the purpose of optimism

[tarheeljks]

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Excuse my stating the "OBVIOUS", however, unbeknownst to the poster of this thread, simply continuing to play implies optimism/ a positive attitude about coming out of the game a winner--

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a lot of "optimism" about getting better/playing better is really egotism/denial.

[Dankie]

optimists live longer, true study, google it

[jediandimaster]

mindset can work as a self-fullfilling-prophecy
example:
you think you got no skills in technical stuff. this leads to situations where you avoid to get skilled in technical stuff (your computer got a defect-you call your brother to let him repair it etc.)
5years later you really got no skills at all in technical stuff.

example:
you see a girl in a bar, want to flirt with her but your pessimistic mentality is telling you that she will not be in the mood to flirt with you. however , you are trying to flirt with her. but you will do it in a way that is not fun for her and you cause you are building resistance out of nothing. so the effect will be that she is really not in the mood to flirt with you.

how is this affecting your poker?
example:
you think you are always getting sucked out when you hold aces. so you dont raise the flop aggressive cause you will loose probably anyway to some donk holding 63off not respecting your raise. because of your lack of aggressiveness someone got a greater chance to break your aces.

[pshady]

pessimist- poker is rigged i cant win *crys like a lil girl

optimist- oh look.. variance, cute

[Henry17]

I see the poker is rigged crowd as optimists. They still hold on to the delusional belief that they are good poker players despite all the evidence to the contrary.

[sweeng8]

Just been at a psychology guest lecture funnily enough, actually about belief and magic, but also had a lot to do with optimistic v skeptic thinking.
The primary argument was that in many tests done with people who consider themselves optimists or pessimists, or natural lucky or unlucky, those who were negative in mind were restricting their ability by failing to see oppurtunity. One test was getting groups to read and count the amount of ads on a specially designed newspaper as quick as possible. There were however 3 big half page ads that told the readers "dont bother counting- there are 53 ads in this paper". Tests suggest that people who consider themselves lucky/optimistic "seen" these ads more so than the pessimists. Came down to the idea that those think in a positive way have a more open and less restrictive way of viewing life. Negativity seems to restrict this.

In poker the benefits of this are obvious. You would find many sports people at the top of their profession who live with a negative attitude.

Also optimistic people live longer: http://www.livescience.com/health/04...ist_heart.html

An obvious retort to this question would be, why would you not strive to think optimistically?