Hello!

First, the blog. I'll try to write quickly and straight to the point because obviously, nobody ain't got time to read pages and pages everyday.
I'm really interested in psychology (even though I'm not going to major in it), and especially cognitive part of it.

Cognition, that is everything that goes on in our head. I hope to bring you some useful information and how research on human brain connects with our poker minds. And if someone's more into psychology, maybe he or she will learn something, too.




A little about me: Turning 20 in a month. Been playing poker last 2 years, and mostly 100-200NL. Had my time on 400s, but as of now, I spend too much and can't build big enough roll. This will be one goal of this thread:
* Build a roll for midstakes! Next, highstakes.


Why do I go to college?
I love learning. Not a nerd-type sitting and reading books all day. Just learning something from about field of life (besides philosophy which I truly hate). But I love taking film, music classes (helps you analyze lightning and symbolism in Breaking Bad ), psychology, economics, all that stuff.

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Short note about short memories.

That is, working memory, or short-term memory.

How often do you answer messages on Skype while playing? Watch YouTube videos, or search for a new song? Well, I got some obvious news for you. You're giving your money away.
People who message you on skype should pay you for every message you type. Why? Because you can never play A-game while focusing on at least two different tasks.
Say, you make 8bb/100 while playing A-game. When you switch to your B-game, you make 4bb/100. A short Skype conversation will distract you for 5 minutes, that is 35 hands (if you play ~400h/hr).
A 5-minute Skype conversation could cost you 1.4bb. If you do this everyday for a month, you'd find a bill in your mailbox for 42bb. But usually, you'll talk much longer than 5 minutes. It could costs you buy-ins for not turning off skype.

Well, duuuhhh. Buy why?

Our brain is limited. We, unfortunately, are also limited. Different researches show that our working memory is able to work on 4-7 different elements at the same time. Poker demands a ton from our mind. You need to remember how the action went preflop, his postlfop tendencies, your range, your image, dynamics. That's already 5 items! Add skype, and you're already far far away from making the best, or optimal decision.

Conclusion:
- Humans are terrible at multitasking (you can convince yourself that you can do 3 things at the same time, but in reality, the quality of each task will drop significantly)
- You can never play your A-game if you're focusing on something ELSE THAN POKER. If you wanna crash, you now only have to focus on your technical game, but also on the real focus itself.
- While it's impossible to get rid of all distractions, you can do your best to limit them by turning off your skype, turning off music (esp. with lyrics), movies, youtube BEFORE you start your session.

So turn it off. You did? Good job, you just improved your winrate.

One more important thing to notice about this situation -- it's very important to keep your head empty and ready for action. Not literally empty.. If there's something on your mind bothering you, IT WILL TAKE AWAY YOUR FOCUS. If you just had a bad-beat and you're still thinking about it, IT WILL TAKE AWAY YOUR FOCUS. If you made a mistake, IT WILL.. yeah yeah. Bad beat, mistakes, that's already the past! Don't let it affect your play and make even more costly mistakes. Accept the fact, mark the mistake to review and learn from it afterwards, and move on, keep on crushing!

2.0 On videos and memory..

Some of us watch videos to learn, other learn by playing or watch videos for entertainment.
But how do you get the most out of videos, coachings, sweats?

In our minds, we possess a working memory (short-term) and a long-term memory. Both are very complex and more and more elaborate theories and researches will keep coming out.
Short-term memory is limited. Without rehearsal, you can hold information for 30-60 seconds (of course, not a perfect estimation). Then it's gone, and it makes sense too. Because there's no reason to remember what tie color a person, that you passed by on the street yesterday, was wearing.

Same with poker. If something doesn't struck you as unusual, or you don't rehearse an information in your mind, you're going to forget it. But sometimes there are more useful information that we can remember (specific ranges, specific action in that turn spot etc.) So after watching a video or getting sweat by a friend, you're going to forget lots of things that could improve your game.

What do we do about it?
One, write it down. That way you can reread those notes and apply that information while playing.
Another great way is called self-reference effect. It's a theory, that you will remember or store more information in your (long-term) memory if you relate that information to yourself. It's simple - when watching a video, think of your own ranges, of what you would do in this spot while "the coach" is performing the action. Sounds simple, but not only it will help you remember spots and find your leaks, but also increase your focus since you won't have time to wander around the web.