Paranoids, Narcissists and Eocentrics

Necessarily, a person whose personality fits the classic definition of the Narcissist will be a much less observant opponent. They are too concerned with everybody focusing on them to have time to observe or even be cognizant of details involving other people. They will usually play poker for other reasons.

Egocentrics

While the mind of the Narcissist focuses on the superficial, the players that I call egocentrics see things in an event-related way. Everything that happens at the poker table revolves around them in their minds. They are constantly `forced' to tell you how they had a certain hand, which would have made a pair, missed a good draw or won the pot.

The theme of their monologue is consistently how their involvement would have affected their course of events. It is funny if you have two or three of these people sitting next to each other; they will spend a minute after each hand talking at each other about their misbegotten woes and none of them is listening to or acknowledging the others at all!

I often describe these peoples' worlds as starting at their bodies and not radiating more than three feet in any direction. Anything that occurs outside of those three feet they immediately rationalize and internalize so that it can comfortably reside within that little sphere.

This, of course, is not a scientific fact, just a facetious way that I refer to these peoples' malady. Again, these will not be observant players; they will be much too busy telling their own tiresome tales to bother gaining information about their opponents.

several personality types

The classic traits

rationalize and internalize