Blink (a book)

[Gelford]

The Chess example you bring up can be explained.


The chessplayer has a lot of standard games and positions in his mental harddisc, and he has also studied a lot of openings.

So what happens is that the brain goes something like this: This position must come from a kings indian style opening and it is reminicent of the game between Taimanov and Najdorf, exept that somehow a pair of bishops has been swaped, so there is no sacrife on h3.

Then the master also has a lot of tactical ideas in his arsenal, so he notices that the knight on e5 is potentially overloaded and that black has a weakness on g6 and is tied down to protect intrucion on the c-file.


For those of you, who find the above to be jibberish all it says it, that the master recognizes a lot of standard situations and idea inherent in the position and the noob just sees a lot of wooden pieces standing on a checkered board.

When you put the pieces on a board randomly and in a manner that could not arrive from a proper game, the master can not find those ideas and then is left with just random wooden pieces on a checkered board, just like the noob.


That really is not a surprising result [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

[Phil Van Sexton]

[ QUOTE ]
The Chess example you bring up can be explained.


The chessplayer has a lot of standard games and positions in his mental harddisc, and he has also studied a lot of openings.

So what happens is that the brain goes something like this: This position must come from a kings indian style opening and it is reminicent of the game between Taimanov and Najdorf, exept that somehow a pair of bishops has been swaped, so there is no sacrife on h3.

Then the master also has a lot of tactical ideas in his arsenal, so he notices that the knight on e5 is potentially overloaded and that black has a weakness on g6 and is tied down to protect intrucion on the c-file.


For those of you, who find the above to be jibberish all it says it, that the master recognizes a lot of standard situations and idea inherent in the position and the noob just sees a lot of wooden pieces standing on a checkered board.

When you put the pieces on a board randomly and in a manner that could not arrive from a proper game, the master can not find those ideas and then is left with just random wooden pieces on a checkered board, just like the noob.


That really is not a surprising result [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

[/ QUOTE ]

I think the process you describe is quite logical, and possibly how a computer might evaluate a position.

I am of the opinion that the process used by the human brain we are talking about here is much more complicated and simpler at the same time. You cannot explain it in words, so if you try to explain it, you are probably wrong. Of course, I can't prove you are wrong since I can't explain it either (and I'm not a great chess player).

[Phil Van Sexton]

[ QUOTE ]


Did anyone else who read the book think that blue card/red card gambling study thing seem weird? How do people continue to gamble if their 'blinking' subconcious is able to adapt so quickly and well to that card game. Is it that actual gambling games are too complicated for our minds/subconcious to realize tons of money is being lost?


[/ QUOTE ]

I thought that experipent was interesting, but I excluded it from my original post because serious gamblers have trained themselves to ignore short-term results.

Background (from memory)... The subject is given 2 decks of cards: red and blue. The subject turns over cards and either wins or loses money depending on the card that is flipped. However, the red deck is stacked, so they'll lose a lot. On average, people catch onto this after 40 minutes or so. However, sensors measuring sweat and stuff start recording nervousness when playing the red deck after only 10 minutes. Their brain recognizes the problem long before they are consiously aware of it.

I don't think the experiment shows that people can innately recognize a bad bet. It just says that your unconsious brain recognizes patterns more quickly than your consious brain. However, an untrained mind will focus way too much on short term results. Some will be bad, but some will be good and they'll keep playing.

Also, I think beginners do a lot more consious thinking. They play 1 table and try to think like the guys on TV. They overthink and ignore what their brain is telling them.

Another possibility is that they misinterpret the "feeling" that they get. Your mind doesn't really say "fold", you just a have feeling that you must translate into "fold". On 2 separate occasions recently, my opponent made a bet on the river that really "felt" odd to me. I called with Ace-high both times. Both times they had quads.

[pokerlaw]

[ QUOTE ]

Also, I think beginners do a lot more consious thinking...They overthink and ignore what their brain is telling them.


[/ QUOTE ]

I definetly agree with this from both observation and personal experience. I play live games w/ friends, who are generally intelligent people w/ good jobs who are new to poker. Very frequently, after a noob takes their first bad beat, they will start exhibiting this behavoir

For example: they'll blow their whole stack on a bluff or (more frequently) and big call and say "I knew I was beat at the end, I just wanted to see what you had." I think its the conscious part of the brain that causes the call, and the "gut" so to speak that had the correct initial feeling, which was ignored b/c of tilt (or just poor play).

good post. Definetly gonna check out my roomate's copy.

[pergesu]

[ QUOTE ]
Both times they had quads.

[/ QUOTE ]
The diode bridge on your pattern mapper is fried.

Seriously though, this is very interesting stuff. I enjoyed the post and I'll be checking out this book.

Regarding the chess pieces, I don't think it's a very logical process as Gelford suggested. I think it's that when looking at a game in progress, expert players are able to extract meaning from the positions of pieces, based on thousands of situations they've seen before.

I made a post a long time ago that touched on this (which I can't find after searching the forums or google. lame). Basically I said that after playing thousands of games, you store common patterns in your mind. At the beginning you don't have much to work with, so you have to think through a lot of situations. After a while though, based on the patterns, you instinctively know what the correct play is. More importantly, you understand when a situation is "right" or "wrong." A "right" situation is one that you recognize to be within some normal limits of patterns you know. Sometimes you don't recognize a pattern, or you recognize it to be very uncommon or strange, and it just feels...off. That's what happened with Phil and the quads, probably. He recognized the situation as exceptional, because the tiny patterns he picked up during the hand matched his "uncommon, strange thingies database."

Now I'm just rambling. I'm going to go back to sleep. This is cool though.

[pergesu]

[ QUOTE ]
I thought that experipent was interesting, but I excluded it from my original post because serious gamblers have trained themselves to ignore short-term results.


...


I don't think the experiment shows that people can innately recognize a bad bet. It just says that your unconsious brain recognizes patterns more quickly than your consious brain. However, an untrained mind will focus way too much on short term results. Some will be bad, but some will be good and they'll keep playing.

[/ QUOTE ]

I'm interested in what you think a smart gambler (rather than a compulsive gambler) would do here.

I think he'd play for a while and pick up that it's not quite right. At this point he may shrug it off as variance and keep playing, or he could quit. At some point he will feel strongly enough that he'll stop the game and verify that he's being dealt a fair game. If he is getting a fair game (blue deck, I guess), he can then proceed to play and not worry about the short-term results. Early on though, the short-term results will probably cause him to question the fairness of the game.

[miami32]

Wow, I think this is a great post. Nice hand sir.

[AMT]

[ QUOTE ]
As you play and work with SnGPT, your brain is learning. In fact, your brain is picking up information that you aren't even aware of. Your opponent may take an extra 25 milliseconds to bet. Your conscious mind probably won't even notice, but your unconscious mind may have picked this up and is somehow incorporating it in its decision making process.


[/ QUOTE ]

this might be an INCREDIBLY idiotic question, but how do you guys (and girls) think that this SNGpt inherent learning compares to the knowledge one might subconsciously soak in through studying the HHs and opinions people post on this forum? (essentially how do you think learning through SNGpt vs learning through the actual forum compares, if one is more valuable than the other for your brain in this manner, etc...). I also ask for sake of the brain soaking in #s/%'s vs soaking in opinions and written explanation. thoughts?

[lacky]

The only thing I would mention, is that also can be part of the problem. I have ADHD, and if the meds are wrong, or I stop taking them, or for no rerason at all sometimes, my "inner mind" so to speak, tell's me to take the overly aggressive route every time. It's the truely inconcistant part of my game, and very difficult to overcome, because it is all subcontious.

I basicaly see it as a very subtle anoying form of tilt. Unfortunately it's not really tied to anything, so I don't know it's happening till I do something really stupid, and notice myself doing it. For a long time I didnt even know it then, but I've learned over time to recognize it, and somewhat control it. Fortunatly in poker aggression is good, so you can still win being an over aggressive dork, but you can't win as much.

[Phil Van Sexton]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
I thought that experipent was interesting, but I excluded it from my original post because serious gamblers have trained themselves to ignore short-term results.


...


I don't think the experiment shows that people can innately recognize a bad bet. It just says that your unconsious brain recognizes patterns more quickly than your consious brain. However, an untrained mind will focus way too much on short term results. Some will be bad, but some will be good and they'll keep playing.

[/ QUOTE ]

I'm interested in what you think a smart gambler (rather than a compulsive gambler) would do here.

I think he'd play for a while and pick up that it's not quite right. At this point he may shrug it off as variance and keep playing, or he could quit. At some point he will feel strongly enough that he'll stop the game and verify that he's being dealt a fair game. If he is getting a fair game (blue deck, I guess), he can then proceed to play and not worry about the short-term results. Early on though, the short-term results will probably cause him to question the fairness of the game.

[/ QUOTE ]


I had to reread the section again. I said 10 minutes to react unconsiously, and 40 minutes to recognize the problem conciously. In fact, it took only 10 and 40 *cards*, not minutes. Also, the red deck was filled with big winners, but even bigger losers. The blue deck had lots of medium sized wins, and small losses. I assume it was dealt like blackjack (not shuffled between hands like poker).

Anyway, I think it would take an experienced gambler longer to react subconciously because they are trained to ignore short term results. However, they would become concious of the problem more quickly than the average person because they are better at math and pattern recognition.

However, there are many 2+2ers who would instinctively try to double down on the red deck after only a few cards. Once they are consious of the huge losses in the red deck, they would ask to play 8 decks of red to lower their variance.