Choose Your Table Wisely

Table selection also determines some of your happiness. The "keeping up with the Joneses" effect is a symptom of table selection. If you compare yourself to your neighbors or people who are "near" you in whatever you index your life on, you will find countless ways to make yourself feel insignificant or behind. 

In poker, there's an important concept called "table selection." Your success is not just determined by how good you are but also by the table you choose to play at. 

It's a core component to achieving success, whatever your yardstick is. If you pick too small of a table or stay there too long, you'll hamstring yourself. It doesn't matter how good you are if you're playing the wrong game or against the wrong people.

And it's essential for understanding our feelings of jealousy, envy, competitiveness, and tension with others. If we can recognize what table we see ourselves competing with them on, it's easier to let those feelings go and decide if that's even a table where we want to play. 

Where are you comparing yourself against people overly similar to you instead of setting your sights on a bigger table? What small table are you sitting at that you should have moved on from ages ago?

You can't win as much money if you sit at a table with small blinds. You'll get cleaned out if you sit at a table with players much better than you. To have the best result, you need to find a table where the stakes are high enough to be worth playing and where you have a chance of winning against the other players.