Leo Margets and the Story Poker Needs Right Now
The Story We Wanted
Last year, Leo Margets gave the poker world the story it desperately wanted. The Spanish poker pro did not set out to become a symbol. Quite the contrary. On the latest episode of ‘The Chip Race’ (embed https://soundcloud.com/thechiprace/tyler-patterson-leo-margets-jeff-platt), she talked about how she actually balks at the idea of one person representing something larger, a mixture of her personal philosophy and ingrained humility not allowing her to see herself as emblematic of a larger whole.
Poker is an individual mind-sport and she approaches it as such. However, symbols tend to emerge when enough people become emotionally invested in something at the same time. As her Main Event run deepened, poker’s collective imagination went into overdrive. Somewhere between the final three tables and the final table itself, a very good poker player became a vessel for a lot of people’s hopes.
It’s dangerous to confuse children with angels just as it is to mistake human beings for metaphors. Nonetheless, we do that a lot in poker. One player becomes evidence that hard work pays off. Another becomes evidence that variance is cruel. Somebody wins and they represent meritocracy. Somebody loses and they represent injustice. A woman makes the final table of the Main Event and thirty years of nonsense narratives can finally be chucked on the scrap heap. The actual person often gets lost in the process.
Presence and The Person Behind The Symbol
What made Margets interesting was her apparent refusal to cooperate with any of this. She doesn’t distinguish between the mind and body when it comes to self-care. She focuses on the job at hand, one hand at a time. The WSOP Main Event was a marathon but she played without fear and enjoyed every one of the 90 hours she played.
While everybody else was busy constructing chronicles around her, she concentrated on staying present. She deliberately reduced her exposure to social media and outside opinion during the run. This may not sound particularly revolutionary but, in the world of poker, it practically qualifies as counterculture. The Twitterati and Instagrazzi leave no stone unturned so the idea of raw-dogging a ten-day tournament seems unfathomable.
As Margets waxed lyrical on her motivations and decisions, there was something quietly admirable about somebody recognising that attention can become a burden. Modern poker tends to assume that visibility is always a blessing. Yet anybody who has experienced even a fraction of public scrutiny understands that being watched and being supported are not necessarily the same thing. Sometimes the healthiest thing you can do is disengage.
The Great Poker Contradiction
Poker players often describe themselves as independent thinkers. This is one of our favourite myths. Another is that we are emotionally detached from outcomes. We tell ourselves these stories because they sound impressive but the reality is that we are all on a spectrum – from those hypersensitive to outcomes to those who have successfully adopted a quiet stoicism when it comes to the capriciousness of the Poker Gods.
I have heard players discuss the subject of long-term expectation in exquisite detail and then, the very same day, spend half an hour wallowing in self-pity because of short-term injustice. I have seen the most famous player in the game claim to understand variance while devoting multiple episodes of his vlog to obsessing over a single rogue river card.
What shone through was how Margets seems to have arrived at a much healthier relationship with uncertainty than most. Sure, she emphasises process over results and enjoyment over outcome but, more than that, she acknowledges her passionate, sentimental and impulsive side, finding a way to break down the dichotomy between the rational and the emotional. Again, presence seems to be the key to finding this harmony. Living in the moment simultaneously relieves the pressure of anticipation and the burden of expectation.
Pride and Satisfaction
Last week, Kristen Foxen outlasted 344 players and defeated Galen Hall heads-up to win Event #19 of the WSOP – the $25,000 Highroller. She won $1,773,083, the largest payday of her illustrious career and her sixth bracelet. She called it a result of which “you feel a bit prouder”, a reference to the density of professionals in the field. That idea of pride in oneself was another bedrock principle expressed by Margets on ‘The Chip Race’.
For most, success in tournament poker is a transient thing. The moment somebody binks a big one, there is a bit of fanfare but the conversation quickly shifts to the next thing. For the individual who won, there is almost an onus to see the result as a stepping-stone toward a future achievement. “Are you going to take some shots now?” “Is it time to step up and play bigger?” “What’s your next goal?”
The assumption is that wanting more is inherently virtuous but Margets’ North Star is being proud of herself for the simple reason that she only has to answer to herself. The poker world has a habit of confusing ambition with wisdom. It also tends to view an expression of satisfaction with mild suspicion.
The Story We Need
The insatiable Poker Gods need perpetual sacrifices and anyone who dares to voice contentment or pride is not fitting neatly into our lazy narratives which prefer to glorify toil and suffering. Like Sisyphus, the tireless, joyless grinder has become a kind of folk hero. The truth, however, is that enjoyment is not the enemy of excellence. It might actually be one of its prerequisites.
Across umpteen episodes of the excellent Winamax docu-series ‘Inside The Mind Of A Pro’, Margets’ very genuine joie de vivre is on show. She is on poker’s biggest stage and the pressure is ratcheting up each day yet she remains a person seemingly unburdened by stress or the weight of history. Her poise reflects a deep sense of serenity that whatever will be, will simply be.
Players who genuinely love the game tend to survive longer than players who merely tolerate it. My biggest takeaway from both the post-victory interview with Foxen and ‘The Chip Race’ interview with Margets was that twenty years into their careers, they are still excited by poker. That is not a trivial detail. In fact, it may be the whole story and it is a story that we need.
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