Can hypnosis make you a better player?

[Richard Adams]

Anthony Holden (author of Big Deal) wrote in his blog over at biggerdeal.com that he was set up to play in a one table tournament with four good players and one old lady. The old lady had had one week of training and was unlucky to come second after an all-in bad beat. This was on national TV. The TV host was a hypnotist who declared that he had enabled the woman to read people's bluffs. Can this be even close to the truth. Has anyone come across this before?

[Gigglegirl]

And next week a 3 year old Chinese child plays against a bad tempered chimp who has mastered game theory, a dolphin who uses sonor to hand read and a speaking clock who is ultra aggressive every 2nd half minute.

It's junk tv.

[Mingdu]

sure it can help ... but with your own issues ... won't give you soul reading abilities

[rookie101]

The hypnosis approach would only be used to make the subconcious mind more aware to catch tells. Its nothing magical or super mysterious youd get the same results by constantly paying attention to the game. Or even walking down the street you start to take in your surroundings naturaly.

[2High]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4oY0tL2cMsM

[Poker Plan]

It was performed by Derron Brown.

[Splossy]

Derren Brown is a magician who pretends that his mentalism effects are down to psychology. He's worked out that most people don't believe in mindreading and spirits anymore but they do read stupid self-help books and believe in "body language" etc. So he sells that big time. It also fits with his stage hypnosis abilities. So his shows blend different arts to create "Derren Brown: Mind Controller". But mostly it's just magic dressed up.

You can't believe a word he says. No way did he train that old biddy to read faces to that extent. No way can he read faces better than a poker pro. He convinced HER she could read faces by a few simple tricks. Then he convinced the audience. But I don't buy it for a second.

Either the dealer was bent or he just designed the tourny and gave her a very basic strategy such that a Kill Phil style approach would have a decent chance against a load of "pros" who thought they'd be able to push her about. Or something else we didn't see at all.