How Do Non-Rational Players Succeed in Poker?

[Slo Pok]

<<<Patients often show signs of improvement after being given a placebo>>>

Bandler and Dilts actually attempted to market placebo's because of that effect. Dilts did research for it and the belief system. From my understanding the FDA stopped it.

Slo pok

awesome post. Did a good job putting this into words.

[igetbadbeat]

1000 Zeejustins would be pretty much as successful as said Zeejustin has been.


1000 H@LL's would probably have 980 of them go broke and in debt before they ever learn to play poker the right way.

[Cali4niaRaisin]

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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 do this.

Also, I think it's important to develop both the analytical and feel areas of your game so you can handle both types of oppents. If you know you are up a/g a analytical thinking villian, you play that strategy back at him. Like maybe he's a nit and he raises PF, c-bet the flop and you are floating im in position on a scary board because you know that he's thinking "well he called my PF raise and he's calling my bet on the flop so I should probably give up now". However with a feel player maybe you approach it differently. Sorry this is kinda rambly. Essentially, it's always helpful to know what level your opponent is thinking on (obv).

[spino1i]

I agree with a lot of your post ZJ, particularly the part about how intuitive players develop and how many of them can move up to higher stakes while still thinking "illogically" and having gaping holes in their game.

I disagree that subconcious is so much more important at higher stakes than logic. What is the subconcious mind good for anyway? Its good for making logical conclusions that the concious mind already knows so well that you conciously dont have to even make them anymore. I feel like a good logical player will internalize their logic overtime making room for "new" logic in their concious mind.

You also say "hand-reading" abilities are very intuitive and by feel and not by logic. I feel like with internet poker this is completely false (and not that true with live poker). I feel like even at the highest stakes you still must approach hand-reading logically, only the logic must be much more sophisticated than at lower stakes. This is where the subconcious mind works, it takes care of the elementary logic for you, allowing you to focus on making more sophisticated logic at higher stakes. Obviously you can only do this after you have a lot of experience making the elementary reads of hands.

The reading patterns part is very true, reading patterns is very important and often people that are very logical are crappy at recognizing at patterns. That isnt true with everyone though, and some people are still very good at recognizing patterns and are very logical. Recognizing patterns is actually probably the thing you unconcious mind does best. It keeps "tally" of different outcomes and then sends off an alert if anything is abnormal. This is how you physically read people as well in live poker and why the unconcious mind is so important when reading people's strength based on what you see physically.

Perhaps the reason the subconcious mind is so important then at higher stakes is because of the vast amount of knowledge needed to be successful at that level, anyone who is a success will be forced to have a good amount of their knowledge placed in the subconcious mind, or they simply would be overloaded with information. However, this paves hope for the logical person, who can simply amass knowledge and continue to place it in the subconcious. My advice to any logical player hitting a brick wall at 3/6 nl is simply to continue amassing knowledge and continue letting it get more and more into your subconcious allowing you to make the more complicated decisions neccessary to beat higher stakes. As long as you make sure you learn all knowledge conciouslly first and make sure that it is correct, you can then put it in the subconcious mind and no longer have the need to focus on it.

[johnnyrocket]

yea this is such a good post since its something no one ever talks about with poker. I am going to look at my play at a deeper level now and think through this.

[VanVeen]

fwiw, pattern recognition is subsumed under the heading 'logic'. pure intellectual problem solving is inductive reasoning and nothing else.

the 'pattern recognition' used at the tables, however, isn't done by the prefrontal cortex and isn't purely intellectual. you're making decisions involving risk and your personal well-being. how you evaluate success and failure isn't determined entirely by your assessment of EV - it is your EV interpeted within the value schema of your serotonergic and dopaminergic systems (and a bunch of other emotional circuits). successful players aren't simply better at analysing poker or finding patterns or estimating EV or any of that. a cursory perusal of the forums would dispell that supposition (most posts w/articulated analysis are awful). what they do seem to be able to do is understand the fundamentals of the game to avoid saliently exploitable errors AND, more importantly, their emotional circuits give them feedback conducive to success within the current environment. behavioral economics covers topics pertaining to this.

anywho, the gist of my post is that the line of demarcation should be b/n analytic thought and emotional evaluations, not 'conscious' and 'unconscious' (arbitrary distinction if ever there was one w/no basis in reality). many of the donkeys who are losing money are in fact quite a lot better than most professionals at thinking analytically. that DOES NOT mean they'll make better decisions as measured by an objective metric like EV. risk assessment isn't mediated by the intellect.

[avocadoclock]

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ZJ,
Also, I think the more experience people have playing live, the less valuable they will consider your post to be.

[/ QUOTE ]

Not especially, I got a good read out of it. I considered his post to be very valuable. I've been pretty much strictly a live player, and his post has helped reconfirm my thoughts about my playing style versus the traditional online player. I've thought about retooling my game, but now I know that I have a mindset that works differently and works better at a different level. Reading hands is a big part of my game, and that's why I haven't had as much success getting started online.

I've got more to think about now... [img]/images/graemlins/ooo.gif[/img]

[Orlando Salazar]

I totally agree with the assertion that early results helped certain players learn to play the game in a fundamentally sound manner. Negative results may also have helped people seek out a sound approach to play, while bustoing many along the way.
I guess we disagree on terminology. You can play logically without using much math at all (really it's just knowing starting hand values relative to other holdings, ie 88 is a race vs AK, straight draw is behind a pair). A logical player will notice patterns of behavior and can deduce appropriate behavior by using villain hand assesment tests, through aggressive action. Is he strong, weak, disguising strenght, hiding weakness? Why has villains aggression level shifted? When did it shift? What could have caused it? Was it my betting, the cards, my image, his stack size?
All of these questions can be interpreted in a mathmatical way or by logical reasoning to the most cogent assesment. The fact is, all players use logic (aware or not). However, some are focused on pot odds and hand ranges while others psychological logic and action interpretation. Both players can use logic to say, his range may be wider cause he's on tilt from a big beat. A mathmatical player and an intuitive player may very well assign different hand ranges if they logically deduce a person to be on tilt. An intuitive player might say he's betting drawing and weak hands harder and can be called light, a mathmatical player will say that given his range has expanded my made hands have higher showdown value and can call larger bets. Both use logic but in practice will call down this player with very different frequencies over differntly textured boards and bet sizes. A math player might call a PS bet, but not a shove. An intuitive player will ignore pot odds and call when he believes he's ahead.

[sharpspoon]

I really liked this post ZJ

I play mainly heads up and i think this is most noticeable at heads up play

i have found that at low stakes HU you can easily consciously counter each of your opponents strengths and weaknesses to beat him with method
but have found at higher stakes good conscious counter plays become merely guidelines and often over thinking in these terms can lead from the intuitively correct play

how often do you instinctively know what to do and then rethink it through logic factors consciously and come up with a wrong and losing conclusion?

IMO if your decisions are made tricky enough you can not possibly calculate the correct option through conscious thought but must use many more factors that only your subconscious can calculate

logical deductions lose their edge against someone who is not playing simple reaction/method poker but playing on a far more intelligent level