Quote:
Originally Posted by Mason Malmuth
Hi Sage:
Given how highly enthusiastic towards the Choice Center Negreanu is, I think answers your question.
Best wishes,
Mason
One could speculate that his keenness on goal setting may have been instilled in him by Choice Center or by similar teachings, where they say things like, "you can be anything you want, and achieve anything you want to", "All you have to do is set your goals, then visualise them....... and they will happen".
(teacher still speaking) "Look at me, 18 months ago I was living in a run down apartment and 3 months behind on my rent..... and now I am driving a brand new Mercedes e class and have just put a down payment on my first home......". etc etc
So people listening to this and applying it may well start blanket applying it to any and every aspect of their life, but not differentiating between things that they have ~90% control over (e.g. diet and exercise) and things that they have <50% control over.
Perhaps this is why DNegs sets end of day chips stack goals (now "intentions"). Clearly this is a goal over a small sample size of hands as well it being influenced by how his opponents play. So a goal that most outside observers would think is an illogical one.
Most people who set a goal or intention before a tournament will set a goal such as, "my goal is to play my A game and maintain a high level of concentration from start to finish", or "my goal is to get into more pots with the weaker players to target them and to avoid getting into pots with the stronger players". Or it could be a leak fixing goal like, "my goal is to take more time thinking through big decisions on the river", or "my goal is not to play medium strength hands out of position".
But goal setting one's chip stack growth over such a small sample size is frankly weird and doesn't make sense.
Does DNegs also have the following goals for the year on January 1st:
My goal is to not claim on my car insurance.
My goal is to convince >75% of my Twitter followers that The Democrats are better than The Republicans.
My goal is to convince >25% of my Twitter followers that drinking cow's milk is a completely irrational thing to do.
My goal is to convince the poker world that more rake is great for the poker eco system.
I mean, just visualise all of the above, and unless you are really, really unlucky and so many bad things happen all at the same time (like in this year's WSOP ME), well they are bound to come true...... especially the car insurance one, just visualise every errant driver on the road swerving around you and every car thief walking past your car because it has the protective shield of positive thinking surrounding it.
I think this may explain why he has been so astonished that he has had a bad WSOP, because it just shouldn't happen to a person like him, someone whose fundamental poker skills (these are not in doubt, he is certainly a very good poker player), combined with his positive thoughts and positive visualisation, must surely mean that he will at the minimum get really close to the goals he has set himself.
It ("visualise and it will happen") might also explain why he took a bet I think last year or the year before to win 2 bracelets at 3/1 or some stupid odds when the real odds were about 10 times higher. It may have been an even worse bet than this, I don't remember the details.