Emotionless and Pseudo-Play Money

[RocketManJames]

Just a random thought...

Say we had a gifted mathematical/psychological game player who basically has what it takes to play winning poker (ignoring emotions).

Now, what if this person were trained by some rich benefactor in such a way that the whole time he would get paid to play this silly game called poker. Let's assume that this player is oblivious to the real world of poker, and knows nothing about it. He thinks this game is basically play money, and over time he gets good at it. Since the money isn't a part of the game anymore, I figure he would be nearly emotionless, or at the very least he would have zero fear of losing money.

Would this player be much better than how he would be if he had been playing out of his own roll, etc? Could it be that training players in such a way could produce superior players?

Maybe this is all hooey, but at the very least, variations on what I said above might prove to be worthwhile discussion material.

-RMJ

[Guernica4000]

This player could be nicknamed "bot"

[jba]

Mr Card, you have written this story too many times already.

Pride has nothing to do with money...

Sports stars still go on tilt, with nothing but pride at stake.

[Komodo]

You may get pissed off in playmoney too, when your AK all-in preflop gets sucked out for the fifth time in a row against Q2off K3off 22 67off and JTs, believe me.

[AaronBrown]

I think good players get better because of the money, bad players get worse. People play best when there is enough money on the table to focus the mind and chase out thoughts of pride or laziness or justice; but not so much that fear or greed overwhelm calculation.

So I think your emotionless player would start out better than a matched player (in terms of intelligence, prior experience, temprament and so on) playing for serious amounts of his own cash; but that there is a ceiling on his development as a player.

The ideal incentive structure for a Poker player is similar to the ideal incentive structure for a CEO. The backer should record all the hands and pay the player a bonus based partly on money won, but adjusted for strength of starting hands, bad beats and lucky draws. That will allow the player to be patient with a run of bad starting cards, and to absorb a bad beat without tilting; but it forces him to make the best possible use of his good cards and good luck. One way to lose money is to get reckless after bad luck, but another way is to lazily take small gains with your good hands.

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This player could be nicknamed "bot"

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Or Ender... [img]/images/graemlins/tongue.gif[/img]

[Sniper]

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Since the money isn't a part of the game anymore, I figure he would be nearly emotionless, or at the very least he would have zero fear of losing money.

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Said player (bots excluded, unless they had a self-learning module), would still have the psychological need to impress the benefactor with superior performance.

[jba]

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Said player (bots excluded, unless they had a self-learning module), would still have the psychological need to impress the benefactor with superior performance.

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While that can be stressful, it is not in the same league as losing a month's rent to a two outer.

I really like impressing my boss too but this really isn't even close.

[Sniper]

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While that can be stressful, it is not in the same league as losing a month's rent to a two outer.


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You are talking about degrees of emotion... I was simply pointing out that the person would not be totally emotionless.

Additionally, if you didn't have some desire to win, your chances of success are much lower! So, even if you didn't feel a need to impress your boss, you certainly are feeling a need to impress yourself [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]

Finally, if the the outcome of *1* hand is causing you much stress, then you are certainly playing too high a limit. Your risk of tilt and ruin are WAY too high to be successful long term.