You wrote in Post #144:

Again, Clay-Liston, which appeared in the "Mental Toughness" chapter was used as an example of the lack of mental toughness that can appear in an athletic sport. It had nothing to do with tilt.

Now from the rest of this post of yours:

I think you need to read the book to get a better understanding of what it says. "Mini-tilt," what ever that is supposed to mean, is not addressed in my book, and who knows what you mean by your last sentence.

MM

It doesn't say or mean that you used the Liston example for tilt, I meant you used that example of a fight, whereas, in my opinion, using the example of the Duran fight would much more eloquently establish the difference between the subjects of tilt, mental toughness, quitting, total mind freak, etc. My point is eloquent in that regard. Of course there isn't time for editing to clarifiy every possible misunderstanding when discussing such related subjects. But I didn't conflate them. Again, I didn't say or mean that you used the Liston example to describe tilt, I merely said you used the Liston example ... meaning, speaking of fights, not tilt, you could have very effectively used the Duran example instead to draw a great line of demarcation regarding the "brain lock"/tilt and other aspects of poor performance.

Neither of us has said that Liston was an example of tilt. Only a misread and presumption, admittedly left a little bit open by the language due to no finish editing on these posts, conflates the two.

Why do I get the feeling you want nothing to do with that Dostoevsky quote? I mean, let's quibble about minor stuff and avoid the big issue.

Are human beings combinations of emotions and reason whereas computers are not?

A lot of the other is just nitpicking on a subject where there is no actual disagreement.

I have about a 4,000 word review of your book which you stubbornly insist I haven't read. I'm going to distill it into about 15 questions or so and see what happens.

I will say this first. If you read a treatise on Jungian or cognitive impulse control and then attempted to integrate it in a thread about poker, when you inevitably screwed that up here and there ... would that mean you hadn't read the book? I don't think so. LIkewise, when I read someone else's framework, yours, I may not integrate it perfectly first time around.

BTW, if I wrote a book called Real Poker Math and in the introduction said I don't know anything about math ... what would your reaction be? I'm going to debunk poker mathematicians by redefining the concepts to my liking, rejecting any other framework, etc. etc. Fibonacci or whoever the hell he is (I wouldn't know) be damned ... I"m the one telling it like it is here. How would you react to such an attitude?

Poker players, like human beings in general, often lack impulse control. It's why they smoke, it's why they eat too much, it's why they do all kinds of things to excess and could be said to lack discipline. Lets' say Mason Malmuth is highly disciplined and controlled when playing poker. With this as a given, all he need to do is learn to play well. Such is not the case for the masses. They need in the moment when they are abandoning their knowledge to indulge their impulses, to learn how to change that dynamic. That dynamic does not rare itself as a specter for very controlled players, by definition. I think this is one of your major blind spots in terms of appreciating what others can benefit from.

That's not an insult. Ask me about my blind spots re math, and they're legion. I couldn't even think of the other guy's name re "gambler's ruin," so I said Fibonacci instead (whose name I saw on a bogus sports cappers advertisement recently).

Hey, did you write the thing on the odd of the UCLA 38-game winning streak years ago, or was that Sklansky?

Gotta go. Can't edit. Nothing is written in stone.

Here are the first three paragraphs from the "Introduction" of Real Poker Psychology (on page 1):

and this appears on page 6 in the "Variance" chapter:

So that's how I can write a book on poker psychology.

MM

As I still haven't quite learned how to get a quote from another thread to appear in a thread, I am doing a link.

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/sh...6&postcount=27

I don't know if there is a way to get another quote in a separate thread so I suggest a link and a copy/paste w/i the quote brackets.

I'll add: Re diet. Do you see what players eat at the table? It's not steamed fish and vegetables since I haven't seen that in 20 years. And I quip: 'If I start to think that I'm fat and out of shape all I have to do is go to the poker room and take a look around. That fixes it.'

I agree on the sleep part but I wonder if it really affects tilt. Lack of sleep degrades MY game so I don't play if I'm not well rested.

But: I think Mason's right about the nature of tilt and my take away from his book is that players that tilt just don't accept poker for what it is. Mason will correct me if I'm wrong. His bit about seeing humor is true for me. If I get beat in some ridiculous way I chuckle. The ONLY thing that would bother me about such a thing is if that player stopped playing in the game.

So what gets players tilted? A beat? If it's a beat then they don't accept that beats are a necessary part of the game. W/O them the bad players would be busted. A needle? I'd think a player w/ a lot of live hours would be immune to that by now. Running bad? Everybody runs bad. I'll stop here.

Here's my view: Recs often come pre-tilted. They are there for more other reasons than trying to win. In order for them to overcome it they have to understand the nature of the game, which they don't. Pros and those who need the extra income: I think most of the tilt is bec a couple/few losses will put them on the rail, they know it, and they can't stand it. They are under-rolled and that means that THEY don't understand the nature of the game either. IIRC, there's a section in the book titled ''Dem fluctuations.' It should not be necessary to put such a basic topic in a psych book. Serious players should already know about fluctuations and how long they can last. I'm supposing that he put it there to try to finally bang some sense into these players. They've got tilt issues, they've tried other psych books that haven't helped (big surprise) so they read his and maybe a light bulb will go off here and there.

A last thing: I've got a large poker book library bec I'm willing to spend the money in the hopes of reading a single sentence that lights up that bulb. The price of the book is essentially zero since we a putting who knows how much on the table. If it helps win a single session the reader is ahead of the game.

Hi Howard:

My ideas on tilt are a little different from how you state them. So let me try to clear the differences up.

What I'm saying is that tilt is a processing problem. That is, when uncomfortable information comes your way, such as several bad beats in a short period of time, and your brain has difficulty processing this, your mind can sort of get hung up like an infinite programming loop and you can lose the ability to think rationally and tilt can set in. I show this through the use of a simple mathematical model based on discontinuous functions.

Where the humor comes in is that when the mind is able to process the uncomfortable information by crossing the point of discontinuity humor gets produced. Here's a joke from the book (for others who read this post) that illustates this idea nicely:

There was a young lady who wanted to have a boyfriend. But she had some requirements. She told her friends that her future man needed to be short but well dressed. So her friends introduced her to a penguin.

The point of discontinuity, which I also call a "logic disconnect," is when the young lady's friends introduce her to a penguin who seems to meet some of her requirements but who is obviously not a suitable boyfriend. And when our brains figure this out, or correctly process this information, we laugh. But it's my contention, and I thinkthe mathematical model clearly shows this, that if you can't process this type of information, then it can lead to tilt.

Best wishes,
Mason

Thanks for the clarification, Mason.

What's the human mind for?

A few minor errors in the book-

From the chapter Real Poker Psychology- A Few Clarifications:

My latest book, Real Poker Psychology, has been out since December, 2005.


The book was published in 2015, as was noted in
_____


In Semi-Bluffing and Big Bet Games there is the following sentence:

Without the river bet, your EV is worse by betting then by checking.

"then" should be "than"

____

I am browsing a Kindle version so can't give the page numbers.

I ended up here starting from the book reviews on 2 books on Poker mindset. I have the Tendler book, and found it incredibly useful- as I will explain later. I cannot comment on the book by Dr Cardner, as I haven't read it- but if I am being completely honest, the Tendler review reads as a hatchet job by an author with a similar book to sell.

I doubt that comment will be well received.

Let me try illustrate my point, using the quote from Mason above, and a quote from his review of Tendlers book:

Mason then goes on to say that unconscious competence is only relevant to sportspeople, relating unconscious thought to speed of reactions.

What Mason either hasn't realised, or is deliberately refusing to realise to differentiate his book, is that the concept of unconscious competence is an educational term and has nothing to do with "reflex" type actions as Mason describes. By understanding something to a level of unconscious competence what that means is you no longer need to use your higher brain processing systems to use that knowledge. You just "know stuff". So Tendler is actually advocating going back to basics, and ensuring you have those poker fundamentals really really well practised. Once you have that knowledge to the requisite level, your brain doesn't freeze, and you can process that information when under a stressful situation. In other words get better at poker and you won't tilt!

Both authors are saying the exact same thing, albeit it explaining it from the opposite sides of their own expertise.

In my own case I noticed myself getting this inability to process information sometimes. I didn't know how to sort it out, as I had studied a lot and have the basic intelligence to do the required maths. I was a clear example of Masons definition of tilt. I was considering all kinds of things to break through this mental blockage- hypnotherapy and all kinds of stuff. Someone recommended Tendlers book, and the clear message to me was I didn't know how to play well enough yet- starting with some of the most fundamental maths. I now do poker maths drills (almost) daily, and think much more clearly at the table. I'm sure Masons book would have led me to exactly the same place for the same reasons.

The books are not similar.

You would still make your decisions very quickly and that's not what happens. Also, in poker, expert players know concepts and not immediate solutions to poker situations. Thus they have to work through the concepts, which sometimes contradict each other, and this is very different from the "holy grail."

No we're not. You meed to read the chapter "Self-Weighting Hand Histories" in Real Poker Psychology to get an understanding of how different what I say is from what Tendler says.

Well this is more similar, but, as my book points out, there's much more to understand that just poker math and you'll see that some of this other stuff isn't mentioned in Tendler's book.

Best wishes,
Mason

My thoughts on Mason's new book: Real Poker Psychology.

First off, I think this book is an excellent and fresh take on poker psychology. However, it only speaks to the more practical minded and technically oriented among us. I'm not surprised to make this evaluation, as this is a mindset shared by most (if not all) long-term members of 2+2, the community that Mason created.

For those outside this mindset. the idea that someone, who sells poker books, would tell us that we need to study the game to win is clearly just trying to pad his own wallet by selling us more books … or so the more mush-minded among us would think … and this (thankfully) applies to many people who play.

The idea of breaking tilt up into "tilt," "pseudo tilt," and "searching/apathy" is brilliant in its simplicity. It defines the undefined states we have all both felt and seen in others. I read this entire review thread and feel that, except for making Mason do an “aww, shucks”, this part has been explored sufficiently.

I am glad Mason made it clear that he is a limit player, however, I think his bias goes deeper than is acknowledged in the text. In particular, the way he discounts playing when tired and anything to do with focus and/or attention, as opposed to clear and solid knowledge of the game. Now, before I continue, I will point out that my bias is centered around live NL Hold'em, though I still play low stakes limit HE, O8 and 10/20 – 20/40 limit when a game spreads (which is rare in my area) and have had varying degrees of success in all games over the years (thanks in no small part to experience and studying the game. I was on 2+2 on the old software and rec.gambling.poker before that).

I feel very strongly that, in NL, not only do you need to pay attention, you need a clear mind and the ability to focus when it counts. This is neither multitasking, nor is it a zen like state. It is more like when athletes are “in the zone”, but not as intense. Describing this clearly is a challenge because I think that sometimes when a concept like “paying attention” is presented, different people take it to mean different things.

What do different people think “paying attention” means? Laser focus, watching for tells, betting patterns, calling a hand after all action is complete, demanding to see any exposed hand, following the action and God knows what else.

It's sort of like: what color is blue? When you see blue, is it really the same color I see as blue? (OK, that's nonsense, but I'm hoping it will enhance the point).

The “paying attention” I think matters is the collection of: how do I perceive the other players, how do they perceive me, what have they done at each stage of the hand and what do I think they're likely to do. You do this by accumulating information about their betting patterns (hands played) and what their mental state is (tells). Then, you apply it to maximize your chances of either wining the pot, or losing the minimum. So, how do you do it?

Well, solid knowledge of what you are doing is both correct and Mason's main point. However, as is often the case, saying and doing aren't always the same thing. The brain is very much like a muscle, it needs more than just exercise (knowledge, study and experience), it needs oxygen, calories and rest as well in order to function at its peak. One needs to know not only what needs to be done, but when and how to do it. This type of thinking takes time and energy; eliminate either time, or energy and you can easily take actions by rote, which may not be the best solution.

Now, in limit, there are fewer (and less strategic) decisions to make than in NL. Also, because of the bet size being small in relation to the pot, infrequent tactical errors rarely get you felted (or worse sent home). So, missing something because you're playing by rote isn't that big of a deal. However, in NL this isn't the case. Playing by rote, (or on automatic, or semi-automatic, which is what we do when the brain isn't functioning at an acceptable level) can be disastrous.

This is why I don't like the discount the book puts on not being rested, not having focus, or being alert. I, personally, find it beneficial to clear my mind from time to time and feed my brain some calories to soften the effect of the constant mental energy the game requires. Also, if the game is good and I'm a bit tired, but want to stay, some coffee, or tea (with a little sugar) can give me that boost for an hour, or two.

Thank you for writing your excellent book and formatting it in easy to read sections,

Jay