No, it doesn't. What the authors actually say:

I agree with the conclusion reached in the study - more research needs to be done before determining the importance of practice relative to individual characteristics and natural attributes.

Sigh. This is just getting sad now. It's clear you're just looking for a fight and are willing to twist and manipulate things to fit your narrative all while ignoring questions and not actually taking a position.

It's obvious you're doing this for jollies so I'll leave you to it. Good luck with everything.

Thanks, but you don't need luck when you take the time to read studies thoroughly so you're able to fully comprehend the conclusions and implications.

I know. That's why I wished you luck.

These two are not the only choices. There are other important factors, like socio ecconomic factors, luck, the size of ones social network and so on. So if the study says that practise is responsible for 25%, then that is exactly what the study says. It doesen't make any other predictions,

I'm guessing you haven't read the study. Because it does actually say they recommend further investigation into personal traits and attributes without mentioning the other factors you stated. Those other factors are supposed to be negated by having enough deliberate practice to overcome them. If you buy into the 10,000 Hour Rule, that is.

No I just read the article. But even if they reccomend further investigation into personal traits and attributes, they should give some argument for that (maybe they did) It doesen't follow logically that if it isn't practise it must be personal traits.

most important thing i think is emotional control / putting in hours analyzing spots/putting in hands, i imagine someone like otb_redbaron has spent thousands of hours studying spots / work etc leaving him miles ahead of everyone else...

also mental strength / fearlessness, i.e you are printing $$ at midstakes but dont have the mental ability to handle HS swings (up down 5/6 figs in a session) along with being scared of playing jungle/sauce/baron or whoever is sitting....

Ego makes it nearly impossible for most poker players to ever become elite. They will grind as much as 10-30k hours thinking their style is great and doesnt need much work and that as long as they are playing they will improve.

Poker is a tricky game because the optimal way to play at each game/stake varies so much with different exploit styles until you reach the top 0.1% of players where GTO factors in a lot more, to what humans are capable of anyways. That and lack of self awareness/emotion control will make it impossible for most to become elite.

Hi Aces123123:

Please find below the chapter from my book Real Poker Psychology on this subject.

Best wishes,
Mason

10,000 Hours


In Positive Poker: A Modern Psychological Approach to Mastering Your Mental Game by Dr. Patricia Cardner with Jonathan Little, there’s a lot of emphasis on 10,000 hours. Apparently, to become good at something at an elite level you need to spend 10,000 hours working on it, and you need to work on it the right way. And of course this 10,000 hours includes poker.

Let me give a little history. In the early 1980s I lived in Southern California where there were lots of big poker clubs and developed an interest in poker. But only forms of draw poker were legal at that time and there was very little information available on these games. I did get what there was and did study it. Thank you David Sklansky, Mike Caro, and John Fox. I would say that after maybe 20 hours of work, the low limit games became beatable for me. Of course, I continued to review my hands and think about the game, but never came close to 10,000 hours.

In 1986 I wanted to leave my job and move to Las Vegas. To do this, it became necessary to learn limit hold ’em since that was the game that was most appealing to me and the draw poker games were not spread in Las Vegas. Fortunately, I got some help from David Sklansky and remember asking David how long he thought it would take to become a good limit hold ’em player. His answer was six weeks and I found that to be about right. That is, after six weeks I was a consistent winner in the $10-$20 games of that time and was able to leave my job with the Northrop Corporation and permanently move to Las Vegas in 1987.

Now since then I have continued to work on my poker and was able to become proficient at other forms besides draw and limit hold ’em, but the 10,000 hour number is crazy. So where does it come from?

I think there’s two answers. The first is that to be an elite athlete at some particular sport, it does take 10,000 hours. But that’s not because knowing what to do in many situations is so difficult. It’s more to do with developing timing, speed, and coordination, and that does take a long time. Of course, in poker, timing, speed, and coordination is not an issue.

The second reason has to do with the large short-term standard deviation that is present in most forms of poker. It’s my contention that there is little difference between the top players whether it’s tournaments or cash games. But it sure doesn’t seem that way.

Let’s look at tennis again. It’s also my opinion that the difference between the best players that you see on TV is quite small. So why does a Roger Federer or a Serena Williams dominate so much? The answer has to be that tennis also has a small short-term luck factor. That is, if you’re a little better than someone else, you’ll win most every time, and I’ve talked to a number of very good tennis players over the years and they all agree with this.

In golf, the best players don’t seem to dominate quite as much as they do in tennis, and unknown golfers always seem to hit a few tournaments each year. And the most likely reason for this is that the short-term standard deviation in golf is probably larger than tennis.

Now let’s look at poker. One of the things we see here is that every year there are always a couple of players who seem to do great. They’ll win a number of tournaments or score big in the cash games. So does this mean they are really elite players who have put in a tremendous amount of time playing, studying, and reviewing their games to gain a large edge over the competition. The answer is no.

Now don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying that these people aren’t excellent players who don’t put time into improving their games. In fact, some of them are clearly the best in the world. But their true edge isn’t as big as it may seem, they just got on the right side of the standard deviation, and when a top player gets lucky, he can have incredible results.

As one final specific example, let’s talk about ranges. This idea has been the rage for the past few years and it certainly is quite significant relative to how top players now approach the game of poker. In fact, it has significantly impacted my play and that of many, many others. But if I or some expert was to write a definitive book on ranges and how to use them, how long would it be?

When I asked David Sklansky this question, he told me five pages. I tend to give a few more examples in my writing, so my answer might be seven or eight. But one thing is for sure. To master ranges and understand well how they work and how they should impact your strategy at the poker table, it won’t take thousands of hours. The number should be much, much smaller.

And one final thought. If new players understood that it would take 10,000 hours of play and study to become a top notch poker player, I wonder how many new players there would be. Again, you don’t need to work on timing, speed, and coordination, and you don’t have to gain a knowledge of advanced mathematics to play well. So a lot less than 10,000 hours should do the trick, and I do mean a lot less.

Hi winnercircle:

Except that in poker if you're having trouble against a certain opponent you can drop into GTO strategies when possible and then you won't care how he plays.

Best wishes,
Mason

Hi Dr. Meh:

I strongly agree when it comes to poker. It's my opinion that some of these poker psychologists who sell their services need this number to help convince their students to keep taking lessons.

However, and I know from personal experience, in an athletic sport like tennis, to be really good at it takes a lot of practice time which should mean at the very least thousands of hours.

As for chess, I don't know enough about it to comment.

Best wishes,
Mason

Hi Mikro:

Also, in poker, there isn't much need for speed, timing, and coordination which reduces the amount of time required to get good at it.

Best wishes,
Mason

Hi Elrazor:

As usual, I think you have this exactly right.

Best wishes,
Mason

Hi Aces:

I agree completely with the sentence I bolded. But I'll take it one step further. I believe that some of these poker mental coaches, assuming they're sincere, don't understand how statistical variance works either. Specifically, they seem to think that variance just goes on and on without realizing that it disipates over time when compared to the mean (or win rate in poker).

Best wishes,
Mason

This is a good point. I think while I inferred that certain skills such as strength, speed, hand-eye coordination are "natural talents", you can also train these skills to a point. However, your natural physiology will provide a ceiling to how far these skills can be developed.

Good point, particularly wrt tennis. In a close 5 set match between 2 top players, the result will often come down to a handful of points. These points can be decided by a lucky net-cord, or who can raise their game in the clutch points. A good example is Federer V Roddick at Wimbledon in 2009. I think you can argue Roddick played the better tennis for the majority of the match - Federer's only break of serve came at match point 14-15 in the 5th.

I'm not sure how many hours of practice can prepare you for dealing with that particular situation, if at all. Likewise with poker, some players freeze in big pots or at final tables, while some can noticeably raise their game. Top sportsmen and poker players both need a certain amount of pressure to motivate them to perform. However, once this pressure exceeds our coping resources, it leads to stress and ultimately a decline in performance. I'm not sure any amount of deliberate practice can prepare or compensate for that.

Hi Elrazor:

When I was working on my book, and on work I've done since the publication of my book, so much of this stuff always seems to come back to the idea that poker is not a game that requires, speed, timing, and coordination. Yes there may be an execution factor as well as a knowledge factor, but the execution factor in poker has to be small .

The mental coaches that I'm most familiar with, Cardner, Tendler, and Roe, all seem to emphasize stuff that comes from the sports world and should be of help to things like speed, timing, and coordination. For instance, if you can reduce stress, I do agree that you'll hit the tennis ball better, and I know this from much personal experience. But I fail to see how it can help your poker game any more than a very small amount, and is one of the important reasons why I reject what these people advocate.

Best wishes,
Mason

Yeah, I mean this is just lazy critical thinking on the part of the psychologist, and they also know that if they waft a few journal articles in front of their $300 an hour client, they are unlikely to question it further.

With regards to stress, this is only from personal experience. When I final tabled my first six-figure (online) tournament, it was clear that most people froze at the table and were just looking to hang on for as long as possible. I started shoving my chips around and from a lowly chip position finished second. It seemed clear at the time that I adapted to the situation better than my opponents, but i'm not sure this could be attributed to technical knowledge of the game acquired by deliberate practice - i'm pretty sure everyone had read Harrington - but it was a different skill set that was required to act on it.

Mason Malmuth seems to be saying that you could just read the right book and be able to play as good as the top poker players in the world because speed, timing and coordination aren't required. So, it's just a finite amount of information and variance that separates all of us? Is there no emotional component to the game? Is there no discipline required? Sure, you could program a computer and not worry about emotions or discipline, but you can't program a person in the same manner. Maybe it was easier to overcome this side of the game when you could crush draw poker in 1980 after 20 hours of study.

No. I don't say anything like this.

What I do say is that the poker mental coaches that I'm familiar with often go to the sports world and take ideas from there that if successful will help with things like speed, timing, and coordination. They then apply these ideas to poker, which is much more of a knowledge game than an execution game, where they have little if any value.

I have no problem with what you have stated here.

When I read posts like yours they'll often point out that I'm a terrible poker player with poor longterm results. At least you say that I can crush draw poker even if those games don't exist anymore.

MM

Thanks for the clarification.

I'm just trying to figure out why the game seems so simple to you. Could it be that you learned it so long ago and the competition was light? If it's just about gaining the right amount of information, it's almost like a trivia contest. Do you allow for skill in applying the knowledge? Creativity? These are things that athletes also rely on. Some of the best in sports have the best minds and aren't just relying on speed, timing and coordination as you repeat ad nauseam.

It seems to me you are just trying to tear down these mental coaches without offering much in return. Every time I read one of your posts, they sound way too simplistic. Are there examples of players who have been converted from these coaches to your simplistic approach and flourished?

I wish you the best in selling your book. I'm not buying it though.

You obviously know little about me. I've been involved in the writing and publishing of books about poker/gambling that are quite complex and sophisticated. As for frequently mentioning the idea related to speed, timing, and coordination, that's because it's one of the important areas where these mental coaches who I think have little to offer go wrong. But if you were to read my poker psychology book you'll see that there's a lot more addressed than this one idea, and this includes the knowledge component in athletic sports. And if you were to read something like my Gambling Theory book, you'll see that my approach to much of this stuff is in no way simplistic.

Mason

Poker is a complex game, there is a lot of thinking in poker, still I think is monotone. Chess and bridge for example require more mental challenges. In poker though, it is the gambling component that is exciting. And that encompasses all. Regarding 10000 hours I think is an arbitrarily given number.

i laugh when people who just won a 6 max sng say they are good at poker

You are right. I didn't realize that I was talking to the founder of 2+2 publishing. My apologies and good luck to you.