Quote:
Originally Posted by Mason Malmuth
Hi chrisshiherlis:
A post like yours above seems to imply that the on the side of mental coaches there are lots of studies that support their position while there are none that support mine. First, you need to understand that as far as I know, there are no studies that support the position of the poker mental coaches, and this includes Tendler. What they do, as far as I can tell, is to go to studies that are about various sports where things like speed, timing, and coordination are required and this has, at best, little to do with poker. So when they reference some of these studies, not only do I consider it worthless, but I also believe that any good statistician would consider it worthless.
Now on my side, there are no studies that I know about and even if there were I wouldn't care. That's because my arguments are based on simple mathematical modeling and the underlying statistical theory. If you were to read Real Poker Psychology you would quickly see that's this is the case.
When I first announced this book I stressed the idea that I knew little about psychology and that this would be an advantage for me when writing about this subject relative to poker. And in the paragraph above is the reason why.
Best wishes,
Mason
Hey,
I'm amazed you should make the first point about mental game coaches and research support for that, given the overwhelming support that guy has in the poker community. But I'm in agreement with you. There's an obligation for guys like Tendler to get right into threads like this and clearly and straightforwardly expound their position and tie it explicitly to research evidence. They do say it is based on research evidence. Some of which is his own.
The mental game is important and tilt is one of the most important features of poker. If this were not the case there would be no market for poker mental game books/coaching. Some people (like Gripsed, for example), say 'just get over it/forget it'. This is a disaster. For mental game books. Dude, that could have been 3 chapters. But there could well be some good psychology behind his idea. What I'm saying is, expect some mental game 'gurus' to amplify the whole thing for their own ends. I'm not leveling that criticism at Cardner, I'm going through her stuff to answer your other question, and from the little I've read, she seems a pretty straightforward woman. I have to read the rest of the book.
Tendler does seem to approach poker pretty heavily from sports psychology principles. So I agree with what you say about that. In 90%+ of what he says, you could replace the word 'poker' with 'golf' and it would still flow. You're overlooking the obvious similarities between poker and golf however. They both have clubs. Leaderboards. Women are crap at both. You need balls....
I think 'the mental game' has a place, but I'd probably take a different approach from his, and I don't weigh up the mental game's relationship with poker by using his definitions/paradigm.
I look forward to reading your book and seeing your ideas on this, sounds quite ground-breaking. Maybe I won't need all that mental game stuff. It didn't really work for me. When I'm playing poker, I'm playing poker, that's enough space taken in my head already. I don't want to sit there and figure out what type of tilt I'm on.