Dealing with the Peter Principle in poker

The Peter Principle is perhaps my favorite satirical theory; the Peter Principle states that “in a hierarchy every employee tends to rise to their level of incompetence”. Basically, given enough time even the hardest-working, most competent, employee will eventually reach their failure point. The Peter Principle definitely applies to poker in that virtually every poker player continues to play higher and higher stakes until they eventually reach a limit they cannot beat.

You can see this when you look at the biggest winners in poker over the years, they are virtually the same people year after year -occasionally a new player adds their name to the mix every few years or so, such as durrrr or Patrik Antonius! And where do they make their money from? They make it from the players who have advanced up the ranks and hit their failure point in the big game!

At a more reasonable level you see the Peter Principle cripple player’s bankrolls as they try to parlay their low-limit success into middle-limit success; or as they try to take the giant step of going from a semi-pro to a pro poker player.

As you look further into the Peter Principle you can see why this is so applicable to poker players:

As situations become more difficult, people will continue to use something that has worked for them in the past until it fails. The most obvious example of this in poker is when a player takes the ABC strategies they have used to crush the low-limit games into the more complex middle-limit poker games, where players adjust more, and are able to exploit predictability.

As a person rises to their failure point they eventually hit a ceiling, where they can rise no further. In poker you see many players who have taken a shot at a higher limit game, and had the wherewithal to drop back down to a level where they are successful, but more often you see people smashing their head into the wall trying to beat the higher limit game time after time.

One major aspect of the Peter Principle is that the skill-set required to do the higher ranking job is completely different from the skill-set the person used to gain the promotion in the first place. So, in poker this could be an instance of a player killing the $25/$50 No Limit game by using expert game selection and playing with a huge bankroll, but failing to at the $100/$200 level where every player is really good and their bankroll isn’t quite as deep. Their skill level is on par with the other players but their ability to find a soft opponent is useless, and with less of a bankroll they might tilt more easily.

The Peter Principle is a perfect example of why you should always assess your play as a poker player, and examine your strengths and weaknesses.