A Thought I Just Had (psych/theory)

[Jman28]

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jman,

i think that ideally, there's one situation where you should be upset by your opponent's actions, and that is when you have in some way forced them, tricked them, or enticed them in to "outplaying" you.

i here want to definte what i mean by "outplaying." i don't mean the normal "he played better than you," i mean to convey that you've done something yourself that in some way compelled your opponent to put you in a spot that you are uncomfortable with, that you could have avoided.

in all other spots, when we're thinking "oh come on check behind" it's because, basically, we don't want to have to face the decision of what to do if they bet, we just want to see the showdown (or frequently we feel that if they check we win the vast majority). this is basically to me just a version of pot control. you don't want to have to face big bets on the end with 3rd pair because well, you have 3rd pair. though the big bet gives you an opportunity to make a good call or throw away the worst hand, or raise him, or whatever, hard decisions are hard, and so you sometimes play in order to keep the decisions hard.

i guess what i'm trying to say is that when you have chosen a line against a particular opponent (and this must be more extreme in heads up games) that causes your opponent to make a play that switches your decision from easy to hard (bad bet sizes that then get raised on the turn or river does this a lot), then i get upset, but with myself, not with my opponent.

my opponents are "allowed" to play decently, and i don't get upset when they make me make decisions. i just try to choose not to play against the ones who consistently find ways to make me make very hard decisions, even on smallish pots.

/end rambly semi-nonsensical post.

c

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I agree with the getting upset at yourself part. Nothing makes me more angry than when I make a big mistake, including monster suckouts or hitnrunners. (Although it's close)

But just as an expert logician loves a nearly impossible logic problem, shouldn't an expert poker player love an extremely difficult spot?

[SlowHabit]

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But just as an expert logician loves a nearly impossible logic problem, shouldn't an expert poker player love an extremely difficult spot?

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Expert logician doesn't go on tilt if he can't solve a logic problem (or makes the wrong decision) and even if he does, he doesn't have to worry about losing his moneys that might set him back when he is grinding low-stakes to move up again.

FWIW, poker is a high complicated game with psychological warfare blah blah blah. I enjoy snapping a bluff with A high as the next guy, but I know for sure the level of excitement (at least for me in the game of poker) isn't as satisfying as calling a shove with the nuts.

[luegofuego]

i play bettwe when underrolled, much better. probably because i am way too rowdy and reckless when i have 75 buyins.

[restrikt]

If you love the challenge Jman, I can see why you play so high underolled.

I never play my A game unless I am playing underolled. There's just no pressure to focus.

[Taylor Caby]

have you thought about why you play nosebleed stakes underrolled? i mean really sat down and thought about it and asked if the risk you take every day is really worth you not playing optimally (although you are probably learning faster because you are literally sweating out every hand).

you seem like a smart enough guy and a good player, why put yourself through the stress and risk of ruin? i guess i'm just not like i'm most players but i'm completely rolled for these games but still don't play the nosebleed stakes.

s

[DonkBluffer]

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jman i feel like i know what you're trying to say, but i'm not so sure. lemme know if you agree with this?

if you're saying what i think you are, you're basically just saying that everything evens out in the end...so hoping for a certain card to fall/complaining about a bad beat is a waste of time/energy? or in other words, wrt to the, 'Don't hope your opponent bets the turn so you can checkraise.' statement - you're saying as long as you are making the play you think has the highest EV, if it doesn't work out one time it's really nothing to be mad about again because in the long run it will work out and show a profit?

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Yes, you have it pretty much.

For me, ideally, it's approaching poker as a complex mind game that you want to win. You win by making the best decision as often as possible. That's the only measure of your success.

The main thing that got me thinking about this was noticing the thing that most players do, where they check the river with a marginal hand and say to themselves, "Check behind. Check behind." Then the villain bets and they think "[censored]. Ass. [censored]. Weiner."

All that happened is that they now have one more opportunity to make a good decision in the hand. There shouldn't be a good reason to be mad at the opponent betting. It's just another point in the game.

A chess player doesn't get mad when his opponent makes a move and then hits the little clock thing just because he has to move again. That's how the game works. It's just his turn again.

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I'm working on this now too. There are many things in poker that we care about, but that we have no control over at all. For example, the cards that we get, the cards that fall on flop, turn and river, the cards that our opponents get, and the actions of our opponents. We care about these things, while we have no control over them, which causes a needless emotional rollercoaster.

The only thing that matters is your action. It's obvious, yet we all care so much about how much we're up or down and to how many two outers we lost. It doesn't even matter if you win or lose; it's all variance in the short term, and in the long term it only matters that you do the right thing. So what we all should do is become totally detached of results, money, etc. But that's harder than it sounds I think. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

[DonkBluffer]

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Jman,

Do you mean that instead of thinking, "OMG, weiner! Dude just rivered that flush!" you should be thinking, "Sweet, weiner! Dude rivered that flush and gave me the chance to make a good play like folding the worst hand. THANKS SUCKER!"

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No, the perfect player wouldn't even have to shrug it off. The outcome of the hand doesn't matter. He would just keep playing his A-game. [img]/images/graemlins/tongue.gif[/img]

[Gobgogbog]

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Posts like these freaks me out, I mean isnt this standard ss reading?

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Yeah, posts like this are surreal to me.

I remember when (I think) johnnybeef made a post just like this saying "I just realized I shouldn't get mad and berate the guys who call my pushes with bad hands -- if I knew that hand was in their calling range, then it's my own fault, and if I didn't, then maybe I need to adjust."

And I think, isn't this fundamental to the foundation of winning poker?

Clearly these guys realize they are playing against a range of players based on incomplete knowledge of the player, and a range of hands, and clearly they know not to be results oriented. But somehow they are involved in a constant results-oriented discussion in their heads about which player their opponent turned out to be, and even about which hand he turned out to have?

When you hope your opponent will shove if he has a flush, you're focusing on results. And if he doesn't have a flush, and you're disappointed, that's results oriented. But if he does have a flush and doesn't shove, that's also results-oriented. You had incomplete information about who he was, and you got it wrong, and if it isn't because you guessed badly, then it's just because that's the way the dice rolled.

I think this is because we only really tend to discourage results-oriented thinking in terms of which cards our opponents held or which cards came on the board. But our culture is so ready to call our opponents donks and idiots and retards that it may be hard for some people to break out of that mold and to acknowledge in their inner dialogue that their opponents are just another random element to which they need to respond in a non-results-oriented manner.

[Jman28]

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have you thought about why you play nosebleed stakes underrolled? i mean really sat down and thought about it and asked if the risk you take every day is really worth you not playing optimally (although you are probably learning faster because you are literally sweating out every hand).

you seem like a smart enough guy and a good player, why put yourself through the stress and risk of ruin? i guess i'm just not like i'm most players but i'm completely rolled for these games but still don't play the nosebleed stakes.

s

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Thank you for the post Taylor. I haven't ever really thought about it. I'll do so today and get back to you.

[Taylor Caby]

no prob. i'm interested to know your answer and it could be helpful for a lot of people.

tc