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#1
11-12-2003, 09:42 PM
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Why bad players don\'t know they are bad
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 
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#3
11-12-2003, 11:16 PM
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Re: Why bad players don\'t know they are bad
Sometimes it amazes me how much time and effort is spent studying topics or ideas that seem quite straightforward.
I think a high percentage of poor poker players are poor poker players because they lack intelligence, discipline, and/or experience. The intelligent diligent poker player will study, pay attention, read, practice, discuss, and improve. The poor poker player who lacks intelligence and discipline will probably not do any of these things and will probably not improve. It does not surprise me that many poor poker players don't even realize how bad they are. From an evolutionary standpoint, it should be obvious why there are so many unintelligent people. Look at our competition. The average human only needs to be smart enough to outwit dogs, earthworms, and dandelions to be a successful species. It doesn't take that much brainpower to outwit an earthworm. Even a retarded human being stands to outcompete your typical earthworm. So I guess I should not be surprised, when I walk into a casino in Las Vegas, to see thousands of people spending thousands of hours and millions of dollars on negative EV games that can only make the house money in the long run -- Blackjack, Craps, Roulette, Slots. And for poor poker players who don't know how bad they are,add poker to the list of negative EV games that they shouldn't play, but which they do play.
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#4
11-13-2003, 12:02 AM
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Re: Why bad players don\'t know they are bad
Intelligence is not the sole determnining factor of "who makes it" from an evolutionary standpoint. Earthworms have been around A LOT longer than Homo sapiens. How easy do you think it would be to outsmart a charging grizzly?
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#5
11-13-2003, 12:18 AM
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Re: Why bad players don\'t know they are bad
Squif, I'm quite sure that the authors of that piece of research are not interested in poker. The research had nothing to do with poker. The original poster just rephrased the findings in term of poker. Their goal was to understand how people evaluate their own abilities. There is a lot of research in psychology on this and I think it actually has some applications. I think this is a very good contribution to that literature. The interesting thing is that in many areas of life it is actually good for you to think you are better than you really are, but in poker it is a problem.
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#6
11-13-2003, 03:03 AM
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Re: Why bad players don\'t know they are bad
[ QUOTE ]
I think a high percentage of poor poker players are poor poker players because they lack intelligence, discipline, and/or experience. The intelligent diligent poker player will study, pay attention, read, practice, discuss, and improve. The poor poker player who lacks intelligence and discipline will probably not do any of these things and will probably not improve. It does not surprise me that many poor poker players don't even realize how bad they are. [/ QUOTE ] This is good. [ QUOTE ] From an evolutionary standpoint, it should be obvious why there are so many unintelligent people. Look at our competition. The average human only needs to be smart enough to outwit dogs, earthworms, and dandelions to be a successful species. It doesn't take that much brainpower to outwit an earthworm. Even a retarded human being stands to outcompete your typical earthworm. [/ QUOTE ] Earthworms live in topsoil and compost. I'm relatively smart and would have trouble competing in that environment. Actually, dogs, earthworms and dandelions have contributed to the success of homo sapiens; and vice versa. Consider the amount of herbicides used against dandelions...I think they win. [img]/images/graemlins/smirk.gif[/img]
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#7
11-13-2003, 10:40 AM
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Re: Why bad players don\'t know they are bad
[ QUOTE ]
The interesting thing is that in many areas of life it is actually good for you to think you are better than you really are, but in poker it is a problem. [/ QUOTE ] This is very true. Just sticking to your guns leads to success in many areas, even if you are misguided. In poker it just leads to more losses for most.
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#8
11-13-2003, 10:59 AM
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Re: Why bad players don\'t know they are bad
How easy do you think it would be to outsmart a charging grizzly?
Pretty easy. You just ask him the odds when drawing to an inside straight with a backdoor flush when high spade splits the pot and you hold Qs. He'll then sit down to ponder the problem (bears think better when they sit) and you can quietly slip away.
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#9
11-13-2003, 12:12 PM
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Re: Why bad players don\'t know they are bad
[ QUOTE ]
How easy do you think it would be to outsmart a charging grizzly? Pretty easy. You just ask him the odds when drawing to an inside straight with a backdoor flush when high spade splits the pot and you hold Qs. He'll then sit down to ponder the problem (bears think better when they sit) and you can quietly slip away. [/ QUOTE ] [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]
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#10
11-13-2003, 10:13 PM
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People overestimate their skill in everything.
There have been studies where they ask people to answer questions and then ask them for their confidence level. For example, give a range for the population of Kentucky and then how likely you are to be in the range.
People consistently are overconfident. If they say there is an 80% change they are right, they are right quite a bit less. If they say there is a 60% chance, they are right less than 60%. Bascially, people are unrealistically optimistic. It is a good survival trait up to a point, but ultimately unrealistic. That is why the only way to evaluate your play with with accurate records. Don't do it and you will be kidding yourself.
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