In live poker especially, do you believe in "instincts?"

You hear old school players use this word.

I'm not sure what it means in poker.

Is it just an excuse for a hero call or bluff that worked out?

"I knew he didn't have it!"

Well, easy to say once you win the pot.

On the other hand, I can say that with live tells, being able to see your opponent, and some metagame dynamics, instinct might still be a viable part of decision making. I have certainly made many good decisions that might be fundamentally or mathematically wrong, but situations where I have been consistently correct. Or maybe I was just lucky.

What does everyone think about instincts in poker?

Of course, once you've done something a million times, you unconsciously pick up on subtle tells. Instincts are what makes poker so beautiful, it's those A high calls on the river when you know your opponent doesn't have ****, it's those monster bluffs when you have deduced your opponents range perfectly due to his tendencies and how the hand has progressed. Poker is one of the best games ever IMO, and it's because the game is so damn large by a theory perspective.

When you've observed villain always comes in with a raise with AK in early position but more often limps in with AA. Just as another example, when you notice villain makes medium size bets on the river for value and large when bluffing.
That's instincts, isn't it?
You can't mathematically equate that. Or can you?

Edit: I think it can especially be called "instincts" when you start to notice these are not only the playing habits of one individual but are patterns of certain player types , allowing you to adjust and react accordingly. I guess this is a part of exploitative poker as opposed to GTO.

Absolutely.

Instinct (or intuition or "gut feel") is a key component in the development of any kind of expertise. It comes from experience when you encounter similar situations over and over again, which results in subconscious pattern recognition. This is why experienced physicians are able to make diagnoses more quickly and accurately than new physicians, for example.

This may not be the best example. There is a strong body of evidence from nearly sixty different studies that suggests the exact opposite - quality of care declines as a doctor's tenure increases. In fact, doctors who have been in practice for greater than 20 years perform worse on objective measures of performance than doctors who are two or three years out of medical school.

I wouldnt put intuition in the "instinct-class," because the instinct is based in a much deeper and therefor much older level/layer of the psyche. Intuition is one of four different psychological functions that would have to be differentiated in the consciousnes to be ready available for use in poker.
However, it could reside in the subconscious and work from there, but only when you did not learn any basics of poker to start with. Think of things like charts with startinghands/position, knowledge like that would work actively against any intuition you may experience about any given hand.

Interesting question. The scientific term for this is interoception - whether awareness of subtle physiological changes can positively influence decision making. I saw a great keynote on this at a conference a couple of years back. This is once of the papers presented in that talk, which pricked my ears as it's related to decisions in a card game.

Listening to your heart. How interoception shapes emotion experience and intuitive decision making

It's also worth pointing out that poker players typically frame this question into making a hero call or successful bluff (i.e., favourable outcomes where the result is known), rather than making an intuitive laydown. I also think when recalling such incidences, people are more likely to recall positive rather than negative outcomes.

You don't need proof when you got INSTINCT!
--Joe Cabot

^ and how did that work out for him?

He was right but that moron, Mr white, was hung up on his emotion.

If his instincts were so great, he wouldn't have hired him in the first place.

Which raises another interesting question. He said he had the instinct not to hire him but did so anyway. Why? What makes us question our instincts in some situations but not others?

I think when faced with a desperate situation (hiring an unknown for an imminent heist with few other options available or calling off your stack on the river), we tend to look for more concrete evidence to sway our decisions and actually put less merit on our instincts. We naturally revert to a more conservative state of mind in the interest of self-preservation. So even though our instincts are telling us one thing, without evidence in agreement with that instinct, we tend not to listen to it. But in less dire situations, we are more inclined to “trust our gut” so to speak. Calling a river bet for 20% of your stack based on instinct is a heckuva lot easier than calling off your entire stack based on instinct alone.

I relate Instinct to guts, you know there are 3 brains, our "brain" logical/analytical, our Heart, and our Guts.

Sometimes when making a decision, instincts will come first, then you second guess cause of your logical mind, but you have to be ready from time to time to make a "gut" decision, and if you lose, at least learn the lesson.