I was thinking about how I might come to a decision on the river whether to call someone's bet or fold. And while the obvious answer is to use logic and try to construct a range and figure what hands your hand beats and what the pot odds are blah blah blah, but a lot of times all that junk just goes straight out the window. And what really affects my decision to call or fold more than any other single factor is how I will feel if I get it wrong one way or the other. For example if I think I'll feel worse if I fold and get shown a bluff than if I call and get shown a better hand, then I'll call. I take the path of least regret, just like a GTO bot. Think about it, I'm basically an intuitive GTO machine simply by following my heart. Perhaps their is some kind of intelligence in my gut feelings? Perhaps that path of least regret actually does approximate a gto solution? Horace Grant once told me to follow my guts and he's a really big guy, so I'm gonna listen to him.

Many aspects of human social interaction can be modeled as imperfect information games and human behavoiur evolved randomization algorithms such as emotions, mystical thinking, and so on, to help us to be successful in such interactions.

What people call "playing by feel" is basically just tapping into these parts of our mind. Some people are able to do this very successfully. However you can be more successful by approaching the game analytically and relying on "feel"-based reasoning sparingly. The elite players use both at a high level.

Finally a good NVG thread

If you understand GTO correctly there is no feeling involved in decisions. You understand your opponents range. In your example you would understand that you analyse the hand at a micro analysis level, ie blockers. Maybe you are some kind of AI solver.


Do you coach?

I would not believe anybody else here telling me that, but you I believe that. So my gut tells me that.

What else did he tell you? Whats the story with Horace Grant? Where and when did he tell you that? I feel like I know him having watched him a lot when he played with Kobe and Shaq.


It was the guy playing with the glasses.

In "Confessions of a Winning Poker Player," Jack King said, "Few players recall big pots they have won, strange as it seems, but every player can remember with remarkable accuracy the outstanding tough beats of his career." It seems true to me, cause walking in here, I can hardly remember how I built my bankroll, but I can't stop thinking of how I lost it.

It's scared money, but if you would end up playing a much worse game mentally if you got owned by thin value or bluffed or what have you, it does make some practical sense. I try to be the robot though

Horace Grant told me he wanted some of my waffle fries. When I asked if he wanted ketchup he just laughed and dunked on me.

Not sure if seriously or not.

I'm more poker guru than poker coach. I'm not trying to teach people how to get better at poker, I'm trying to start a cult.

True story. I played poker with Horace Grant in 2006 at the Chumash Casino. He was there with his brother-in-law and friends and he brought his championship ring with him, it was pretty cool. Nice guy.

Exactly. I also think Super System is unironically a very good and very instructional poker book too btw.

He had a 9 dunk score in NBA JAM. You weren't gonna block him.

I'd much rather know none of the math but successfully read if you are bluffing 80% of the time. The great live players rely on "feel"" based reasoning far more than analytic reasoning vs opponents they believe they can read but use analytics more vs opponents they don't believe they can read. Analytics assume you can't tell if your opponent is bluffing. If your opponent can tell you get slaughtered if you bluff as often as you should assuming your opponent can not tell.

Are you sure it wasn't Harvey Grant?

It was definitely the Cookie Monster Horace Grant.

The Bryn Kenney approach! GL

I forget where i read it and the exact quote, but it was something like "intuition/gut feeling is valuable in areas where you are an expert, but unreliable elsewhere." I'm not sure this quite applies tho, if your whole goal is regret minimization. Although if regret minimization is your goal, you probably shouldn't have started this thread. :P

This is actually a really interesting take.

Nash Equilibrium seeks to minimize regret. The algorithm for solving poker is literally called Counterfactual Regret Minimization. If your utility function is based on emotional utility rather than monetary utility, then this is a theoretically correct approach. In fact, I think most players lean on instinct and emotion far more than analytical analysis in the heat of the moment.

That said, the goal of minimizing emotional hurt does not line up with the goal of making the most money. People are hardwired to be risk averse because we remember losses more strongly than wins.

I’d say we are hardwired to be risk advert in thinking/emotion only. But we are not risk advert with our actions. Otherwise poker wouldn’t be profitable.

The only question that really matters is What Would Doyle Do?

While my original premise is obviously flawed because it relies on a human being (me) as the decision maker, let's look at the process. What causes someone to feel bad about making a wrong decision? I think that the difficulty of the problem or situation (or hand) has a lot to do with the accumulation of regret. The dumber/bigger the mistake the worse we feel right? Isn't that what's really going when we evaluate which decision would feel worse to get wrong? Now if you're not very good at poker you're going to feel less regret with the worse decision sometimes because you don't know any better. Dunning/Kruger right? But if you're a gigachad poker player like myself then isn't what I feel less regret doing generally going to be the better play? Yes.

Sometimes you will get bluffed, but maybe you think this guy only has like 1 combo of bluffs and 5 combos of hands that beat you on the river when he bets pot. Now look I just did some math there to prove my point but I've never actually been on the river and thought about numbers or combos of hands. I think it's all feel at this point. I mean I know in the back of my head what math I need to do but the only time I actually do math is when I need to call an all-in with a draw before the river or calculating pot odds/implied odds. Math on the river doesn't exist.

Namastè. My cult isn't gonna have any frog poison or koolaid. It'll be chill.

I've played poker for 20 years, I'm an expert. When people get Monsters Under the Bed Syndrome they're scared of me. I am the monster under the bed. In fact if you happen to be reading this in your bed at home right now, I'm underneath it. Don't look.

I'm not sure where I've heard this before but there are more synapses in the human guts than in the brain. I think there might be an actual intelligence there.

Oddly enough, I feel fairly regret free in life. Bliss. (ignorance)

What if the greatest emotional hurt comes from the greatest monetary mistake? What if my brain has aligned those two things? Winning feels better than losing. I expect at this point my mind to seek ways to maximize my chances of winning.

A problem which could arise is that perhaps losing feels worse than winning feels good so there might be some imbalance in that emotional navigation. "Set a course" "Adjust the parameters" "Take into account your personal emotional biases" "Reticulate the splines"

Hell yes brother! Super System is the bible of poker. Anyone who can wantonly disregard that manual as outdated or irrelevant is in my opinion stupid and bad at poker. So 99% of poker players.

"What would PIO do?" That's what these nerds are saying these days. These nerds make me sick! Damn robots with their hoodies and headphones and thousand yard stares. What hell have they seen? Did they survive 'nam? Uncapable of human conversation. We've all seen 'em. They pray to the machine. An abomination! I follow the wisdom of a man, "What Would Doyle Do?"

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Anyways I really should go now. The mods have told me they don't want me posting here because they only want boring posts.
#FreeRichCheckmaker

Thread of the decade.

How many wives will potential cult members get?

P.S.
Freddy Krueger > Dunning-Kruger

It's basically gonna be a wife pyramid scheme where older members get to sleep with newer members wives or something like that maybe? I haven't worked out all the details, but we go in order of seniority obviously so I'm at the head of the train. Until I start getting jealous of other dudes and start exiling them, eventually leading to almost all but the most beta of males being exiled and me ending up with all the women.

I'm still working on this scheme, I'll get back to you later. But I'm gonna go ahead and guarantee you (or anyone!) right now you'll sleep with hundreds of new women if you just let me bang your wife. You in?
#FreeRichCheckmaker

the head of the train? freudian slip? do you know how trains work?

Great story thanks for sharing Rick!

That's not at all how people who are good at poker think. Your feelings shouldn't matter.