Anchoring and adjustment

[spike]

Is NLP something we should take seriously?

My brother's been trying to push it down my throat, but then he also tried to enroll me into his Amway empire. Is this another Amway or does he really have something this time?

[MaxPower]

It looks like a bunch of BS to me.

[Jedi Poker]

In a post entitled "Free NLP Info", I provided links to articles that will give you a good idea as to what NLP is all about. Simply click on my name and go to where you can see my posting history. "Free NLP Info" is a less than a week old post and easy to find. You're the only one who can judge whether NLP is for you. The linked articles should provide you with enough info to come to your own conclusions.

[MaxPower]

I've studied Kahneman and Tversky's work quite a bit (but not for a few years). I even met both of them and went out to lunch with Kahneman. They are excellent researchers and I belive Kahneman recently won a Nobel Prize.

The thing I find most interesting about their work is that in their experiments the cognitive heuristics they demonstrate alway seem to lead to biases in judgment. However, in most cases these cogniive heuristics are actually very good ways of making judgments. People have learned to use them for a reason and it is because they work fairly well. They don't work perfectly, but there are very few times in life where we have to make the perfect decision (perhaps poker is an exception).

In order to demonstrate these cognitive heuristics experimentally, they have to set up the experiment such that people would make a different judgment using the heuristic than they would through another method. In reality, this isn't always the case. Often the heuristic leads you to the same conclusion that you would get to through more effortful processing.

One other thing about heuristics - people tend to use them when they are uncertain or the situation is ambiguous. If I actually knew the percentage of African nations in the UN, I would simply recall it and the anchor would have no effect on me.

In holdem, the board cards would serve as anchor by which you judge the strength of your opponents hands based on their actions.

I think the "Representativeness Heuristic" applies more to poker than anything else. It is the reason why bluffing works.

[Henke]

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I've studied Kahneman and Tversky's work quite a bit (but not for a few years). I even met both of them and went out to lunch with Kahneman. They are excellent researchers and I belive Kahneman recently won a Nobel Prize.

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Yes he did, in economy. Partly due to the Prospect theory he co-authored with Tversky.

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The thing I find most interesting about their work is that in their experiments the cognitive heuristics they demonstrate alway seem to lead to biases in judgment. However, in most cases these cogniive heuristics are actually very good ways of making judgments. People have learned to use them for a reason and it is because they work fairly well. They don't work perfectly, but there are very few times in life where we have to make the perfect decision (perhaps poker is an exception).

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I think poker is the example, because all players are trying their best to make perfect decisions all the time, and small mistakes (by others) is what makes it possible for better players to beat the game.

...

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In holdem, the board cards would serve as anchor by which you judge the strength of your opponents hands based on their actions.


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I think this would be the ideal case, and the player that is able to objectively look at the board (ignoring his/her own holecards) wouldn't have this "anchor" I'm refering to. This is probably the case for more experienced players.

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I think the "Representativeness Heuristic" applies more to poker than anything else. It is the reason why bluffing works.

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I agree, I think that representativeness is how poker is learned. In poker essays (vol III) Malmuth has an article called "why stud players loose at holdem", and I would guess that representativeness is partly responsible for the biases introduced when changing pokergames. The situations still seems similar, but in reality the probabilities [of making the best hand] differ.

[SkittleBrau]

As a new player, a mistake I sometimes make along similar lines is when I have something like a set, but two of a suit come on the flop -- so I am carefully watching for the flush. Now when a straight becomes possible I won't think to give the guy credit for it since "obviously" he didn't get his flush.

The best way I've found to combat this is to get into a routine of always mechanically running the "what hands are possible" algorithm in my head.