Intuition?

[NaobisDad]

What i've noticed from my own play (which means close to nothing) is that when I refer to "playing by intuition" I hardly ever mean a significant or tough decision. Those are always thought through.

It's usually the hands where you know what to do, those are the ones you hardly think about. The ones that are dead obvious, the ones you play on the automatic pilot. And they may therefore feel "intuitive".

I cannot imagine anyone making a decision over a crucial pot purely intuitively. There is always some form of reasoning.

It is therefore that I suggest that the importance of intuitive play is overrated. Because it will frequently be in spots that aren't critical. A mistake will therefore probably not matter much.

[Phat Mack]

as are 10% of my quitting (game selection) decisions.

I find that interesting. By your definition, 90% of my quitting decisions are intuitive. I almost always, however, sit at the table and fold hands until I figure out why I've decided to quit.

[Tommy Angelo]

"It's WSOP time, and you usually come to Las Vegas for it. When are you coming down?"


Hi Al,

I'll be in Las Vegas from May 9 through May 17, at least, and I'm planning to be at the WPDG on Wednesday May 12. I am looking forward to seeing you again.

Tommy

[Gabe]

"the ability to understand something immediately, without the need for conscious reasoning"

Does the decision to fold before the flop usually occur for you completely subconsciously?

I believe it does for me. You could ask 20 seconds after I folded, and I usually could not tell you what I had unless it was close. I'm sure it isn't because I forgot. I'm convinced that that decision, for me, unusually occurs below the level of consciousness. I've assumed it does for other people who play a lot, but I've never asked anyone about it.

[pzhon]

Before you get excited about the possibilities of intuition, consider the intuition used by those playing unbeatable games. If you are improving your EV, great, but do you have an objective way of distinguishing what you feel from what the "expert" roulette players feel?

Intuition is sexy, so you should expect people to rely on it and talk about it far more than it is worth.

[Al Schoonmaker]

I am often amused when I hear people talking about their "strategy" for beating slots, craps, etc.
But it is not so funny when I walk into bookstores and I find more books on how to beat those games than there are on how to beat poker. Those books wouldn't be there if they didn't sell. People desperately want to believe that they can beat those games.
Of course, the same bookstores sell books on astrology, and most newspapers carry an astrology column. People are very good at denying reality.
Regards,
Al

[JayKon]

Well thought out. Finally a stance I agree with.

Thanks Chris,
Jay

[Reber]

okay, another researcher who plays poker. there are a lot of us, you know.

you note here that you "cannot imagine anyone making a decision over a crucial pot purely intuitively ... that the importance of intuitive play is overrated. Because it will frequently be in spots that aren't critical. A mistake will therefore probably not matter much."

I don't disagree but I think the emphasis is wrong. In our work we find that virtually every thing interesting that humans do is some delicate blend of the conscious (explicit reasoning, carefully thought out) and the unconscious (implicit, intuitive reactions carried out without benefit of such reasoning). Rarely is it just one kind of processing. When you're playing good poker, lots of decision making is based on both the implicit, intuitive sense of the situation and on careful, analytic judgment. Often the careful, conscious analysis is merely(?) a working out of what it is that you sensed unconsciously.

In an earlier post you asked about how we do our research. Unlike what you are focusing on, we use supraliminal stimuli. There are several different kinds of studies we run. The simplest use sequences of lights that flash in a variety of locations on a computer screen. In a typical experiment there will be 6 small boxes arrayed across the bottom of the screen. They will light up one after the other and the order in which they do follows a complex set of rules. The subject's job is to press the button that corresponds to each location. The subjects are not told about the existence of the rules, only that they are in an experiment on reaction time. With practice people get faster and faster. Then we change the rules, and they slow down. If we restore the rules they speed back up again. In virtually every case the people in the study are unaware of the existence of the rules, have no knowledge of what they are and, fascinatingly, don't even realize that we changed the rules in the middle of the study.

If you want more, google my name and follow the trail that leads to my research.

Sorry if anyone else got bored with all this scientific "stuff" .....

[Al Schoonmaker]

Arthur,
Bored?
Never!
I'm delighted to see you here.
Now, if I could only get you to move to God's country.
Al

[JayKon]

This is very intresting.

Please, post a link to your work. When I search your name, I find links to bookstores.

Thanks,
Jay