Scientific American Article: The Expert Mind

[Lost Wages]

Link to article.

A very interesting article that has clear implications for poker players. Current research seems to indicate that experts are made, not born, and that the path to expert status is achieved by years of "effortful study".

Also interesting is that there is no transference; an expert in say backgammon, does not have an advantage when it comes to learing poker.

Lost Wages

[disjunction]

I skimmed the article. As an undergrad I took a lot of courses that had to do with this subject. This is old news: Experience in a field is so much more important than intelligence. The older I get, the clearer this becomes. If I want something done, I'll take the experienced guy over the smart guy any day.

I think on twoplustwo intelligence is way overrated, perhaps because of Sklansky's biases. Instead of rushing to prove that their IQ is one point above someone else's, most people here would be better served to work hard at gaining experience.

[Jordan Olsommer]

[ QUOTE ]
I skimmed the article. As an undergrad I took a lot of courses that had to do with this subject. This is old news: Experience in a field is so much more important than intelligence. The older I get, the clearer this becomes. If I want something done, I'll take the experienced guy over the smart guy any day.

I think on twoplustwo intelligence is way overrated, perhaps because of Sklansky's biases. Instead of rushing to prove that their IQ is one point above someone else's, most people here would be better served to work hard at gaining experience.

[/ QUOTE ]

Yup - to the best of my knowledge Anders Ericsson (the bigwig in this kind of research) says that becoming an expert in most fields (eg ballet, chess, mathematics, tennis) requires about 10 years of practice. Or to put it more accurately, 10,000 hours of "dedicated practice" (i.e. reading "How to Be a Ballerina" while watching television apparently doesn't count* ::melancholy sigh:. So if you won the lottery and had the discipline to dedicate all your waking hours, 16 hours a day, to becoming an expert, it would take you about 2.5 years. [the 10 years figure comes from a more reasonable rate of practice of about 3 hours per day, which is what we would consider to be a pretty damned dedicated student of the game]

I don't see why poker should be any different. I think many of us would do well to read and heed this article - a lot of people (including myself) lament varience or stupid fish or what-have-you when we really just haven't put our work in (the most notable examples are "what book should I buy next?" posts, invariably with a laundry-list of dozens of poker books followed by the question repeated, where if anyone had taken the time and effort to read, study, practice and review half of those books [which itself would be more resources than up-and-comers had a decade ago, by the way], they should be tearing up the tables so righteously that the next poker book they buy is a trivial question - [censored] it, buy em all!)

So you and me and everyone else who wants to become a great poker player has our task ahead of us - put in your 10,000 hours. It's rather invigorating to know that that's all it takes and that it's available to anyone who puts forth the effort, don't you think?

A hearty doff of my cap to Lost Wages for thinking of posting this article. *doff*

*Edit: Also, playing 16 tables at a time doesn't count. I do not care who you ask, you cannot pay enough attention on many tables at once to remember all your opponents' names, let alone observe them closely enough to find exploitable tendencies. I think with poker, "dedicated practice" would mean active reading/reviewing or playing one table in full-on observing-everything mode. Why not? After all, that's the mode you're going to have to play in at the WSOP final table, and we all want to get there, right?

[Some Pig]

Jeff Madsen

[maurile]

Yes, I saw this article at Barnes & Noble and bought the mag. (I wouldn't have if I'd known it was online. [img]/images/graemlins/frown.gif[/img] )

Very interesting article, and it definitely has implications for poker.

[ QUOTE ]
*Edit: Also, playing 16 tables at a time doesn't count.

[/ QUOTE ]
Right. In fact, time spent at the table is probably worth less than time spent thinking rigorously about the game away from it. (Thinking hard about the hands posted in the relevant poker forums here at 2+2 is a great exercise, of course.)

[uDevil]

Jordan,

Good post.

[ QUOTE ]

So you and me and everyone else who wants to become a great poker player has our task ahead of us - put in your 10,000 hours.

[/ QUOTE ]
Only 6,000 more to go!

[ QUOTE ]
Also, playing 16 tables at a time doesn't count.

[/ QUOTE ]
Ok, only 8,000 more to go!

I think bernie was the first person I saw recommend that people hold off on multitabling. I paid little attention at the time, but came to the same view eventually. I don't multitable much now, and I rely much less on PT. Meanwhile I think my game has significantly improved.

Unfortunately, the article says that time spent playing is less valuable than time spent studying. So maybe there's actually more like 9,000 hours to go. [img]/images/graemlins/frown.gif[/img]

[Ortho]

[ QUOTE ]
Also, playing 16 tables at a time doesn't count.

[/ QUOTE ]

Although I generally agree with this, I think that if you are biased toward study, that multitabling (I'm thinking 4 or maybe 6 maximum) can be quite helpful in that it can turn up more situations where you are unsure what to do, and you can then analyse those things away from the table. I think that it's possible that multitabling a reasonable number of tables can help you to identify areas where it would be fruitful to study. Obviously if you're just playing on autopilot you won't notice those things as they happen, hence the limit on tables. I am wondering what others think about the idea.

[chezlaw]

[ QUOTE ]
Link to article.

A very interesting article that has clear implications for poker players. Current research seems to indicate that experts are made, not born, and that the path to expert status is achieved by years of "effortful study".

Also interesting is that there is no transference; an expert in say backgammon, does not have an advantage when it comes to learing poker.

Lost Wages

[/ QUOTE ]
Interesting stuff but is it convincing? There's no theory of a chess in the way there is with poker/blackjack and many other activities.

By theory I mean some sort of abstract framework subject to mathematical analysis. Its the abstract framework that the more intelligent can take advantage of.

Non-counting blackjack is a pretty simple game but I doubt any amount of experience will arrive at optimal stratagy. same for poker.

The only thing that changes this is good books written by the very clever that explain how to play to the less intelligent.

chez

[Peter McDermott]

[ QUOTE ]

Interesting stuff but is it convincing? There's no theory of a chess in the way there is with poker/blackjack and many other activities.

[snip]
The only thing that changes this is good books written by the very clever that explain how to play to the less intelligent.


[/ QUOTE ]

Sure, but the very clever don't just instinctively 'know'
what a good poker strategy is either. They become expert
and are able to write the books that they do because they
study as well.

The difference is that they have to study much more widely
in order to make the necessary theoretical leaps. So while
those of us with access to 2+2 texts may have to put in
our 10,000 hours to become expert, Sklansky, Malmuth, et. al. probably
had to put in twice that or more to provide us with material to actually study..

[Shaman]

The immediate action implication is that playing in situations where you have to play lots of hands is the key. This means heads up and shorthanded play done one table at a time with super focus on that table.

I disagree with the transference thing. Harrington and Hanson are great backgamon players. Lyle Berman and Ely Eliza are top business people. Raymer is a successful lawyer. Malmuth was a statistician. Brunson and Strauss were athletes. There is a lot of transference.