Side column: The Architect of the Felt: My Life as a 100% Jungian INTJ

(Note: This piece was composed in collaboration with Gemini AI. I chose to use AI to articulate these concepts because, while I recognize these patterns in my life, I often lack the internal emotional gauge to put them into words myself. The AI acts as a translator for my internal architecture.)

I have always been a “100% introvert” on every Myers-Briggs test I’ve ever taken over the years. To Carl Jung, the man who coined these terms, that doesn’t just mean I’m quiet—it means my entire psychic energy flows inward. I view the world through a powerful subjective filter. When I look at a situation, I don’t see the “object” for what it is; I see the internal image, the pattern, and the future implication it triggers within me.

As an INTJ, my life is defined by the interplay between my Introverted Intuition (Ni)—my visionary “internal map”—and my Extroverted Thinking (Te)—my drive to build logical systems in the outside world. This combination is exactly what led to my success in the high-stakes world of professional poker.

My Inner Vision: The Ni-Pattern Recognition

In Jungian terms, my dominant function is Intuition turned inward. At the poker table, this meant I wasn’t just “playing cards.” I was experiencing a constant stream of “Aha!” moments from my unconscious. While other players were distracted by buzzes or the images or moving chips on the screen, I was intuiting what 2.3 seconds to act vs. 4.7 seconds to act meant for his thought process.

I could sense a shift in the game’s meta-frequency before a single action was taken. I didn’t see a player’s bet as a move; I saw it as a data point in a vast, archetypal web of probabilities. My 100% introversion allowed me to retreat into this inner laboratory, where I could “see” the invisible math of the game with a clarity that felt almost mystical.

The Poker Forum Era – 2+2 and TalkingPoker- (2006–2009): My Te-Execution

My greatest era of growth and enjoyment was the golden age of the Two Plus Two (2+2) forums. From 2006 to 2009, this digital space became the external home for my Extroverted Thinking. Jung describes Te as the function that seeks to organize the environment through objective logic. On 2+2, I wasn’t just socializing; I was part of an elite “think tank” of architects. We were obsessed with what should happen—the normative, the optimal, the what in later years would be called the “GTO.”

The Technical Audit: When I posted a hand or replied to a thread — mostly on MSNL the forum for mid stakes NL players — I was engaging in a cold-blooded deconstruction of the game. We stripped away the “luck” and the “gamble,” leaving only the skeletal structure of Expected Value (EV).

Systemization: I lived for the thrill of intellectual consensus. Those years were spent hammering my subjective hunches (Ni) into objective truths (Te) on the forum forge. We weren’t just sharing tips; we were drafting the fundamental laws of a new world. This period was the height of my enjoyment of poker discussion.

The Digital Tribe: Because I am a 100% introvert, 2+2 and TalkingPoker were my perfect ecosystem. I could engage in high-level logical warfare from the safety of my inner world. I didn’t need the “social noise” or the “Extroverted Feeling” of a live game. I just needed the purity of the argument and the elegance of the system especially with playful banter.

The Advantage of the “Mastermind”

My success in poker was a direct result of this Jungian synthesis. My Ni saw the hidden truth of the game—the underlying patterns—and my Te gave me the discipline to execute the 2+2 strategy without mercy.

Jung famously said that the “Introverted Intuitive” often fails to see the stumbling block before their feet because they are so focused on the horizon. Poker, however, is a game won on the horizon. By ignoring the “stumbling blocks” of temporary losses and emotional “tilt,” I stayed focused on the long-term mathematical reality. I didn’t win because I was lucky; I won because I turned a chaotic, extroverted gamble into a structured, introverted architecture of logic.

The Golden Jail Cell

The deeper I sank into the professional grind, the more I realized that my 100% introversion was both my greatest competitive edge and my most gilded cage. Carl Jung would have looked at my life during those peak years and seen a man perfectly “identified” with his functions, but dangerously detached from his humanity.

For an INTJ, the poker grind—especially the online world of the poker forums I lurked 2+2, liquidpoker, talkingpoker during 2006-2009—is a psychological “perfect fit” that eventually becomes a prison. Jung’s Ni loves a closed system, and poker is exactly that: a finite set of rules where my mind can play out infinite patterns. I created a world for myself that was essentially a high-functioning jail cell. In this room, my Te was the warden, maintaining perfect order and efficiency. I didn’t need to leave. I didn’t need to interact. I had built a universe where I was the architect, the observer, and the executioner.

Dopamine Without Contact

The tragedy of the “100% Introvert” in this setting is the way the brain handles reward. Jung might describe this as a state where the internal world becomes so stimulating that the external world feels like an intrusion.

The Intellectual High: Every time my Ni-vision was confirmed by a massive pot, or every time a 2+2 theory I helped codify resulted in maximizing EV, I received a massive hit of dopamine. It was the “Aha!” moment on repeat.

The Sensory Void: But dopamine is a chemical of anticipation and logic; it is not the oxytocin of connection. Jung believed that humans require a balance of the “Four Functions,” including Feeling (Fi) and Sensing (Se). My life was a lopsided tower. I was getting all the cerebral rewards of being “right,” but absolutely none of the physical affection or emotional warmth required to be a well-adjusted human being.

I was winning the game of logic, but I was starving the “Subject” (myself). I had the money, the status on the forums, and the mathematical proof of my superiority, but I was sitting in a sensory desert. Pornography did not help this one bit as it was and still is everywhere online.

The Cost of 100% Introversion

Jung warned that when we ignore our “inferior functions”—in my case, the physical, sensory reality of being a person (Se) and the deep, personal values of the heart (Fi)—they don’t just go away. They turn into “Shadows.”

My “jail cell” was comfortable because it protected me from the messiness of people, but it also kept me from the touch, the eye contact, and the irrational, beautiful warmth of human companionship. I was a “Mastermind” in a vacuum. I was a ghost in a machine of my own making, incredibly successful at navigating the abstract “lines” of a 2+2 thread, but increasingly incapable of navigating the simple, physical reality of being “well-adjusted.”

In the end, the 100% score on those tests wasn’t just a badge of honor; it was a diagnosis of how far I had retreated from the “Object” (the world) and into the “Subject” (my own mind). I had solved the game, but in doing so, I had accidentally locked the door from the inside.