Online vs. live poker, "Blink" by Gladwell

[gomberg]

I've been reading this book called "Blink", by Malcolm Gladwell. It is fascinating stuff, mainly about human's subconscious thought and the power of it. Some of it applied to my poker game, so I'll share that here to see if anyone else feels the same way or has any general comments.

I currently play 5-10 and 10-20 NL online for a side income (just a hobby). It's very profitable and I've worked hard to get where I am. I find whenever I play live for any decent stakes ($500 NL and up), I lose. My sample size isn't large for live play at all, but I still get this feeling that I don't make good decisions compared to online play. This has to do with not being able to read tells, having no "feeling" for the game, etc. Because of this, I don't play live very often, although I do want to put in some hours one day and become good at it.

In the book "Blink", the author has a chapter about diagnosing heart attack patients in a hospital. At cook county hospital in Chicago, the resources are always pushed to the limit (it's where people w/out insurance are taken). The head of the hospital in the late 90s decided to use an "algorithm" based on 3 or 4 variables to tell if a patient should be kept for observation for heart troubles. Any false positives were very expensive for the hospital, as they took up much needed space, time, and tests.

Over a 2 year period, it was discovered that the doctors couldn't make very accurate judgements in this case. They were essentially random. With the academic "algorithm" developed (like a decision tree chart), the diagnosis was close to 90% correct. The doctors couldn't believe it as how were their judgements so bad?

It ends up that they were paying attention to too many minor variables in their head to make a good judgement on various patients. It was information overload, while the "algorithm" just used 3 or 4 basic questions / test results. Most of the time, our subconcious does us well, but when overwhelmed with many variables (many of which don't effect the diagnosis very much), the human mind could not come up with a good answer.

This brings me to my hypothesis about my poker play. Online simplifies the game for me. There are very few variables and I've trained my mind to react very well to those situations that come up. In live play, I try to pay attention to everything going on. There's too much there and I don't have the training / experience to filter the useless stuff out, hence my mind not being able to make +EV poker decisions at the live table as often as at the online table.

Thanks for reading if you got this far /images/graemlins/smile.gif

P.S> -I highly recommend this book as it was great. The chapter on face reading (facial expressions) was very interesting and I plan on reading some of the books / papers he cites in the book. I feel like that should help when I play live.

Thats really interesting Ill have to checkthat book out. I know exactly how you feel. Playing Live I find myself trying to become the tellmaster. More often than not I think my opponents are trying to make a move on me when in fact the majority of the time people just have a strong hand. Online I find myself making good calls with marginal winning hands more often. Good post.

[Voltron87]

good post, sounds like a interesting book. im looking forward to checking it out.

[Sciolist]

I have that book in my pile of things to read, maybe I'll move it up a couple of places.

As for live tells, ignore them. What I do is concentrate on noticing betting patterns, just as I do online. When you're comfortable with the pace of the live game, I recommend focussing on either the weakest player on the table, or the one offering the most action. See if you can spot when he's going to straight-fold preflop.

Once you are happy that you're looking for useful things with him (how he places his cards, how he picks his chips up, say), then it's worth looking at others. Start from as small an amount of information as possible, and work up.

I also have trouble adjusting to live play, but largely because going from 400+ hands per hour to 40 is tough. I either underadjust and play too many hands or overadjust and play too few. I'm therefore most comfortable playing shorthanded live... But that'll change with practice.

You're not going to improve without playing more, just don't play as high as you're used to online, those guys are likely worse players than you live, but they're still going to take your money until you're comfortable with the game.

[gergery]

I skimmed thru Blink awhile back. interesting book.
I definitely think there is something very relevant in poker about listening to your subconscious (which is really just another way of saying your accumulated experience).

But playing live is different than online. There is no floating number over the pot to help you. There is no one sitting at your desk staring intently at you to figure out whether you are bluffing or not. and so on.

It's not too tough, but it does take some adjusting, and experience. many things about online translate, but some don't, and like any other newbie you'll need to work on those.

-g

[Marlow]

I feel the same way. There's something so simple about the way the game looks online.

The advice offered here is good. Concentrate on betting patterns. This is what I do when I play, but I still find it difficult to adjust. You'll get it, surely.

Interesting note: I have a friend who is a monster live player. He can read people inside and out. But put the guy online and he's a horrible donk.

In some ways online and live are two different games, especially if you are playing at your stakes where the people are much more important for you to understand than the cards in front of them.

gl

Marlow