How Do Non-Rational Players Succeed in Poker?

[Requin]

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i think the unconscious part has more to do with the what players call the 'gut reaction' rather than what requin seems to believe it is.


[/ QUOTE ] Prev, that's exactly what I'm talking about. When its a really borderline decision, I find sometimes my mind goes in circles, going over all the pros and cons of a play over and over without being able to decide what the villain is thinking. So I stop thinking directly about the hand (the pros/cons of my decision) and wait a bit. Basically it allows me to hear my 'gut reaction' better, once I've gotten all I can from my conscious analysis.

[Ansky]

Don't really have enough time to think too long on party.

[cero_z]

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This is very, very silly. It's not as though every time you don't think through things your unconscious mind kicks in with a great read. Most of the time you just end up guessing poorly.

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Which part is silly? The well-documented fact that the subconscious mind thinks faster and more efficiently than the conscious mind? Or is it that my statement doesn't jibe will with your own personal experiences tapping into your own subconsciousness?

[cero_z]

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cero, i do not think that by blanking out during the hand is going to make use of this unconscious part of your mind. furthermore, i think that even if it does, it is not going to help you as much as if you actively thought about the decision. i think the unconscious part has more to do with the what players call the 'gut reaction' rather than what requin seems to believe it is.

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Hey Prev,

First, I don't think he was suggesting blanking out; just distracting himself from focusing directly. My point is really that statements like "it won't help you as much as direct focus," and FF's statement about "what happens when you stop thinking about something" are just personal statements. I don't claim to know which of the two methods is better for you, or in what proportions you should use them; I'm not sure I know which method is better for me! However, one of the points made in Blink is that most of us have learned to trust only the conscious mind, and have thus not developed our instincts to their full capabilities.

[theBruiser500]

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Very nice post. Does anyone else do this when faced with a tough decision? I go to each of my other tables and deal with whats going on there, maybe pop up my poker tracker browser, anything to distract myeslf from consciously thinking about the hand. Then when my timer is almost done I go back and find the answer to my decision is in my head. I agree 100%, I think the unconscious mind is a much better decision maker in poker than the conscious mind.

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i strongly recommend against this. take your time to think back through the hand and action on each street, you are missing information

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Prev, Bruiser, you guys obviously missed some information yourselves: ZJ's/Requin's point that your subconscious mind is more capable of information processing than your conscious mind. Thus, you ARE thinking back through the hand, whether you are consciously focusing on it or not, and the point is that you may be better served by NOT focusing on it for a short period of time.

Edit: Ansky narrowly missed being skewered by my rapier wit, as he was posting at the same time I was.

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i disagree, i'm a strong believer in instincts but instincts and the subconcious just work on patterns that have arisen in the past... it's a good gauge to do what your instincts tell you at the start of the hand based on all you know previously, but once you get to that point use logic and conciousness to analyze and go through that hand. in practice i find there isn't enough time during a hand to really logically analysis it so it's pretty much instincts for every hand, then save the hand and analysis it later so your instcints can use it next time around. hope that makes sense.

[Prevaricator]

okay, but fwiw i believe that if you don't have an immediate reaction to a situation, its because you have been in or experienced a similar situation, and if you delay it you are just guessing and subconsciously talking yourself into one action irrationally. I run into spots like this all the time and rely analyzing all the variables to figure out an action. Or sometimes I have a gut reaction and then try to reason it out just to be sure.

and cero z i think you are confused on the idea of subconscious mind. in this case we are relying on experience. it thinks faster and more efficiently when dealing with decisions which are similar to past experiences, but when faced with something brand new you cant just blank out and then be struck with an epiphany of the correct move. you just have to think it out.

i also believe that the players ZJ calls 'non-rational' are given a very misleading term. these players are well versed in psychology and their decisions involve the same logic that the so-called 'rational' players use. everyone needs to be proficient at math enough to calculate implied odds etc; perhaps the difference between the two groups is simply that the former use experience to intuit the odds, whereas the latter might actually do the numbers out in their head. So, they actually have very capable mathematical minds, they just don't know it.

[aejones]

This is a good post. However I agree with FF, it's definately not revolutionary. I think it is all kind of elementary honestly and I thought everyone playing mid- to high- stakes no limit was aware of this.

There were posts a few months ago. What I gathered from them were that 50% poker is innate ability, and part of this ability we are born with is subconscious. In other words, many of us don't know how good we really are. And others can never be as good as we think we can be.

[Prevaricator]

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cero, i do not think that by blanking out during the hand is going to make use of this unconscious part of your mind. furthermore, i think that even if it does, it is not going to help you as much as if you actively thought about the decision. i think the unconscious part has more to do with the what players call the 'gut reaction' rather than what requin seems to believe it is.

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Hey Prev,

First, I don't think he was suggesting blanking out; just distracting himself from focusing directly. My point is really that statements like "it won't help you as much as direct focus," and FF's statement about "what happens when you stop thinking about something" are just personal statements. I don't claim to know which of the two methods is better for you, or in what proportions you should use them; I'm not sure I know which method is better for me! However, one of the points made in Blink is that most of us have learned to trust only the conscious mind, and have thus not developed our instincts to their full capabilities.

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substitute blanking out for distracting himself from the decision. i dont think it makes much of a difference to my point, but granted. instincts are based on upon experience, and being exposed to many different spots sharpens them. if you have never played poker you will have to reason out every single decision. if you have a lot of experience then you can intuit all the simple decisions and at least have some idea of what to do in the difficult decisions.

[FoxwoodsFiend]

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This is very, very silly. It's not as though every time you don't think through things your unconscious mind kicks in with a great read. Most of the time you just end up guessing poorly.

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Which part is silly? The well-documented fact that the subconscious mind thinks faster and more efficiently than the conscious mind? Or is it that my statement doesn't jibe will with your own personal experiences tapping into your own subconsciousness?

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I actually also read Blink. One point to make is that it talks about immediate reaction, not just turning your mind off and hoping something kicks in. So if you don't already have a hunch when the action's on you, timing out and turning your mind off isn't going to get your subconscious to filter everything for you.

I'm a bit drunk right now and don't have my wits fully about me, but I will say that I think that glorifying the unconscious mind while ignoring the narrow range of situatoins which Gladwell presented (almost all of which focused on people who'd dedicated their lives to a particular craft for one thing) is often just an excuse for sloppy thinking.