awesome post by ZJ

[JDMcNugent7]

This is from ZeeJustin...

I’m a very logical person. I used to think that logical intelligent people will always do well at poker, and that people that are bad at math / logic that play by feel will do poorly. The super-analytical approach seemed superior to me in every way.

I would talk to players like H@llingol, MrSmokey1, Ozzy87, Sdouble, and even TheTakover and wonder how they had success. These are all great players, but their approach was so different from mine that I couldn’t understand it. None of these guys are particular adept at figuring out pot odds, or explaining the gap theory, yet they all do very well. I had to figure out why.

I recently read Introducing Neuro-Linguistic Programming by O’Connor and Seymour. NLP is essentially a psychological study of skills that lead to success in all facets of life, especially social interactions. I learned a lot about the learning process and the subconscious mind in this book. Namely the following:


Quote:
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The Four Stages of Learning
1. Unconscious Incompetence
2. Conscious Incompetence
3. Conscious Competence
4. Unconscious Competence

Unlearning is 4 to 2.
Relearning is 2 back to 4 with more choices.


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To anyone that has studied psychology, it is probably very clear that the subconscious mind is a lot more powerful and capable than the conscious mind, which is why the learning process must work in the order listed above. Take poker for example.

1. At first it’s just a game. You might not realize how complicated it really is, and you certainly don’t realize how clueless you are.
2. Once you start with beginner strategy, you begin to realize how clueless you are.
3. After a while, the strategies you are learning start to sink in. You may begin thinking, “A8o in early position. The chart tells me to fold this, so I will fold it.”
4. You begin to fold A8o in EP without even thinking about it. Your subconscious mind has now taken over this step of the process, and your conscious mind now has more “memory space” to start thinking about other strategies.

The conscious mind is capable of between five and nine active thoughts at one time. The unconscious is capable of a lot more. It is integral to learning that we take our conscious thought processes and internalize them.

The first theory I came up with, is the “luck of learning” theory. One problem with the learning process in poker is that our brain is very results oriented. That doesn’t always work for poker. It is extremely hard to always be able to separate the results from our judgment in determining what is and what is not the correct play.

This leads to luck, or maybe I should say randomness, being involved in the learning process. Some players will 3-bet AK 4 times in a row, and lose all 4, and may start playing it slower, be it consciously or subconsciously. If this happens enough times, a bad habit may reach stage 4 of the learning process, where it is internalized. Once this stage is reached, it becomes a lot harder to go back and fix the problem, because at that point, it’s no longer thought of as a problem, but a solution.

I think that logical, intelligent players are a lot less likely to be affected by “bad luck” in the learning process. By thinking logically, they are able to better separate themselves from the results.

In general, only a very small percent of poker players are both logical and intelligent. However, a very high percentage of winning players are logical and intelligent. This is for fairly obvious reasons, so I won’t get into it.

What I want to talk about, are the non-logical players that do very well. But first, I guess I should quickly say what I mean when I refer to intelligence. When I say logical and intelligent, I am assuming the person has a very specific kind of intelligence, namely a mathematical intelligence. These people will do very well on the math portion of the SAT’s for example.

When I talk about non-logical players, notice I am not mentioning intelligence. I do believe intelligence is absolutely necessary to be a great poker player; however, these non-logical players have a different kind of intelligence. According to Dr. Howard Gardner there are seven forms of intelligence. “Logical intelligent” players will have Logical-Mathematical intelligence and often spatial intelligence. I find that the non-logical players that are successful often have a great deal of Interpersonal intelligence, and to a lesser extent, spatial intelligence.

Disclaimer: I am not well versed in psychology. The above is opinion based on my limited observation. I can not say with confidence that this is all accurate.

I’m getting slightly off topic here, so let me get back on track. What other traits do successful non-logical players have? I find they often play by feel, and can not properly externalize their plays. They have a feel for pot odds, but often can’t calculate them on the spot, even when the calculations are very simple. They often have poor bankroll management skills, and do not make good grinders. Some of them are actually losers at low stakes, and winners at high stakes. How can this be?

I believe that the biggest difference between low-stakes and high-stakes games is the importance of hand-reading skills. This is why some of the non-logical players will inevitably do extremely well.

The truth of the matter still is that most non-logical players, even intelligent ones, will fail early on in their poker career. I think this goes back to the “luck of learning” I talked about above. When learning, the “logical intelligent” players rely less on luck, and are able to logically analyze situations well enough to somewhat remove the results from the equation. The non-logical players are not able to remove the results in the same way. They often don’t read the books that explain they must play tight, calculate pot-odds, and abide by other guidelines to do well. These fundamentals are the ones necessary to win, especially at low stakes. Essentially what I’m saying is that these players need a lot of luck to do well early on in their careers to learn the fundamentals internally. Getting past this seemingly trivial stage is very hard for many of these players. The few that do break through, will often have a natural tendency to read people, and will therefore do well relatively easily at higher stakes games, assuming they were “lucky” enough to learn the proper fundamentals.

I am often shocked at how many terrible plays the successful non-rational players are capable of making. I think my “luck of learning” theory explains this. They often have gaping holes in their fundamentals because they weren’t “lucky” enough to learn them properly. However, these poor fundamentals are often overshadowed by expert hand-reading skills that allow these players to do well in high stakes games. This is obviously not always the case, but I believe it is very often the case for the successful non-rational players.

I also find that the logical-intelligent players will often break through the low limits very easily. The fundamentals come quickly to them, especially if they are taught to them in a conventional manner (note that the logical players are much more likely to learn via traditional means like reading, rather than the non-rational players, many of whom have never read a poker book). After low stakes, these players often hit a brick wall that they can’t get past. Did you move up easily to 15/30 LHE or 3/6 NL online? Did you have trouble getting far past those limits? If so, this probably applies directly to you, and I know this applied doubly to me.

Often times these players will have had great success due to their logical intelligence, and they don’t realize, the main skill they need to master to start playing higher stakes games is that they need interpersonal, or hand reading skills. It is a very hard and slow process to develop these skills purely analytically. The subconscious mind will be much better able to recognize the patterns of their opponents.

For me, I first learned to play small-stakes LHE 6 handed. I then switched to Sit’n’gos. In both of these games, hand reading skills are very unimportant. When I moved to cash games, at first I struggled a lot. I didn’t have the proper hand reading skills.

The turning point for me was when I learned to trust my gut. When I say gut, I am talking about a very specific subconscious inclination, and it is much better than I am at telling me what hand or hand-range my opponent has, and how he will act with certain hands on future streets.

I find the most successful players in the world are the ones that are able to master both of these extreme opposites in skill that are both of paramount importance. You absolutely must learn the fundamentals, and this is best done through an analytical step by step process. After this, you must learn hand-reading skills, and the best way to do this is through natural practice, and distinguishing which “voices” coming from your unconscious mind you should listen to, and which ones you should ignore.

The unlearning and relearning processes I briefly mentioned above are also crucial. The “voices” are developed from reaching stage 4 of the learning process, but sometimes in poker we learn something that is incorrect. If we are able to pinpoint these mistakes in our game, and then properly unlearn and relearn the appropriate situations, we will always be one step ahead of the game. So if you have a little voice in your head that says “call, the pot is big” that happens to talk at the same time as your voice that says, “it’s a value bet, he has the nuts for sure”, you must try to externalize which one of these unconscious thoughts is more apt. In my personal experience, I have found the voice that tells me my opponents hand to be far more accurate than any other voice or inclination I have at the table.

When learning something as complicated as poker, I think it is extremely helpful to first take a look at the learning process itself and get a better idea of the intellectual journey you are about to embark upon. I made the mistake of trying to externalize all my thoughts, without realizing how powerful my unconscious mind can be. There is a reason that many poker players that play by feel will be successful. They have interpersonal skills that allow them to understand not only their opponents, but the overall flow of play in a particular poker game. These skills are rarely talked about in poker circles, because they are hard to rationalize.

The reason why the unconscious mind works better at this task is because of the sheer amount of information being processed. We could analyze our opponents play analytically: “Ok, he raised preflop, and he’s a tight player, so he has a decent hand. He bet the flop, but that could just be a continuation bet. He bet smaller on the turn, so maybe he has a good hand and is afraid of the flush, or maybe he’s milking a really strong hand. It’s also possible he has a pair and a straight draw, or some kind of combo hand. I don’t think he’s the type of player to fire a second barrel often, but maybe he’s doing it here because it’s unlikely that I hit this board hard.” Going through all the possibilities could take a long time, and I find that it is too hard to keep the many factors involved in a read active in the conscious mind. This is why this process is best internalized.

In the end, there should be a balance between the analytical mind, and the unconscious mind. I find it rare for people to maser the use of both of these. Most players can be summed up in one of the two categories I have laid out. However, if you want to be a truly versatile player, it is important that you learn to utilize both of these techniques constantly. The balance will not be easy to find, but it is a goal that every poker player should aspire to.

[JDMcNugent7]

that post is very very good IMO and rings true for me in alot of different ways.
I suck at BR management, im not the best grinder, and I don't know odds nearly as well as I should. I think right now I win mainly off subconscious play based on all the hands I have seen, my ability to manipulate people psychologically and understand what they will do, and hand reading, plus my aggressive nature in poker seems to just be a winning way.

I plan on getting better at all the concepts I suck at, and building on the ones I'm good at.
I really think about 15% of my play has been my A game. Usually Im totally distracted, barely thinking about poker, and just kinda being a machine in that I just keep playing the same way over and over against bad/avg. opponents.

I am for the first time in a long time excited about getting alot better, and confident that I will.

[Zybomb]

Im about to read the ZJ article now, so I may have more to comment, but before I do, the bolded part of your post....you realize that is the most important thing in the world in the game of poker, as that is something that can not be taught nor memorized (well I guess except the aggressive poker part). It's called natural.

Edit: Read --- excellent post, makes me wanna buy this book he refered to also lol

[JDMcNugent7]

Yes i do agree, in a way - but there is also a completely mathematical and logical way to poker that I admit I am very bad at (I mean I seem to just have an understanding overall of when its ok to call, when the price is to high, but i never have a set # in my head like im sure you and Kurn do, and many others). I also have been relying soley on these aspects to make me money. I am realizing how much I suck at other aspects, and if I can learn to successfully combine the two I will become a Much better player.

Also, the mindless playing that i tend to do, just playing the same everyday in something i know is a winning way - will never ever work in the High stakes games - and I am confident I would get absolutely destroyed there. This is why I think I am actually just mediocore at poker. All I do is beat the system for a expected win rate day in and day out.

[Zybomb]

Beats a 9-5 or working for 'the man'

[PShabi]

tl;dr

[JDMcNugent7]

lol why did u quote the WHOLE DAMN THING.
and what the hell does that mean. (tl;dr)

EDIT: never mind i looked it up. u suck

[Talking Poker]

Well, I read it... Interesting observations, and I agree with him.

As an intelligent logical player, I think it's actualy more difficult for me to "learn" the non-logical side of poker than it is for the "feel" guys to learn the logical side - I mean, come on, math is math. That said, I feel that I have a BIT of a gift with the "feel" side of poker as well... It's NOTHING compared to the likes of SDouble (who I played with in Aruba) and our very own JD, but I think I have more than the average Joe. Anyway, I've thought about this before and I think this may help explain why I play so much better live than I do online (in tourneys anway). My subconscious has many more inputs to work with, and even though I might not be able to pinpoint an exact tell on one of my opponents, my "gut" is able to put all those inputs together and paint a better picture for my brain...

Anyway, like I said... that was an interesting read. Well written.

[Kurn]

JD, your last point goes back to my rant against measuring pros by how well they might do in "the big game." Who cares? Why would you ever sit in that game, even with an adequate bankroll, when you could easily beat 80/160 limit for 1 BB/hr? In the latter case, you could play 30 hours per week, make a quarter of a million dollars per year and have virtually zero risk of ruin since you'd be way over-bankrolled for the stakes.

[Talking Poker]

Why? Pride. They want to play with and beat the best.

And $160 per hour isn't worth their time. Not even close. But I understand your point - just use $200/400+ as an example instead.

[melioris]

The Kurn/TP side topic is turning into an interesting topic. It gets to core reason of why you play JD. If you play to make a tidy profit on the side while you are pursing a career in something else, then it really shouldn't be hard to make school your priority, as that is what is required to get a 'normal' career. But if you are seriously considering poker as a career, I think you should take a year leave from school and give it a try.

Yes, the social aspects of college are very important. But unless you go to class and do the best work you can, then you are just overpaying for a summer camp. Fucking up and getting thrown out of college because you failed classes is bad, but I think it is for more damaging, and a lot more common, for bright, intelligent students to grow accustomed to doing the minimal to get by. This embrace of mediocrity is the curse of modern America, and our best and brightest are learning it in college. Don't fall victim to it.

Decide what is important to you and demand excellence from yourself those areas. If you are unwilling to do what it takes to achieve excellence in an area of your life that is important, then have enough courage to realize you were fooling yourself when you decided that the area was important.

So if you are fucking up in college, figure out if it is because you really would rather be playing poker and learning how to be a great poker player, or is it because you have only been in college for a month and shit, it is a crazy fun adjustment but you lost sight of why you are the in the first place. But whatever you decide, think it through and go for it. Don’t allow yourself to be mediocre.

Oh, and hurry up and post those pictures you talked about in the other thread. I got to be the best dirty old man I can

[Zybomb]

I disagree with the majority of this post.

First of lemme start by saying I think college is overrated, particularly if you don't know what you want to do. Coming out of college with a Liberal Arts education does little if anything for your job search, other than you 'have a degree', which for some reason looks good to some employeers (despite the fact that the job has nothing to do with anything taught in a classroom required to get that degree)

On the other hand, as far as out of classroom experiences during college, you learn a shitload, you develop as a person, and you become who you are. I know that if I went somewhere besides Ohio State for example, I wouldnt be the same person I am today. I would have had different friends (maybe a different type of crowd also), met different people, had different experiences, developed differently and thus I would have been a different person than I am today. I wouldn't trade my college experience (particularly my 2nd year ) for the world

Also it's always nice to have a plan B to fall back on.... even if you decide to give the pro poker play thing a try for a while, what if it works for 6 years and then all of a sudden something fails... you just gunna head right back to school? No way.

You're still a kid, have fun and stay young as long as you can... when you're done with school, you can see where life takes you

(- Sorry, this is getting off topic)

[Kurn]

Thus, there's more than just making money to the decision, which again counters the "poker's-not-gambling" crowd. The guys who play the big game absolutely are gamblers, and while I believe its all gambling, settling into a comfortable win rate while being over-bankrolled is indeed taking a lot of the gamble out of it.

This is where poker is better than professional sports. You can actually make a good living even if you're not in the majors, yet you can still play the game rather than be a coach.

[JDMcNugent7]

I think I can get alot out of college, I just need to take it more seriously. It's just hard to get motivated when some of the classes they put me in are so ridiculously stupid, like art appreciation - I don't appreciate art and i dont want to, its the boringest class I could ever think of and the teacher acts like all of our lives are centered around art, when we have no clue what the fuck she is talking about.

Next semester I get to pick my classes more and hopefully they will be more interesting.

In the mean time. I need to be happy with a good, steady profit from poker and try to minimize the amount of "gambling" im doing by staying at stakes i can pretty easily beat rather than challenge myself too much. I just want to build my bankroll more, but focus on school first. And by focus on school i mean start doing homework and doing well- no way will i take school overboard - i have never come close to that in my life.

[melioris]

So yeah, I also am sorry that this is off topic, but I think it is kind of relevant to JD so I will reply.

I don’t think that college is overrated, particularly in the cases when someone doesn’t know what they want to do. But if you are not going to take advantage of the resources when you are there, then I agree that it is overrated. But JD’s situation is somewhat unique. Certainly I had no idea what to do with my life when I was in college, but I didn’t have anything else so I stuck with it and figured something out. Also, if the typical BA in some liberal arts degree doesn’t little or nothing for your job search, I fail to see how it is a viable plan B.

I agree wholehearted with you about the ‘out of classroom’ experiences. It is these that shape you and mold you as an adult. But since you can not predict what these experiences will be at specific institutions and how they will change you, they are, in effect, random. And who is to say what other unpredictable random future events were denied by your choice to attend one school over another. Or even over not going to college and learning a trade. These things are unknowable.

I wasn’t trying to suggest that JD should get old soon and not live life to the fullest with my sanctimonious rant. He is a young and should enjoy himself to the fullest. I only was trying to suggest that, in his somewhat unique situation, he consider his options as clearly as possible

[jillaj]

The worst part of college was how boring my gen ed classes were. As soon as I took classes the pertained to my major the classes were interesting and easier to attend. Picking a degree you can actually make money with is also wise since it is what makes the world go round.

[JDMcNugent7]

This is a really good quote and I've been thinking alot about it.

The quote rings entirely true for me - I have already fallen victim to it, 4 years ago actually. My ACT scores prove im very bright and that is how I got my scholarship and the way i get by in classes - excelling on tests I barely study for. But the work i do in school, and effort i put into it looks like just another average student, if not below average. Ever since I found out how easy it was to be average and slide by, I've done it. I mean I love my life and I like having fun much more than doing schoolwork. I personally dont even think grades are all that important, but I realize I have completely embraced mediocrity for years now, and I want that to change.

[PShabi]

I've known EXACTLY what I wanted to with my life since before high school and I'm very thankful for that. Helped me focus and persevere when most people would've sunk like the Titanic.

[melioris]

This is exactly what I did in high school and most of college. It really wasn't until my second year of grad school that I got disgusted with myself and the huge opportunities I had wasted by doing the just enough to get by, or to satisfy others expectations of me. It wasn't all roses once I got my shit together, but after a few years of holding myself to my own standards, my research went places that I never would have been able to achieve if I had just skated by or done enough just to satisfy what was expected of me.

I am not trying to be a pretentious asshole, I just feel like I was really fortunate to get a lot of opportunities throughout my life. And I wasted most of them, which I am quite regretful about. I am regretful not because of how things turned out but because I wasted a lot of opportunities that were never offered to other students, and maybe if given the opportunity other students would have capitalized when I didn't.