Do you see, no matter what I say these guys twist it around so that it doesn't make sense.

I said that you would not be able to hold an advantage over the opponent. I didn't say that the opponent would hold an advantage over you.

There is one kind of play that you can make to stop the opponent holding an advantage over you which is why I didn't say that. That kind of play is GTO. These GTO strategies are making these poor guys literally go insane. They get angry, and then no matter what I say, I am always wrong because GTO.

What you seem to be describing here is dual-process theory, which you can read more about in Daniel Kahenman's book "Thinking Fast and Slow".

Except you appear to have it the wrong way around. You seem to be saying that by using our natural through process (what Kahneman calls System 1 thinking), we can out-strategize players who are using a more deliberate thought process in the form of GTO (System 2 thinking).

Now when I played poker (fairly successfully) I didn't really think in terms of GTO, natural processes or otherwise. Most plays were analysed away from the tables, either by reading books, forum posts or examining previous hands and crunching numbers. Once I had improved my understanding of a situation, it would then be a simple task of recalling and executing what I felt to be the best play at the time based on the best available evidence.

Anyway to get back to the original point, it's still not cognitive dissonance, or if it is you have not done a great job explaining why it is, which does not bode well for your book.

Cognitive dissonance - The negative feeling experienced when the mind holds on to two conflicting points of views and is confronted with information that conflicts with one of their beliefs.

These two conflicting views come from - The line of reasoning behind the plays that the player makes.

It seems pretty straight forward. I dont see where I'm making a mistake???

So ... You say that you have played Poker, and seem to have some trust for GTO. And you have just attempted to discredit my book, and my logic along with it... I cant help but suspect that you yourself are suffering from this thing.

It sounds like that book addresses both deliberate strategies, and, our unconscious ability to strategize. But what I am saying is that everyone is struggling to develop a conscious grasp of what is usually an unconscious strategic ability.

You came here asking people what they think of your theory, and people have made some critical observations - if your best response is to make personal attacks, then good luck and I won't waste any more of either of our time.

This is 100% correct, but somewhat incomplete. You seem to ignore the fact that deviations from gto result in a loss of ev, which includes preflop errors. You're right that a maximally exploitive strategy will have higher ev than gto. Nobody is claiming otherwise neither here nor in the theory forum.
Lol. I'm not angry in the least.

However, I am a bit frustrated that you haven't addressed any of the post that you only briefly describe here:

I was hoping we could get to a discussion on preflop ev, but you seem more caught up with your own ideas, which speak nothing of ev.

Let's do an example:

I fold some hands vs tough players that I would raise vs bad players. For example: no limit holdem 100bb deep and I'm on the button with T7s. I fold vs tough blinds but would play vs bad blinds. I make the same type of preflop adjustments with many hands that I consider marginal. The further I think I am from the margin, the more convinced of my read I must be in order to change my default strategy. This is exactly because of the threat of counterexploitation. You don't give your opponents credit for being able to counter exploit, which is your problem, but you also seem to think that your theory is impervious to counter exploitation. Maybe I'm wrong on this point, but if I'm right, then I think this is something you could work on changing in both your mindset and your default strategy.

Oh man, you blatantly have it. I was just explaining why you seemed to be struggling with logic that was pretty straight-forward. I wasn't making a personal attack at all. And what do you do eh? Move to discredit me, and avoid the simple logic in question. Standard CogD behaviour.

Bob this thread isn't about pre-adjusting. It's about CogD.

You've made some audacious claims in your last post regarding my understanding of poker theory which are all simply attempts by your mind to discredit me and my logic. Your assumptions are ridiculous. I mean, you know that I'm an exploitative player with lots of profit and almost a decade of experience as a professional, and yet, you think I dont know that we could be counter-exploited lol.

We could go on like this forever, you telling me how I'm wrong, me explaining that I'm actually right. But we wouldn't get anywhere. You are just attempting to discredit me and it wont stop. The only way that experienced players seem to be able to get past this is by working it out themselves. If you look to Plato's "Allegory of the Cave" you can see how this works.

I have spent a long time dealing with poker players who are suffering from this thing and I find that they usually tell you exactly where their mind starts rejecting the logic. You clearly seem to be stuck on pre-adjusting. And so, the only way for you to advance your general exploitative ability is to learn how to pre-adjust. To pre-adjust you need to consider the future state of your perceived range. You consider that for one night and it will be worth 1 year of conversation with me.

Once again you don't address the point.

You may be aware of it, but I don't think your strategy reflects that understanding.

Bob, mate, I really wanted to avoid this same old conversation here. I've tried to keep this thread as clear of poker theory as is possible so that those reading will not start suffering from the exact thing that I am trying to highlight. If I start explaining exactly how we naturally strategize in Poker, I am certain to get a lot of degrading, almost abusive comments from experienced players.

I have no idea why you now think that this natural thought-process doesn't account for counter-exploitation. I also don't understand how you think that this has anything to do with this thread. Like your other claims brother, this is just nonsense. You can't argue that pre-adjusting is not needed if you don't know how to pre-adjust! Just go and spend some time learning it, and then, if you still think it's not worth doing speak to me on the theory threads and I will discuss it with you.

I think all of this becomes clear if you just realize that Yadoula has also accidentally solved decision theory.

Once again you don't address the point. Here I would like to warn everyone about engaging with you in conversation because this is a trend that's been going on for years. I've had this conversation with Yadoula numerous times and he always avoids the point.

Yadoula, it's a simple question with a yes or no answer:

Do you play T7s on the button in a no limit holdem game?

Based on what I've read in this thread you don't know what "CogD" is (beyond the textbook definition), so that's not much of an insult/observation/whatever.

That's not a simple question to anyone but a GTO player.

... I hope someone reading this see's what I'm up against here! Lol it is literally a nightmare.

You still haven't said whats actually wrong with my simple logic

If people are not consciously aware of something, it can't cause dissonance.

Take the classic example of smoking. People smoke because they enjoy it, or it helps them relax, or because they think it's cool, despite being consciously aware of the negative health implications. Conflicting values.

If people are not aware of the negative health implications, they cannot have conflicting values or cognitive dissonance.

Dude... In your smoking example you're talking about knowledge that the person does not know in any way lol. Obviously if you dont know that smoking is bad for you, it is not going to cause cognitive dissonance!

I cant actually believe you just used that as your one argument to disprove my logic. You gave all me that ****. Tell me I know nothing of psychology, and then that is the problem you find with my logic lol!! You are clearly suffering from CogD and you know nothing of the mind.

You clearly dont realise this - The human mind can develop an unconscious understanding of things. This is not the same as not knowing the thing lol. And knowledge that we've developed an unconscious understanding of can obviously cause cognitive dissonance.

Does anyone here actually know anything about psychology lol? Or know someone that does? Perhaps you can get a lecturer who knows nothing of Poker to come and discuss this issue with me?

So the action is on you and you hold T7s totally readless in a brand new game. They just called the list and you drew the button. What do you do and why?

I presume that for some reason I dont know what stakes I'm playing at. That, somehow, I have no idea whether the opponents are masters or beginners. I'm guessing I can't even take into consideration the fact that the vast majority of players are weak. Perhaps I've been blindfolded, and taken to a random casino in a random country with some random currency, and I dont know the exchange rate.

In this ridiculous situation, I have two, perhaps three options.

- I can open the T7s, so as to widen my perceived range in future situations. This is likely to lose me money now, but, a lot of weak players struggle against steals so why not. I'm likely to win often too, and this is not far from GTO so if I do lose I wont lose much on average.

- I can fold the T7s. This is the safer play. I suspect that this is the GTO play. It doesn't however, allow me to tee-up my future exploitation.

- I could also limp, which doesn't seem too bad. It does have some merit, but I wont go into it here.

Which would I do? It is extremely close. But I would take option 1. In these early stages of the game we get to make our first impression to our opponent. This is a great time to make him think that we are overly aggressive on the button. So, I will attack him hard and wait for him to either adjust, or show me that he is a GTO player who is incapable of adjusting.

Does that answer your completely irrelevant question?

So you choose to lose money voluntarily, yet you claim to be a poker theorist?

I believe it is you that is suffering from cognitive dissonance. This is not some superficial contradiction. In fact it's quite significant; this contradiction indicates a huge flaw in your fundamental strategy. Any of your self proclaimed "exploitive adjustments" are rooted in a flawed default strategy.

How does the human mind develop an unconscious understanding of knowledge?

https://processcoaching.com/fourstages.html

I might lose a little tiny bit on average now. But it tee's up my next exploitation.

Give it up man. Do you have any point here? Or is this just a lame attempt to discredit my skill in general???

P.S... You dont need to answer that. It's obvious what you're trying (and failing) to do.

Your plan is also flawed in that a number of events need to occur in order for you to regain this loss of value:

1) your opponent must not quit, otherwise any chance of regaining the lost value is gone.

2) your opponent must be good enough to recognize your preflop play as poor in order for him or her to effect a plan to exploit you, otherwise there will be no recouping the lost value.

3) a situation must arise in which you find yourself against this opponent, who must have a hand that he would not hold in his actual range had he or she not witnessed your poor preflop play.

4) you must effect an exploitive strike vs said opponent.

5) you must execute this exploitive strike vs said opponent.

Now, all of this is quite unlikely to occur in a short timespan. On a very long timeline, the possibility of recouping this lost value that extended from your preflop error goes up and up, but we don't have forever to recoup this lost value.

tl;dr fold pre.

I dont have a clue what you're on about anymore lol. And I dont care to work it out.

If it's confusing then maybe you should reevaluate your understanding of how probability works. It's really quite simple.

Yeah, you make preflop errors in an attempt to confuse and exploit your opponent in future hands. This is poor strategy.

So tell me, where does it end? Where do you draw the line in your preflop selection? Why not just play 100%?

Actually, I'm trying to help you understand poker.