Poker, Psychology, and the Inner Player: What a Few Friendly Games Revealed About Me
- Lorena Buzatu
- Nov 24
- 4 min read
Updated: Nov 25
Poker has been part of my life in a quiet, background sort of way. My husband plays. His friends play. I’ve heard years of conversations about ranges, folds, tilt, bad beats, ego battles, and perfect bluffs. I never saw myself as part of that world, but I watched it closely. Eventually curiosity won, and I joined a few friendly games. Nothing high stakes. Just relaxed evenings, light competition, small pots, and
plenty of snacks.
What surprised me was how quickly poker showed me my own internal world.
Not the strategy. Or the maths. Me.
Poker became a mirror. A clean one. It showed me patterns, tension, instincts, and fears with an honesty most situations never reveal.
It felt like the game was saying, “Sit down. Watch yourself.”
When Everything Just Flows
Some days, I sat at the table and something clicked. A steady kind of alertness. A calm focus. My decisions felt clean. My reads made sense. I knew when to stay in and when to get out. I could feel the energy at the table and sense the small shifts that matter.
Even online, without any faces to read, the same thing happened.
I trusted myself.
I wasn’t scared of losing.
I didn’t overthink.
That is flow in the real psychological sense: a regulated nervous system, stable heart rate, clear cognition, and access to intuition that comes from patterns stored, not forced.
It felt like every part of me was online and working together.
And Then There Were the Other Days
And then there were days when none of that was available to me.
Same rules.
Same knowledge.
Same players.
Same understanding of the game.
But something inside felt off.
A slight internal “no”.
A hesitation.
A quiet tension I couldn’t justify.
A faint sense of unsafety that affected every decision.
Even with strong hands, I held back.
Even with good odds, I hesitated.
Even when the move was obvious, I didn’t act.
On those days, I wasn’t really playing poker.
I was managing myself.
My skill hadn’t changed.
My state had.
That was the moment I realised something essential: poker exposes the exact relationship between how you feel inside and what you do outside.
You may think you are playing the cards.
You are actually playing your nervous system.
Poker as a Psychological Scanner
Poker confirmed something I understand deeply from clinical work: humans think differently when they feel safe compared to when they feel even slightly threatened.
Most situations hide this.
Poker does not.
The game compresses pressure, uncertainty, money, ego, social evaluation, intuition, patience and emotional triggers into seconds.
It shows:
where confidence cracks
where fear interferes
where instinct disappears
where old patterns resurface
where tension hijacks logic
where you react instead of respond
The cards are random.
Your reactions are not.
The Realisation That Changed Everything
Across every friendly session, one pattern kept repeating: my best games and my worst games had nothing to do with my poker knowledge.
My understanding of ranges never changed.
My reasoning skills never changed.
My ability never changed.
The difference was internal.
Grounded and regulated = clarity.
Tired, stressed, distracted, or overwhelmed = distorted judgement.
Poker didn’t teach me psychology.
Psychology explained poker.
And the truth I see in every client, every leader, and every high performer became impossible to ignore:
Most people do not lack ability.
They lack internal regulation.
Potential does not fluctuate.
Internal safety does.
Where My Work Meets This Game
In the ME vs ME® Method and in hypnotherapy, I help people shift the exact internal states that poker exposes so clearly:
the tension that leads to hesitation
the fear that disrupts intuition
“gut feelings” that are actually stress responses
overthinking that replaces clarity
emotional residue that distorts perception
unconscious beliefs affecting risk
dysregulation that makes simple decisions feel complicated
Poker just gave me a surprisingly honest setting to see these patterns in myself.
It reminded me that internal safety is not optional.
It is the foundation of clear thinking.
And it showed me how quickly things can shift when the nervous system is regulated.
People make better decisions.
They access better instincts.
They see more clearly.
They feel more grounded.
It happens fast when the internal world is stable.
Poker is only one example.
Life offers hundreds.
What Poker Ultimately Showed Me
Poker made one thing obvious:
The biggest opponent is never across the table.
It is inside you.
The cards do not decide the game.
Your state does.
Strategy matters.
Logic matters.
Experience matters.
But without internal alignment, you can know everything and trust nothing.
Poker revealed something deeply human and incredibly practical:
Clarity, courage, instinct, patience, and emotional neutrality are not personality traits.
They are regulated states.
When your internal state is aligned, the game changes.
Any game.
If this resonated with you, it is not because you need more discipline. It is because you recognised yourself in the way your internal state shapes every decision you make.
If you want to understand this link more deeply, you may find these helpful:
Your Nervous System Is Running the Show (And Doesn’t Care About Your Goals)
How regulation drives clarity more than logic does.
Turning Resistance Into Inner Alignment
Why hesitation and overthinking show up even when you “know what to do”.
Survival-Based Identity Patterns: Why You’re Not Broken: Just Adapted
How old patterns still influence your reactions today.
If you are ready to work on the inner player rather than just the outer performance, you can start here: www.me-vs-me.com
Your decisions get sharper the moment your system does.