essential Enneagram by Dr. David Daniels and Virginia Price. It's the first test published based on validity and reliability studies. David is truly a remarkable guy and has been clincial psychiatrist at Stanford for more than thirty years. This is a slender text containing the most reliable test available. If further interested, the pre-eminent author in my opinion is Helen Palmer, who has written several books beginning in 1988 with The Enneagram and later, The Enneagram in Love and Work (one of my favorites). Along with David Daniels she has run the Enneagram Professional Training Program in Menlo Park for 14 years.


You would probably get infinitely more use out of the information in the non-poker world, and if you are still practicing then there's no doubt you'd find it useful. If you ever do get a chance to check it out, I'd definitely be interested to hear your opinions.


Be well,

9s9c (Sean)

I've been playing poker for close to ten years now and I can tell you that, from my own experience, the enneagram types really aren't that useful for winning at limit ring games. Entertaining, though.


On another note, as a cognitivist I believe that all the emotional processes that are attributed to the "heart" is in the mind and that the mind and the body is one system. The nervous system is afterall an extension of the brain.

Fair enough. I'll keep paying attention and see whether I notice anything useful.


We can agree to disagree on the mind/heart issue.


Best,

99