Why bad players don't know they are bad

[gunboat]

While surfing some other stuff I ran into a very interesting article in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. While not about poker per se, the conclusions are easily applied to poker players. Some of the conclusions (paraphrased to apply to poker).

Bad players grossly overestimate their own competence.

Bad players fail to gain insight into their own bad play by observing the behavior of other players.

Despite seeing the superior performances of other players, bad players continue to hold the mistaken impression that they had performed just fine.

Even if bad players receive feedback that points to a lack of skill, they may attribute poor performance to some other factor.

It takes a good player to recognize a good player.

The quicker you realize that another player is better than you, the better you yourself must be.

Strong players tend to overestimate the skills of other players.


The article is very long, but I found it worthwhile to read the whole thing.

Unskilled and Unaware of It: How Difficulties in Recognizing One's Own Incompetence Lead to Inflated Self-Assessments

http://www.apa.org/journals/psp/psp7761121.html