There is much more to this excellent question. The "group dynamics" of poker is very real.
Not quite the same as competing with a crowd, not quite the same as competing against a team, not quite the same as competing against a single individual, poker incorporates aspects of both interpersonal and crowd dynamics.
Topics for development:
1. Leading. To lead, find a table that acts like a crowd.(page 139)
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As soon as a certain number of living beings are gathered together, they place themselves instinctively under the authority of a chief.
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2. Following. A crowd wants to be led. Give them what they want. (page 141)
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Men gathered in a crowd lose all force of Will, and turn instinctively to the person who possesses the quality they lack.
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3. Obtaining leadership (dominance). How taking control of the table aligns the followers. (page 140)
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The crowd is a servile flock that is incapable of ever doing without a master.
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4. How a single player can change everything by cultivating personal prestige at every turn. (page 154)
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Personal prestige is a faculty independent of all titles, of all authority, and possessed by a small number of persons whom it enables to exercise a magnetic facination on those around them, although they are socially their equals, and lack all ordinary means of domination. They force the acceptance of their ideas and sentiments on those around them, and they are obeyed.
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5. Winning large pots creates the potential to assume total authority at the table. (pages 149, 152)
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It is by examples and not arguments that crowds are guided.
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Prestige in reality is a sort of domination.
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6. You lose more than money when you lose a large pot(page 161)
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The hero who the crowd acclaimed yesterday is insulted today should he be overtaken by failure. The reaction indeed will be the stronger in proportion as the prestige has been great. The crowd in this case considers the fallen hero an equal, and takes its revenge for having bowed to a superiority whose existence it no longer admits.
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See:
The Crowd. by Gustave LeBon
Date of publication: 1895.