Pokerwiner.com → Within poker principles
The conclusion reached here can be dangerously convincing for a player who lacks sufficient knowledge of gambling theory and probability. For to some extent he is winning because of how his is playing. For example, he may play far too many hands, but if he happens to have a sustained run of good luck with his substandard hands they will win him a lot of money – in the short term.
Although he is costing himself money every time he plays a substandard hand, the cost will not be apparent to him during his lucky streak. Only in the long run is it guaranteed to manifest itself. In fact, when he has such a winning streak he can accurately say, “I never could have won as much during this recent period had I not played all those hands.” Thus he is likely to continue to play the same hands in the future, eventually wondering why he has lost so much when he was doing so well for a time. At the center of this player’s plight is his focus on a red herring – his short term fluctuations. It leas him to reach the wrong conclusion about his play. While less knowledgeable players are the most likely to form this faulty conclusion, those more educated in the poker game are not above similarly flawed thinking.
It is common for a good player who has an unusually good winning streak to begin, perhaps just slightly, to expect that he will continue to win with ease. Again, he is fixed on the wrong data. Consequently he may begin subtly to overplay some hands, to draw a bit thin, to play a few hands that his better judgment would say to fold. It may only be well after his good luck has turned around that he recognizes where he is playing badly. By that time it has cost him substantially, but a good player who persists at improving his game will eventually learn to avoid this trap. With experience he can learn to maintain proper play whatever his short term results have been negative fluctuations can lead to the opposite conclusion. As a result of an unavoidable losing streak a good player may conclude that he is not very skilled after all. Because he is running badly, he finds that no matter what he does he simply can’t win. Eventually this experience can engender a feeling of helplessness which erodes his usual sense of confidence in his abilities.
He concludes that may be he never really knew how to play, maybe he’s been doing lots of things wrong without realizing it. Here again, if he has in fact been playing well, the error is one of equating his poker skill level with his short term results. The consequence may be a deterioration in his play as emotion, rather than reason, begins to dominate his decisions. Just as winning and losing streaks can trigger faulty conclusions, swings within a session can do the same. Here the conclusion is often less well structured. A player does not necessarily think, “ I’m winning a lot right now, so I must be an excellent player.” Rather he just feels good, as evidenced by his visibly cheery mood or increased talkativeness.
Still, some players do seem to act as though an upswing is simply a well deserved reflection of their superior play. It is fascinating to see a really bad player adopt an air of smug superiority after catching a lot of good cards and holding over his opponents for a while. On the other hand, a downswing can easily bring down a player’s mood. This phenomenon is so common, in fact, that it seems there is scarcely a player immune to it. It is one of the chief triggers of going “on tilt”, but it is an irrational reaction which will occur less often, and with less intensity, if a player is not distracted by the wrong data. What are the right data? They are the specifics of his play. By focusing on why he has played poker hands in specific ways, and analyzing the correctness of his play, independent of any short term results, he will put himself in a position to reach correct conclusions about how he is playing.
On Tilt: Part II – The Professional Attitude / Subtle Losses of Judgment: Part I
Subtle Losses of Judgment: Part II / A Poker Player in Therapy