Dr. Al, I have a question for you, and anyone else who wants to answer

What is it about the internet prodigies that seperate them from the rest? I consider myself a decent NL poker player with an intelligent TAG style, however, I'm flexible enough to play well shorthanded and heads up as well, when need be. I consider myself a consumate student of the game, constantly trying to improve as a player to maximize my profits. Yet, I've been wondering lately, what accounts for certain players rapid and meteoric rise to success. Guys like Prahlad, Dustin, Krisqueen, The Takeover, etc. Although, I think Prahlad used to play live before playing online, he does dominate his opposition. What do these guys have that seperate them from the rest? Do they possess something that others can acquire. Are they naturals, or is their something different about their brain chemistry that allows them to figure things out so quickly?
I may not have introduced this topic as lucidly as I would have liked to, but I think everyone here will get the gist of what I'm after and I am interested in knowing everyone's opinions. I love active debate as I feel it's critical to the learning process, however, I would like to avoid the topic that some of these big internet winners are actually not properly bankrolled. I am more interested in how they came to conquer the game so rapidly and so thoroughly.

[AceofSpades]

I wish I knew the answer to this. I would also like to know who it is that is losing all the massive amounts of money that these excellent players are making.

Gee, I was kinda hoping more people would offer their opinions. I was also hoping Dr. Al and Feeney would chime in as well.

I am also interested in this. However, i think the way you titled this was not very interesting...and maybe misleading. Why don't you repost it with a more exciting title like "What makes high-level internet players better than the rest of us?"
Maybe i'm wrong, it seems like a marketing issue.
Not to mention, probably only high level players will be able to offer many valid opinions and there arent many of them.

-g

[thehotspur]

The short answer I would give to your question is that yes they do possess something that others cannot acquire - their personality. They don't have a different brain chemistry that makes them figure out things more quickly than everyone else in the world.

Poker expertise, like chess, requires intelligence but not incredible intelligence. It's more a particular combination of personality characteristics, some good, some kind of bad.
They must be incredibly driven, almost monomaniacal in their devotion to whatever it is they do, in this case online poker.

They must be very aggressive naturally, this means that they don't have to force themselves to destroy people at their tables, it is pleasurable to them because the desire to dominate others egoistically is a fundamental part of their psyche.

They must be ridiculously confidant and self assured almost to the point of delusion. They must have an inner need to gamble and gamble big. And crucially they must have all these extreme characteristcs but yet not be an emotional person who lets things bother them. I wouldn't go as far as to say that they must therefore be sociopaths, but you wouldn't be going far wrong in looking in that direction for at least some insight into some of them.

This list of coincidences of personality characteristics is fairly long so it is no surprise that there are not all that many people who have them and happen to have taken up online poker. But the point I am making is that their play and success is a function of who they are, and they are fortunate that it is ideal for the game of poker.

Anyone else imitating aggressive styles but actually kind of struggling deep down because they are not really a bully, or things do actually get to them emotionally, or they are not fundamentally someone who would want to bet all they have on the turn of a card is always going to be that bit less of a player. You can shift a bit strategy wise away from your natural character, but ultimately when it comes to the crunch who you are will come out.

If you are not the above kind of person then you will never be the kind of player these guys are, but is that so bad? Would you ever really want the "gamble" of Stuey Ungar if that meant the poker ability that went along with it?

And anyway as a psychologist who has spent a lot of time doing researching and profiling Internet poker players I can tell you that many many of them are clinically addicted to playing online, and it's harder to quit the more money you're taking in!
Good luck with your poker.

[ QUOTE ]
The short answer I would give to your question is that yes they do possess something that others cannot acquire - their personality. They don't have a different brain chemistry that makes them figure out things more quickly than everyone else in the world.

Poker expertise, like chess, requires intelligence but not incredible intelligence. It's more a particular combination of personality characteristics, some good, some kind of bad.
They must be incredibly driven, almost monomaniacal in their devotion to whatever it is they do, in this case online poker.

They must be very aggressive naturally, this means that they don't have to force themselves to destroy people at their tables, it is pleasurable to them because the desire to dominate others egoistically is a fundamental part of their psyche.

They must be ridiculously confidant and self assured almost to the point of delusion. They must have an inner need to gamble and gamble big. And crucially they must have all these extreme characteristcs but yet not be an emotional person who lets things bother them. I wouldn't go as far as to say that they must therefore be sociopaths, but you wouldn't be going far wrong in looking in that direction for at least some insight into some of them.

This list of coincidences of personality characteristics is fairly long so it is no surprise that there are not all that many people who have them and happen to have taken up online poker. But the point I am making is that their play and success is a function of who they are, and they are fortunate that it is ideal for the game of poker.

Anyone else imitating aggressive styles but actually kind of struggling deep down because they are not really a bully, or things do actually get to them emotionally, or they are not fundamentally someone who would want to bet all they have on the turn of a card is always going to be that bit less of a player. You can shift a bit strategy wise away from your natural character, but ultimately when it comes to the crunch who you are will come out.

If you are not the above kind of person then you will never be the kind of player these guys are, but is that so bad? Would you ever really want the "gamble" of Stuey Ungar if that meant the poker ability that went along with it?

And anyway as a psychologist who has spent a lot of time doing researching and profiling Internet poker players I can tell you that many many of them are clinically addicted to playing online, and it's harder to quit the more money you're taking in!
Good luck with your poker.

[/ QUOTE ]

This is a really interesting and insightful answer. It seems to go to the heart of it. You've got to figure, at the limits these guys play at, much of the difference must come from the "balls" factor. Being willing to put huge sums of money on the line in marginal situations is not the kind of thing many of us are cut out for, and probably this is a good thing. We'll see where some of these high stakes internet players are in 10-20 years. Not saying they wont be rich, many of them may be. But i would also hazard a guess that some/many of them will be dead broke.
I was thinking it would be really cool to film a documentay about the world of high stakes internet poker.

-g

[phish]

I think another quality these guys possess is the love of risk. These guys are not afraid of losing and in fact sometimes show a complete disregard for money. TAGs are trying too hard not to lose. Many of the top players recognize that you really can't play at the biggest stakes without a certain disregard for money. When they encounter someone who is playing with scared money, they tear him apart. And these guys go thru swings like you would not believe.

Thank you. That's a great response, and I agree with you. Do you have any insight, however, as to how they fix leaks in their game so quickly. We all make mistakes, it's inevitable, however, they seem to either minimize the damage, or plug the leaks much faster than the normal person.

[Dan Mezick]

NLTH **is** a bully game. No question. However, the part about the ego:

[ QUOTE ]
They must be very aggressive naturally, this means that they don't have to force themselves to destroy people at their tables, it is pleasurable to them because the desire to dominate others egoistically is a fundamental part of their psyche.


[/ QUOTE ]

...this I am not so sure of.

The ego is the part that separates you from the world at large. Being "separate" is not such a great idea if all of these things matter:

* Sensing and perceiving in the now
* Focusing on the moment (not past or future)
* Performing effective "as if" processing to effectively understand the motives, strategies, approaches, styles and tactics of others. (poker empathy)
* Making great laydowns

I suspect the best players have egos-- and that the greats have ego well under control at all times-- and especially when playing.

What do you think?


I'm very curious about

"...as a psychologist who has spent a lot of time doing researching and profiling Internet poker players ..."

How about a little fill-in on the goals and objectives of this work?

[MicroBob]

I agree with the general ideas about confidence and balls, etc etc.

But I also wanted to point out this scenario:

100k poker-players with an equal amount of skills and all of them played the same amount and all decided to take a 'shot' at the next level every once in awhile...and then maybe move up again if they are fortunate to succeed there...etc etc.
Well, you would likely have a handful of these 'equal strength' players catch the right cards at the perfect times and move their way up higher and higher.

I think that neverwin thinks on a level that is a step or two above most of us (or his opponents) but, you also have to consider that there is a great deal of luck involved.


Just like if you ran a simulation of the WSOP main-event 1 million times, you would have some nobody come from out of nowhere playing in his first live-event and win the thing just by being TOO aggressive and catching good cards at the right times.


But the topic of what makes this GREAT poker-players tick is an interesting one.
ggbman made a post of his success in poker (in the general forum). Here's an 18 year old kid who's been playing poker for a couple years and has had terrific success. He's articulate and seeme extremely mature in his approach to poker.

I think in cases like ggbman and neverwin and others it's not JUST a case of drive and studying and courage to push the big money around....there's also a very basic element that some people are simply smarter than others too.