I think most everything you say here is wrong and I don't feel like writing out the answers again. But, since you like reading threads, may I suggest this one:

https://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/2.../#post52620391

It covers some of the topics that you bring up.

Also, if you were to read my book, Real Poker Psychology, you would see that I say you must get some experience to become a good poker player. But you don't need anywhere close to the 10,000 hours that Cardner claimed were necessary.

Mason

This is the best thread/discussion on the topic here or anywhere else. Shame the discussion petered out.

Hi Jeeeroy:

I got some time now and will try to go through your post. So, let's see how I do.

Okay.

Again, there's much discussion in my book Real Poker Psychology. The quick answer is that you need experience playing, but no where near the amount of experience that poker mental coach Cardner claimed you needed.

The problem here is that poker, being a game mainly, of knowledge is not like an athletic sport where execution is highly important. This means that once you have some understanding of poker, adding new concepts, correcting flawed ones, and learning to balance concepts better can result in rapid improvement. It's not like a tennis player hitting hours of backhands everyday, as I once did, in an effort to slowly improve over time.

Except that this can't happen in poker. If you were a weight lifter, being able to lift a certain weight which you currently can't do might make some sense. But in a game like poker with a large short term luck factor, there will never be anything like this to measure.

See my answer above.

The problem here is that poker has become more and more like blackjack. I suggest you read this post:

https://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/s...6&postcount=28

Again, poker is not like an athletic sport and doesn't work like this.

And no one said that any of this happens.

You need to read this post:

https://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/s...&postcount=109

and this post:

https://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/s...&postcount=113

you'll now see that unconcious competence is only referring to the basics, and this comes from Tendler himself. That's a lot different from his book where he states "Unconscious Competence is the Holy Grail of learning, and by far the most important concept in this book."

I'll concede this. Perhaps you're right for someone brand new who knows little. But it can't be right for most people reading this thrtead.

You need to read the chapter in my book titled "A Mathematical Model of “Tilt” — Cause and Cure."

I'm not even sure what this means and how it's related to poker. But if you say so, fine.

I find the stuff incredibly bad.

This brings us back to the same point. Sports require things like speed, timing, and coordination, which come under the heading of execution. Are things like speed, timing, and coordination important in poker.

I think inchworm has been addressed enough.

To me, and I was a victim of this at first, the worse part of Tendler's books is that if you haven't thought this stuff through, and don't already have a good understanding of poker, his book, and I only read the first one, sure sounds good. Here's a review of it:

https://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/s...8&postcount=39

Okay.

Perhaps you should and perhaps we would even be interested in publishing it. But before either one of these things happen, I would strongly suggest that you understand the things I'm saying and linking to. There has been much discussion of this stuff on these forums and, in my opinion, people like Tendler have not done well in defending their positions.

Best wishes,
Mason

I manage tilt by not putting myself in positions in which I will tilt. These situations are generally 1) Making a lot of money early on in a session, playing more and then losing most of it, 2) Playing for long sessions when tired from being card dead, 3) Taking too many bad beats. The most important thing to long term winning poker is a stable mind, do your best to keep it that way.

Thanks Mason I appreciate you taking the time to reply to my post and my thoughts on this topic from a professional standpoint.

I hadn't heard of Cardner, I have heard of the 10,000 hours theory. I agree it doesn't apply to poker, or really many activities IMO. Some things take longer than others to get good at of course, but even in the Malcom Gladwell days of "10,000 hours" theory, I could never get behind 10,000 hours for most things. Even at the highest levels of my field, we may get thousands of hours of clinical training but no one suggests 10,000 therapy sessions or face to face hours with patients before one can graduate with a masters or doctorate in the field.

But outside of degree requirements or job requirements a set number of hours to me is irrelevant for learning something. And some players are going to pick up poker and the skillsets faster than others anyways. And we know many people "improve" with practice of whatever they're learning as long as they're willing to learn from errors, mistakes, and new knowledge being presented.


And you're spot on, most of my response is in regards to newer players and non-pros. I would imagine, and hope, a poker or blackjack professional has gotten their mental game ducks in a row. Just as I'd expect elite athletes to be able to focus 100% on execution of the skills and not let their mind wander, their focus weaken, or their thoughts intrude.

Interesting you mention newer players reading something and maybe not fully understanding it. Or maybe misapplying it. I do wonder if that applies to other concepts. Like new players diving into poker knowledge that's too advanced without first stopping to review and master the foundational knowledge of the game.

It sounds like from your deep experience in poker you're saying newer players may incorrectly apply mental game concepts from other areas that don't take into consideration the unique nature of poker (with it's luck factor, variance, etc). Which I can see now makes a lot of sense.

I can also see how Blackjack and Poker have more in common now, especially when considering increased focus on mathematical theory and application of it.


You've got to be kidding me though that someone actually said "visualize a 2 on the river?" That's pretty atrocious and horrible advice. I can understand the power of "visualization" in sports; after all as a tennis player I imagine you got better through repetition and also follow through of your swings. Maybe you even visualized where you were aiming. So visualizing can be a great tool in physical sports ("visualize yourself hitting the baseball out of the park, " visualize the tennis racket directed towards the corner you want the ball to go.").

But with poker, I agree, what the heck does visualizing cards do for a player? Except maybe crush them when they start believing that. I wasn't aware so many "mental coaches" were slinging such bizarre advice. Positivity and cognitive focus is one thing; visualizing certain cards is just wishful thinking. At best it leads to them misreading boards, at worst is deludes them into making incorrect plays. I get what you mean. I could wish for the flush to come on the river all I want but that doesn't mean it comes or my wishing had any impact on the outcome of what card comes.

I read the forum links you posted as well, the one on your views on these mental game books was eye opening to say the least. It reminded me of the saying "you don't know what you don't know." So if a player makes errors that they don't realize are errors in poker; how would they know to change the error. And in terms of tilt are they tilting because they lost or because they think they played correctly? A player with knowledge would know why they lost the hand right? And thus not tilt because they understood what went wrong (identifying what they could have done vs a bad beat).

I'll certainly check out some of your works and books. In terms of writing poker books from psychology perspectives I often wonder what that best approach needs to be. It's clear now that poker players require a different approach then athletes due to nature of the game.




While I agree that we need to mentally aware and focused; I think perhaps you might be hindering yourself poker wise if you avoid the positions you used as examples. It sounds like you identified what causes tilt but then avoid it. But also these are all examples of things we must accept in poker (going up in profit then back down, card dead, bad beats) and frankly if you don't come to terms with those things, will you ever actually beat tilt? And are you leaving a lot of long term profit on the table by just avoiding situations that are part of the game? I agree we should recognize what tilts us and take breaks. But also recognize ways to eliminate those things tilting us since they're part of the game.

Hi Jeeeroy:

Well, let me do the same again and go through this post and see how we're doing.

Cardner is the co-author of three books on this subject. I've only read the first one but on the first two books her co-author was Jonathan Little.

As for 10,000 hours, I've played tennis since I was a kid and believe that to become a top player, 10,000 hours is not a bad estimate. But in my book Real Poker Psychology I say on page 67:

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.

So I think we're in agreement here

This sounds fine to me.

Okay.

This goes back to Tendler's "unconcious competence." We essentially got him to to admit that it only really applies to, as you state, "foundational knowledge of the game" and I think that's right. It should be learned first and then the new poker student should move on from there.

I think this is exactly right. Mental game concepts that usually come from the sports world and are designed to help with execution won't help much in a game like poker which is basically a knowledge game where speed, timing, and coordination are not important. But for an expert who is looking for every edge, they may have a little value.

This is actually an interesting point. Because of game theory and a few other things, poker, over the years, has become more and more like blackjack.

I think this is absolutely correct and this was another example of how some of these sports psychology ideas, which are designed to help execution, have come into poker. They often sound good, though this one doesn't, but are fairly worthless for the vast majority of players.

This is a very important idea. I'm not against the psychology of poker. In fact, I wrote a whole book on this topic. But what I've written is very different from what many of these poker mental coaches advocate.

And what you're saying here, which is also correct, is that much of this poker mental coaching that's out there can be detrimental for many players if they get trapped into it and neglect to work on their games in the proper way.

This was something that was really emphasized in the Cardner book. I remember one passage where it said something like you have just made a couple of mistakes and are now beginning to feel a little tilty. But again, how would they know?

I think this is exactly right. In my book I call these spots "logic disconnects" where your brain gets hung up on trying to solve a problem that it doesn't have the knowledge to solve. But if the knowledge is there, tilt won't occur.

I agree completely.

There's a lot more to poker than just poker strategy. In Real Poker Psychology I use the phrase all things poker to capture this. A misunderstanding of variance and how it actually works and the fact that something, like poker, which is based on probability theory, can often be counter-intuitive for many players are things that should be addressed in poker mental coaching. But as far as I can tell, none of these mental coaches even know what I'm talking about.

Anyway, thanks for a great post.

Best wishes,
Mason

Mason,

I have read a fair amount of what you have posted and interested in what you say on knowledge verses execution.

I'm wondering why that, when I'm studying away from the table I am able to make more correct decisions then when I'm at the table. Is this because of pressure or nerves? My mind is not as clear as it should be.

So does this mean my execution of my knowledge is failing or something else?

Thanks

Hi Madsaac:

I'm not qualified to answer your question. I do know that everyone is a little different, but not having a background in psychiatry I wouldn't want to attempt to give you an answer. There are other posters here who could do that much better than me.

However, I do know that experience is an important part of becoming a good poker player. Snce I don't know you, your experience is something unknown to me. And if you're new to the game, my suggestion would be to move down in stakes until you begin to do better.

Also, I've written a paper on "The Four Psychological States of Losing Poker." This may also help you and you can find it here:

https://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/2...poker-1756469/

Best wishes,
Mason

My first question would be "what is your evidence to support this statement?"

Yes true, I don't have any evidence, I suppose its more of a feeling. I think it may be the fact that there is something at stake when you are at the table.

And when you study and put lots of time into your work away from the table, I feel that I just can't make a mistake, so I don't feel as comfortable as a I do whilst studying and in turn my execution suffers.

I know, it sounds like I'm having a sook

It was actually 2+2 that helped me overcome any blind spots in poker. I used to post and comment on hands relentlessly in the PLO forum and turned my game from absolute novice to relative expert.

Don't just rely on you own judgement though.

It's a common phenomenon in sports kind of known as "taking our game from the range to the course." Depending on your psychological comfort level with the event -- the main/real event rather than the practice -- anxiety and distractions can block our performance under "pressure." It's a little bit akin to stage fright or writer's block ... we impede the flow of our ability with kind of a splintered, anxious inner state. This is at the other end of the spectrum of being integrated or "in the zone." One redress is anything calming ... deep slow breathing, approaching and acknowledging fear in ANY walk of life transfers over to others areas of fear (so if you deal with any phobia effectively, it will help). Fear is fear: it tends to permeate. Until we begin to vanquish it ... not by fighting it, but by welcoming it. It is a basic human emotion, not to be fought or denied, but to be experienced as "part of me." An adversarial relationship to our emotions often results in self-destructing or short-circuiting, either intentional or inadvertent.

Thanks mate, yes makes sense

I understand the point that any player should try to master completely the game. In my opinion this is incorrect as episodes of anger / tilt are deeply rooted in the brain and therefore it is impossible to overcome them without applying some boundaries or rules to your bankroll.

I don't see how avoiding tilt also decreases your skill and mastery of the game. Skill and emotional resilience are two separate dimensions of poker, which the players should try to address independently.

Secondly, I don't think that avoiding tilt decreases long term profits at the poker table. Essentially, your job as a player is to make consistently +EV plays, and episodes of tilt deviate from this principle. So avoiding tilt will not leave money on the table, on average.

BR

Tilt as I understand it is acting on our hand in ways we know not to be sound/plus EV. Therefore, more knowledge is not the answer, as knowledge isn't the deficit in such instances ... self-control is.

If a total neophyte with no grasp of sound strategy sat at the table and made terrible plays one of the other out of ignorance, we wouldn't call that tilt. More simply it's just bad play. Tilt is when you know better but act against your knowledge because of other factors in the psyche, other factors which many are completely ignorant of as they don't turn up on an IQ, mathematics or poker test.

If you deal with tilt and get better in dealing with it, you will quit games less. This means more hours where you play your A game. The player who leaves when tilted just keeps leaving good games, and thus loses out on the chance to make more profits.

Leaving when tilted is better than staying when tilted, but there's no way tilt avoidance is equal or greater than improving your reactions to tilt.

10mg valium... )

Study the works of spiteful and others of his kind.

For as long as we are injecting our own quasi-aberrant psychology, presupposing it really, into our arguments, we fail to see the wider context of what is happening in the phenomenon. We are simply in the theater of our own mind, and not so much debating the wider issue. This is very true of tilt discussion.

There's no clock when you're studying.

In poker, your worst enemy isn't the one who is sitting opposite you.
It's the one you see in the mirror every time you wake up in the morning.