a question of poker psychology

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SolaRoe

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This is something I want input on from people who actually have a solid foundation of knowledge in poker psychology. Everyone else is of course welcome to speak up too, but if you're an amateur at poker psychology like me, please say so.

It feels like poker is a game of injustices. The only thing that ever seems to happen in poker is that your pocket aces get cracked by some donkey who gets 26 offsuit and goes all in preflop and flops a straight. That's the experience I've mostly had over pretty much 100 SnGs, some with 5-minute blind levels and some with 3-minute blind levels. Nor have I always been cheated; sometimes I donkey out on others myself. A number of times I've gone into a heavy betting hand with the worse cards and have sucked out myself, sometimes eliminating what looked like a very good player who got shafted by the nature of poker, just as everyone who plays poker well seems to get shafted. It looks like, the better you are, the more you're going to lose, because the rules of poker seem to favor the fish. Because I'm far from being pro level I play poker partly to take advantage of the fact that the rules give me an edge over better players. If I got to be really good, I might quit.

Does anyone have anything to say about this? The more you know about poker psychology, the more I want to hear from you.
 
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Call with every hand and see how much you win.
It does seem that there is a gap to be exploited with players reading the same books and playing the same way though. I don't believe that the writers of the books give you all their secrets, and could even possibly put in disinformation.
I am not expert in poker psychology.
 
wagon596

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Okay here is my two cents worth, and for sure I'm not claiming to be a pro. If you can get a read on the player's style, I'm not talking tells here.Then you will find players you can push around. Players who are aggressive can be trapped and so on. Don't know if that's poker psychology or not. Just my thoughts
 
SavagePenguin

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It looks like, the better you are, the more you're going to lose, because the rules of poker seem to favor the fish...

Does anyone have anything to say about this? The more you know about poker psychology, the more I want to hear from you.

I talk a bit about some of that. Check the first link in my signature. Maybe the 2nd one too.
 
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SolaRoe

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I talk a bit about some of that. Check the first link in my signature. Maybe the 2nd one too.

Okay, I read the material at both of those links, and I take back everything I said in my original post. The way you explain it makes a huge amount of sense to my mentality. Can we be friends? (Not sure how I can be of benefit to you right now, but at the very least you can stick some IOUs from me in your back pocket.)
 
SavagePenguin

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:D

Thanks. You made my day.

If you liked them, make sure you read my responses in those threads as well because I flesh some stuff out there.

I wrote those by summing up pieces of advice I had for other people over a period of months. Many are problems I had myself at one time.

Knowing is not enough, we must apply. Willing is not enough, we must do. -Bruce Lee
 
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spockthe40oz

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I think if you can get a read on the player then it will save you a lot of trouble in terms of getting sucked out. I think a lot of newbie players take a lot of chances, they are the ones playing 2-6 off suited, a hand most of us would never play. In the event the fish does get a decent hand, after a few times you should be able to recognize their betting strategy. Watching how they react to a K K J flop or a A 2 3 etc.. My last tournament I had to fold pocket K's because I knew the other guy had 3 Q's. I could had waited it out, and hoped for another K on the turn or river, but the odds were against me. I got a great hand, but the other player got lucky. It happens, and it sucks, but that's just how it is. I saved a lot my chips by folding, even though I knew I got sucked out.

-spockthe40oz
 
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SolaRoe

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If you liked them, make sure you read my responses in those threads as well because I flesh some stuff out there.

I'll do that after dinner some time. Since I don't want to necro those threads, what do I do if I have follow-up questions?

And just by the way, are your playing statistics publicly available anywhere--I mean the kinds of statistics that you are prepared to share publicly? And do you have a role in poker other than online player? For that matter, what type of poker guy ARE you?
 
SavagePenguin

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I'll do that after dinner some time. Since I don't want to necro those threads, what do I do if I have follow-up questions?

IMO, go ahead and resurrect the thread from the dead and make a comment. I'll answer it if I see a question or comment.
The first post won a post the month award. The second came close to winning (and me winning it a bit earlier probably didn't help it's chances). Others might discover it if you comment.

For that matter, what type of poker guy ARE you?

I have always been an amateur, playing maybe 25 hours a week (mostly late night) at my peak. Back then I had a wife and kid which came first.
I was never a high limit player ($50NL and $5.50 S&G's were about as high as I went.) Black Friday hit when I was getting bored with poker and I had stated dating (2 years post-divorce), and I was doing the single-parent thing half the time, so poker was a very low priority. I did play in the CardsChat league but all my $ was on the three sites that tanked on Black Friday and I didn't want to deposit again.
The only year I remember dropping below a 90% ranking on OfficialPokerRankings was in 2009, the year I had family in intensive care twice, I went through a divorce, I had a friend in intensive care for 6 months, I was homeless for a month when an ice storm cut the power for two weeks and burst the upstairs pies and ruined downstairs, and then the business I worked for went under so I was jobless for a few months until I formed by own business. I was still profitable in poker, but mentally had a lot of baggage and it showed in my game.

I *think* I still have my game. I am the only CardsChat player to win the league MVP more than once (I did it four times... in a row), and I think I'm the only League MVP to win a CC HU championship. Yeah, there's a lot of luck to those stats, but I'd like to think there's an inkling of skill in it.

I'm currently way ahead in a league on another forum.

So basically, now I just play for fun and I admit I am out of the loop with the current online money game scene. I haven't played a cash games in years, and the only tournaments I've been playing are forum games and some live stuff. I do have years of experience, and a lot of book knowledge, and I'm sure I'd be a winning player if I started playing again. I'm happy where I am though. Poker is no longer an obsession; it's just an occasional distraction.
 
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Savage, thank you so much for the detailed reply. Your accomplishments do sound impressive, and I get the feeling you ain't braggin'. :) If you ever feel like taking on a student who has no ambition to become a pro, just to get better in a casual and relaxed way that's only part of his life, please let me know your fees so I can see whether I can afford them. A bit of extra spending money wouldn't hurt even you. :)

May I PM you with a question I'm not allowed to ask in public posts? I'm happy to be a member of Cardschat but am not involved in a Catholic marriage with the Cardschat forum.
 
gus201

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Wow nice post SP but I do have a bit of difference on some of that though .

I think that the understanding Of a few things could help with some of them losses. If you know what type of player and understand how that player will react or act by studying types of players and their differences .

One thing here im sure we all can agree on is if we dont have all the information its hard to say we will have the best hand at the end .

This is what I call the unknown , if your all in preflop then you wont know what is to come for community cards , same on the flop with 2 cards to come .

We can only make our decisions with the information we have at the time .

Some thing to think about here .

we need to evaluate the table and get the table dynamics and what type of players we are facing at this table . With this understanding we need to know how to play against these players , and how they will act against us . Some of how they will act will depend on how we have played in prior hands .

Yes believe it or not our previous play does have an effect on how others will play against us . I wont say much more .

But I do not know what the situations were when you have taken them bad beats if they were bad beats .

Knowing this and some more as the play goes on it can and will help you understand things like what starting hands you may need against one player but a different type of starting hands against another .

I hope this is some what helpful .
 
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not poker psychology

This is something I want input on from people who actually have a solid foundation of knowledge in poker psychology. Everyone else is of course welcome to speak up too, but if you're an amateur at poker psychology like me, please say so.

It feels like poker is a game of injustices. The only thing that ever seems to happen in poker is that your pocket aces get cracked by some donkey who gets 26 offsuit and goes all in preflop and flops a straight. That's the experience I've mostly had over pretty much 100 SnGs, some with 5-minute blind levels and some with 3-minute blind levels. Nor have I always been cheated; sometimes I donkey out on others myself. A number of times I've gone into a heavy betting hand with the worse cards and have sucked out myself, sometimes eliminating what looked like a very good player who got shafted by the nature of poker, just as everyone who plays poker well seems to get shafted. It looks like, the better you are, the more you're going to lose, because the rules of poker seem to favor the fish. Because I'm far from being pro level I play poker partly to take advantage of the fact that the rules give me an edge over better players. If I got to be really good, I might quit.

Does anyone have anything to say about this? The more you know about poker psychology, the more I want to hear from you.
i would say not poker psychology just online gambling would you beat those people playing in a live tournament.odds are you would.But with over a million hands being played in a hour the poker nature does have the advantage.:jd4: goodluck to you.:)
 
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Gus, you're talking the advanced psychology course about the psychology of other players, which is a totally different kettle of fish from the concepts that Penguin discusses in his linked posts, which are more about SELF-psychology and is something much more basic and fundamental. You learn in freshman college psych that you need to get your own crap together before you can psychologically assess anyone else, which is why it at least used to be the case that psych Ph.D. students were required to get counselling for any unresolved issues before they were issued a Ph.D. in psych. In poker terms, you have to know yourself as a player pretty thoroughly before you can start figuring out other players--partly because the strategies you employ against opponents, and even your grasp of those opponents, depends heavily on your thorough understanding of your own psychology as a poker player.

I hope what I've been saying makes sense.
 
gus201

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It does my bad there , good luck to you :)
 
SavagePenguin

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Reading others is glamorous and people are quick to want to jump to it.
One needs to work on their own head first. Without a solid foundation, anything you build is apt to get washed away. (medeiros13 and I discuss this some in thread #2)

SolaRoe said:
May I PM you with a question I'm not allowed to ask in public posts?
Sure. PM me whatever you want.
I'm not looking to take on a student but I'll give advice when asked.

Besides psychology you need a solid understanding of what's going on in the game. I went from a losing player to a winning player by studying Harrington on Hold'em Volume 1 and Volume 2. By studying I mean I would read a section and if I caught myself not paying attention I made myself re-read the section over again.
At the end of each section was a quiz, and if I got one wrong (or not right enough, I had to be confident and know exactly why and in detail) I would force myself to re-read the entire section.
Some of the advice was outdated even when I read it years ago, but it teaches you how to think of the game and explores aspects I never would have though of without many years of experience.
Then I read the books again, using the same rules, an I learned even more.
(A couple years later I read them a third time, but didn't pick up much)

Harrington doesn't cover much psychology stuff. I picked up a lot of that in the forums from people like ChuckTs and others. A lot of it is learning from my own mistakes, but even more was by learning from other people's mistakes. If you can learn from other people's mistakes then it'll save you a lot of grief in the future.
The big thing about psychology is that while you can learn to play well and accumulate chips/money/bankroll, without a solid mindset you are apt going to blow it all away. As I said in the aformentioned threads, "You are not 'good' until you can keep your few mistakes from overshadowing your usually-correct plays."
 
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I went from a losing player to a winning player by studying Harrington on Hold'em Volume 1 and Volume 2. By studying I mean I would read a section and if I caught myself not paying attention I made myself re-read the section over again.
At the end of each section was a quiz, and if I got one wrong (or not right enough, I had to be confident and know exactly why and in detail) I would force myself to re-read the entire section.
Some of the advice was outdated even when I read it years ago, but it teaches you how to think of the game and explores aspects I never would have though of without many years of experience.
Then I read the books again, using the same rules, an I learned even more.
(A couple years later I read them a third time, but didn't pick up much)

Yep, I know that becoming profitable requires being a serious student of poker and turning poker into a job. Doing that, however, would destroy the whole point of poker for me as a pastime. That's why I'm leaning toward finding a way to assign a dollar value to entertainment value and using that entertainment dollar value to offset losses so that I de facto break even over an extended period of time. I'm hoping that you don't lose interest in talking to me because I've said this. We have different goals and approaches, but you can still be of huge help to me.
 
SofaKingCrazy

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Yep, I know that becoming profitable requires being a serious student of poker and turning poker into a job. Doing that, however, would destroy the whole point of poker for me as a pastime. That's why I'm leaning toward finding a way to assign a dollar value to entertainment value and using that entertainment dollar value to offset losses so that I de facto break even over an extended period of time. I'm hoping that you don't lose interest in talking to me because I've said this. We have different goals and approaches, but you can still be of huge help to me.

I agree with that sooo much man,

even now as i'm considering trying to improve so to supplement income I'm still torn about losing the enjoyment of playing. It seems to me some players think so much about their plays that it couldn't be fun anymore but that''s the price we pay to improve. Instead of thinking how much you're willing to pay for entertainment try thinking about how cool it would be to get paid doing something you enjoy. Food for thought.

:evil:
 
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Instead of thinking how much you're willing to pay for entertainment try thinking about how cool it would be to get paid doing something you enjoy. Food for thought.

Okay, let's think about it together.

First, merely eliminating affordable poker losses at the cost of reducing entertainment value is zero-sum for me. I lose less cash, but I also enjoy playing less, so there is no net gain. If the poker losses are NOT affordable, then there is a definite need either to stop playing or to become better enough so that the entertainment value compensates for affordable losses.

This same reasoning applies to small, piddly profits. Eliminating entertainment value for the sake of making a profit that doesn't have a significant impact on my life is also zero-sum for me. In order to consider sacrificing entertainment value in exchange for profits, the profits would have to make a significant difference to me.

So let me say, just at random, that I'd be happy cashing out $100 per month. Since I'd also want to be building up my bankroll against cold streaks, I'd more likely need to make profits of $200 or even $300 per month, so that the $100 or $200 I don't cash out increases my BR. Let's say $200 just for simplicity.

So what would it take for me to make $200 a month in poker profit? My current play rate is, for simplicity's sake, about 20 STTs a day. Assuming five days of play a week, that's 100 STTs a week. The government's formula for converting weeks to months is to multiply by 4.33, so we're talking about 433 STTs a month. I'd need to make an average of 46.19 cents per STT in order to make the sacrifice of entertainment value profitable.

Beyond this it's a matter of being able to calculate a combination of ITM rate, proportion of 1st/2nd/3rd place finishes, and the appropriate stakes level. I need help with that because I simply don't know what the standard thinking is on a profitable player's ITM rate and proportion of 1st/2nd/3rd place finishes. So over to you. Let me know what ITM rate and finish proportions to aim for.
 
SofaKingCrazy

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Sorry dude,
I am no person for giving advice about what kind of ROI you'll need to accomplish your goal there. I started in Sept. 2010 and have never deposited so I've had to start from zero at almost every site I have money on. (took a $25 offer to join BlackChip) Maybe this means every dollar is precious and must always be protected but I don't believe anyone who's done this can say they used proper BRM, just can't be done IMO.

My point was that maybe you don't have the correct mindset approaching this. Your post sounds as if you've already accepted that you will lose and want to know how to minimize it to an amount that you'll be happy with. Personally I feel this is wrong and you might want to consider some self analysis about why your outlook is negative towards your chances of success.

I wish you the best in your poker journey.

:evil:
 
STL420

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For me making better decisions than my opponents is one aspect in my learning then accepting the outcome good or bad. Going all in pre-flop is there really an injustice in the outcome or is it what was supposed to happen? For example, when we go all in pre-flop and who wins or loses is up to what five cards come out and who has the best hand wins; if we are willing to go through this process then we need to be willing to live with the out come good or bad.

Sometimes we can make better decisions than our opponents and still lose but continuing to make better decisions than our opponents for me is key to understanding myself as well as my opponents. Understanding our opponents thinking process is what helps me make better decisions at critical times than my opponents in a game as well.

When I observe my opponent's thinking to be vertical; when we were first learning we were taught how to learn for example, the thought process used in school for processing facts and thinking within the bounds of a set criteria. When I observe this thinking process at the table most make decisions with the thinking of they have to make a decision based on a set criteria they have chose for themselves.

Since I understand vertical thinking this allows me to be a lateral thinker this means, thinking in a manner that does not follow conventional patterns and normal methods; lateral thinking may be more conducive to creativity. For example, this thinking allows me to stay a least one step ahead of my opponents and helps to keep my opponents from understanding my play at critical times.

In conclusion, I have also come to understand how to disconnect from the game and the money to make better decisions than my opponents. In the end whether I make money or not for me it is continuing to learn and understand myself as well as others I play against. To help me get past the emotions of winning or losing balance in thinking is how I get past the outcome of the game. For example, in baseball a closer has to have a short memory to succeed whether he blew a save or closed the game successfully; he has to understand what he did right or wrong and learn from it and then get ready for the next game then put the past behind him and only look to the future. This post is just what I understand about myself and what I observe at the table and I am not trying to give advice or trying to change anyone's game or teach anybody. Since there are no rules for poker people can use any approach and thinking they want for the game as they see fit.
 
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STL420, you sound like a smart, informed and probably educated person, but there's one thing that confuses me. You rely on well-established and solidly researched concepts such as vertical thinking and lateral thinking, which doesn't seem to be evidence of someone whose mind operates outside the box. Maybe you can educate me on how lateral thinking differs from creativity and innovation, especially in poker, because you seem to know something about these things, and I'm just a writer of fiction who never finished college.
 
STL420

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First a little background, I play only one table at a time and I value this one game. Watching my opponents when I am in a hand or not I am always trying to figure out what cards they are playing by their bets pre-flop and at each street and I call out to myself what each of my opponents actions will be in each hand. However, the information I see at showdown is what I use against them in the future. This means how my opponent enters a hand and how they played their hand until showdown.

I am looking for a leak in my opponents game to set them up in a situation when I know for sure what cards they are playing and I know I have the advantage. For example, when I know my opponent has to make call based on "they have to" because my opponent's thinking traps them in a hand.


This lets me be creative and invent ways to set up and trap my opponents. As my experience and confidence grows it becomes easier. I only have to think one level above my opponent. The weaker my opponent the more predictable they are. For example, a level zero thinking opponent only thinks about the two cards in front of them meaning this type of opponent is just learning the game of poker or might have some experience but only think about their cards and not what we are holding or how we play at the table.

Understanding what people value when they enter a hand and how they bet his or her hand is the start of thinking laterally or "outside the box". Also it lets me recognize my stronger opponents at the table and this allows me to not get trapped by them as well and to adjust to their play at the table.
 
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