Science: What does poker do to your brain? (x post from psychology)

[ckboddic]

First of all, it seems like online poker would have, at least somewhat, a different effect on your brain than live poker would. So maybe it would be good to have some sort of separation between the two. If anyone can point me in the direction of any related scientific articles I would be very grateful.

It's pretty obvious that poker would affect different people in different ways and to different degrees. However, there are going to be a lot of shared "affections" from person to person.

It might help to clarify what actually happens when we sit down to play poker in order to come up with some meaningful things to say about what effect it might have on your brain.

If one was to play online poker they would sit themselves down in front of a computer. Before they even sit down at a table they would (or a good player would) mentally prepare themselves for play. They would open up whatever software they plan to use. Once they are feeling prepared they will open up and sit down at whatever tables they think are going to show a profit. They will open up as many tables as they like. Most would wait for the blinds and start playing as soon as the blinds come around. They would start playing at some tables before others if they are multitabling as the blinds would come around faster on some tables than on others. Eventually they would be playing on all tables and now they are good to go. They might move to other tables, add more tables, take away tables, as they feel like. What tables to add or drop would take some thinking. Generally, though, there comes a point when you are more settled than earlier as you put in a few more hands and become more comfortable/settled with the tables you are at. Now you make poker decisions. Constantly. You observe what happens when you are not involved in a hand as much as possible. When you are involved in a hand or hands you try to formulate the best way to play them. You adapt to your opponents, constantly. Depending on how many tables you are playing your mind is often making three or four separate decisions at once, often, while observing other things as well. These specific decisions would end as the hand ends, but, there will always be more as long as you are sitting at a table or tables. You might think about situations you have been involved in months or years ago while trying to come up with the best way to play a current hand. If you just lost a big pot you could be thinking about how you played it for some time after the hand has ended, then forget about it for a few minutes, then think about it again, and so on. Your mood will come and go in spurts. You could be bored after an hour of nothing exciting and then very excited or heated the next minute after playing a large, interesting pot. This will likely have some effect on your play. Your wrist could hurt and that could carry over into your play. You might take a break and come back re-energized and repeat the whole process once again. So what happens to the mind, that tries to think and focus, that is constantly barraged with difficult or easy or medium decisions and sometimes not? Poker requires endurance, mentally. It also requires thought in different amounts. Information has to be processed. What happens to the brain that is forced to look at a computer monitor for hours on end?

I suppose live poker would be very similar except a bit more boring (if you're not conversing with anybody) since there are less hands and less decisions to be made. Your brain would not constantly be barraged with decisions but instead have to make individual decisions as they come.

What effect does poker have on your brain?

[furyshade]

for me personally it adds a large amount of stress regardless of whether you are winning or not. i am a 400nl player and i have taken a few months off and i have really felt a lot more stable, poker does a lot to your emotional state.

[Splendour]

It's my impression that online players suffer more from tilt than live ones. It may be a faulty impression or it may have something to do with the environment in which the person is playing in. I hardly ever hear live players mention tilt while online players seem really preoccupied with it.

[BigPoppa]

I would love to see the results of a test where they hook people up to electrodes and see what part of the brain is active during an activity.

I'm guessing that winning and losing players would activate totally different areas, with losers being far more emotionally driven.

[furyshade]

[ QUOTE ]
I would love to see the results of a test where they hook people up to electrodes and see what part of the brain is active during an activity.

I'm guessing that winning and losing players would activate totally different areas, with losers being far more emotionally driven.

[/ QUOTE ]

im not so sure about this, id think winning players would play more, and in my experience the more you play the more poker dictates your emotional state

[FortunaMaximus]

[ QUOTE ]
It's my impression that online players suffer more from tilt than live ones. It may be a faulty impression or it may have something to do with the environment in which the person is playing in. I hardly ever hear live players mention tilt while online players seem really preoccupied with it.

[/ QUOTE ]

More likely it has to do with the fact online players see many more hands per hour, especially multitablers, so getting your money in good and having negative results happen multiple times hourly, where a live player might only see that once in a live session.

Although there may be long-term enviromental effects, especially if the player doesn't focus on things other than poker.

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What effect does poker have on your brain?

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It's a mixed effect. You learn to analyze situations on the fly until they become second nature, etc. at a rather fast pace.

Burn-out and emotional effects are certainly part of the package for an online player. I had a month where I played nearly 115k hands and the effects of that were less than desirable. I'm playing far less hands now as a result of that.

[Schmitty 87]

One thing for sure is that when I watch a movie or something on my computer I always have to play a game of minesweeper or something at the same time. When I'm on the computer it's really hard for me to slow down.

Or when I watch tv it's hard for me to watch hour long shows because I get bored too easily. I think that all the mental stimulation from playing a lot of tables and money being on the line has made me much more impatient in general.

[willie24]

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One thing for sure is that when I watch a movie or something on my computer I always have to play a game of minesweeper or something at the same time. When I'm on the computer it's really hard for me to slow down.

Or when I watch tv it's hard for me to watch hour long shows because I get bored too easily. I think that all the mental stimulation from playing a lot of tables and money being on the line has made me much more impatient in general.

[/ QUOTE ]

i have noticed this too. i hadn't thought about the cause too much, but yeah, it's probably "poker mode"

[pokervintage]

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What effect does poker have on your brain?

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I am not a psychologist but I doubt that the act of playing poker has much if any physical effect at all on your brain other than causing one to be tired after some period of time.

Psychologically the effect playing poker has is probably directly related to your preconcieved views on winning and losing and the stakes for which you are playing. The brain is a resilient organ. It can be trained to respond in a specific manner to each potential result of an event. So if your brain is "affected" in some psychological way that manifests itself physically, by the act of playing poker, you probably have not prepared yourself for playing poker.

pokervintage

[tame_deuces]

Physically parts of your brain will change. If we assume you get good at poker you will get better at the kind of logic poker uses, as your brain will physically adapt and create new pathways as needed. Gaining a tendency towards statistical analysis in other aspects of life is probably a common sideeffect for many taking poker seriously.

As for stress levels, stress is generally just good for you, except when you get into situations you can't master which will sometimes happen in poker. Then you get what is referred to as negative stress symptoms. Experiencing some stress other than that is just good for you.

Some personalities thrive on stress and for them it would be very negative to live without it (they'd actually often get depressed if they didn't partake in a stressful environment) - it wouldn't surprise me if these types constitute the best poker players.