Convince myself

I've been playing poker for about a year and a half, and I consider myself an intermediate player. There's a skill I've been fiddling with lately, well I'm not sure if I should call it a skill because it's hard to be sure if it will have any affect on my game. What I'm talking about is effectively convincing myself that I have the hand I'm representing. When I'm holding Aces it's very difficult for me to make myself believe that I'm holding 72, and vice versa.

Does anyone else do this? Has it proven to be effective? Are there any execises that could make me better at this?

I believe that perfecting this could greatly improve bluffing ability, and also get that much needed call. Even the smallest signal of confidence of nervousness could get the desired action. I would like to be able to turn over my cards and genuinely be suprised at what I see. Is this possible?

Please criticize my thinking and let me know if you have found some problems with this idea. Thank you.

[einbert]

I don't think you can convince yourself on one level that you have AA, but on some level you can. Perhaps the key lies in convincing yourself just enough so that all of your physical actions are the same as if you held AA. Of course, if you work hard enough you could simply cause all of your physical subtleties to be the same no matter what your hand. That would probably be more useful from a purely game theoretical standpoint, but if you are playing against a certain type of thinking player what you are doing would probably be more useful.

It is probably doable, but it will take a lot of practice. So if you are patient and determined enough to make it work, you probably will eventually. Perhaps if you play online, you could get a little fanfare MP3 and play it every time you are dealt pocket aces. Then take a walkman with that sound on it to a live tournament, and whenever you want to convince yourself you have AA, play that sound and your mind will remember the association. It might be more helpful to simply not look at your cards when you do this, but this is probably going to create some really difficult where it's going to be hard to figure out exactly what to do in order to make your opponent make a mistake. So looking at your cards and _then_ convincing part of yourself that you have AA might be best.