Your Brain On Poker-Zero Gravity Thinking

Date: Mon, Feb 11, 2008 Professional Live Tournament

Everything we think we know about online poker is changing, so we really know nothing. Sometimes nothing is a real cool hand.

Donkey plays were mandatory at the Full Tilt NLH 6 handed $1$2 table last night. Not only did Hotel_Anyware get good value on his scoops, there was dead money in every pot.

Creating rather than responding is zero gravity thinking---less to do with originality and more to do with the unexpected. It’s not about winning or losing---rather excelling....and the donkeys felt the G's!

Saying, "It's only a game" is the lesser known, I don't have a dream speech. Yet the aim of NLH is not just winning, but progress. Inspiration increases (to excel) when the left brain gets good at telling the right brain what to do.

Hotel_Anyware had a bluff fest, going to war often with squadush--firing three bullets into a raised pot, UTG last in money, betting scare cards, putting opponents on super-insane-massive-tilt before they put him on it. And the beat(s) go on...

They call it poker because the work f_ck was taken.

Poker is a little like seduction and deceit. You have to seduce people to trust you. You have to lie so good, they believe you and they think you are telling the truth . It's less about resources (having big hands) and more about resourcefulness, the heavy lifting and mental gymnastics of "Sometimes you call", "Sometimes you raise", and "Sometimes you bluff".

Online domination is not as easy to dish out as in a live cash game--- Being the ugly Americon poker player , speaking English loudly and slowly to get your ideas across--- Betting has to do your talking. It's a slang that spits in the street, rolls up its sleeves and says "Let's Get To Work!".

Scared money is a misuse of imagination. There was a lot of that going around. Players were in fact more sensitive to decreases in their chip count than they were to increases in them. For these kind of opponents , if you threaten their bankroll with extinction, they act like nothing matters, taking more rather than less risks.

The Sex Of Poker—Hotel_Anyware told you so—It’s not what’s between your legs but between your ears---your BRAIN Read the New York Times article. There’s a bit of rouge trader Jérôme Kerviel, at Société Générale in all of we poker players.

Making money and then making money again is our chemical romance. It produces a “desire to continue”. Being Digital. It’s not about atoms or how little people behave, it’s about the juice, The Card Lust, where people and bits of information meet.

Online Poker Holdem Strategy Poker Full Tilt Poker Poker Stars Jérôme Kerviel

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Your Brain On Poker-Zero Gravity Thinking

Date: Mon, Feb 11, 2008 Professional Live Tournament

Everything we think we know about online poker is changing, so we really know nothing. Sometimes nothing is a real cool hand.

This is the wake up call for ABC by-the- book players. The so-called new ways to play holdem are the old ones heated up in a microwave for 15 seconds. You see, Poker Doesn't think. It is an infinite game;the overall phenomenon of NLH has no end. It is always a frontier, always on the edge.

Donkey plays were mandatory at the Full Tilt NLH 6 handed $1$2 table last night. Not only did Hotel_Anyware get good value on his scoops, there was dead money in 60% of the pots. It is easier to change somebody's religion than the way they play poker- what we have here is a failure to ex-communicate--It certainly put the odds back into God, as Mr. Anyware felt like a megalomaniac. After all, if he couldn't predict the flop, so Hotel invent it.


Creating rather than responding is zero gravity thinking---less to do with originality and more to do with the unexpected. It’s not about winning or losing---rather excelling....and the donkeys felt the G's!




Get em scared and then keep the scare on em. --Exponentially scared.And open a can of whoop ass.





Laziness has become the religion of the 21st Century gambler. Vene, Vidi, Velcro: "I came, I saw, I stuck around until I ran out of money".

Saying, "It's only a game" is the lesser known, I don't have a dream speech. Yet the aim of NLH is not just winning, but progress. Inspiration increases (to excel) when the left brain gets good at telling the right brain what to do.



There's a saying--the future isn't what it used to be; neither is taking risks! It seems like the price is always right. Risk is always properly rewarded.


Hotel_Anyware had a bluff fest, going to war often with squadush--firing three bullets into a raised pot---the Stu Unger three-barrel bluff; UTG last in money; betting scare cards: putting opponents on super-insane-massive-tilt before the three stooges- Sponge Pants Bob, Fred the Funnel, Steve the Sieve, put him on it. Turn raises, or bets were scarier to the 3 stooges than flop bets, and here are the top three I sold: The Stone Cold Bluff---no pair, no draw. The Representing Bluff---betting scare cards, flushes and straights. The Semi-Bluff---drawing to the nuts, flush, straight or overcards.

Sam was a strainer. Bob absorbed all! Fred puts the fun in funnel. He didn't suffer from tilt. He was a carrrier. And the beat(s) go on...as the outlaw badboys (internet players) becomes the sheriffs. The lawfulness of donks behavior is what gets them in trouble. They don’t play aweful, they play lawfully. They are predictable. They act in certain ways. They act in a cause and effect way. They “take in” the game. They play their cards. It can make you or break you, that "tight is right" approach. Generally speaking, they are too loose pre flop, and too tight post and have no sense of the importance of (betting) position.


Since I have a birthday this week--I will take the bluff fest to the nth degree--The secret of staying young is lying about your age---I am 18...with 31 years experience ,18+31!

Poker is a little like seduction and deceit. You have to seduce people to trust you. You have to lie so good, they believe you and they think you are telling the truth . It's less about resources (having big hands) and more about resourcefulness, the heavy lifting and mental gymnastics of "Sometimes you call", "Sometimes you raise", and "Sometimes you bluff".

The Sex Of Poker—The Power Of Mind Over Money- I bet on Jerome!

Hotel_Anyware told you so—It’s not what’s between your legs but between your ears---your BRAIN.

Read the New York Times article. There’s a bit of rouge trader Jérôme Kerviel, at Société Générale in all of we poker players. We all hate banks and like to see the golden rule---the ones with the gold making the rules-- get broken.

Does money play a role in the White Collar rippoffs ? This seems so obvious, why even ask the question? But, for some, the thrill is in the taking — not in the having. See the similarities in going for broke in a NLH game?

Poker is cool because the "greed is good" meme in the 80s, and the "rules don't apply to the rich" 90s (think Enron, Worldcom, dotcom) don't apply. The assumption that gambling is bad has outlived its usefulness.Now anyone can do it with complete ease, because it means nothing at all, thanks to the CNN effect of dealing with everywhere and everything at once, including the WPT and WSOP. When you start to read about the evils of NLH, you have to give up only one thing--- reading.

"I' ll take things that I know for $1,000 Alex!"

Nerons that wire together fire together---Making money and then making money again is our chemical romance. It produces a “desire to continue”. We are all wired to "invest". Being Digital. It’s not about atoms or how little people behave, it’s about the juice, The Card Lust, where people and bits of information meet. Poker is a game of situations, like milk, with an expiration date stamped right on the carton. There are no perfect strategies. Poker history doesn't repeat itself, but it does rhyme!

There's No Limit Like No-limit.

The world of either or is a world of false dilemma. There is a third option. The world of “and”. It is the difference between a breakdown and a breakthrough. The Pro’s of con ---Confidence and contradiction. to reach beyond what appears to be obvious. Reaching beyond the obvious is the essence of getting creative with NLH.

Buying into a poker game , unlike buying a car is a gamble that the future will represent an improved version of the past. And who knows whether that will be true? When it comes to NLH, what you don’t know is far more relevant than what you do know. Consider that many huge hands can be caused and sped up by their being unexpected, that case eight on the river for a suck out, a four card flush free roll.

Bad Beats Happen-we retrofit a narrative to tell ourselves that we should have seen it coming because we ourselves could not have been that stupid. And yet, we are no better prepared for the next one. Going for broke, however, is more poetic than calculating the odds. And crunching numbers. We really don't have any Poker enemies.It's just that some of our best friends are trying to kill us. Bad Beats---I am going to live through this---even if it kills me!

The Casino Is Our Water Cooler-
Economically important things are consistently unexpected, in that people underestimate, on average, the probability and impact of improbable events We are chronic explainers-once an event happens, we try our hardest to say I told you so and explain it. the cult of the amateur. The casino is their water cooler. There's plenty of kool-aid for all to drink. Totemic discussion of the previous hand's bad beat are like sand at the beach--and Life's a bitch. This is poker not confession.

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What You Think Is Right Is Wrong With Your Poker Game

Date: Sun, Jan 27, 2008 Professional Live Tournament

Egonomics 101---Overconfidence, Myopia and Hubris

The power of mind over money is rooted in mental bias . It is our own idiosyncratic way to distort our map of reality. Just as the menu is not the meal, this map is not the territory--because everyone experiences gambling differently.


FLOUNDERS verses ROUNDERS

For the poker Balla, nothing is better than when that average Joe Playah sits down at a poker table. Why? Because he just sat down with money he INTENDS to lose! There is no more +EV situation, and most tables in a live poker room are filled with players exactly like that. When you treat No Limit Holdem as only a game of chance instead of skill, it is not a law of probability, it's a fact for games with negative expectations: Risk of ruin is 100%.

Call them perpetual shortcuts JOES make when playing poker; and as any of the PROS will tell you---the quicker you go, the longer it takes.They oughta know, they specialize in other people's biases! especially that malignent optimistic one that beats its chest and says, "I'm the best player at the table".

Irrational default modes of playing tend to show up in our game both when we win---the House Money Effect chip overload of playing loose with their money, and when we are getting on tilt with bad beats: That's when emotion and even confidence cloud our judgement and misguide our actions. The Volatility and Varience of NLH rewards patience, a clear mind, and, selective aggression.

American Airlines AA and the Concorde Effect—A True Story at the $100 Buy-In Bicycle Casino- Eating Dessert First.

I’m UTG, deep stacked with four limpers. I raise and get called by all four. I’ve got pocket aces. The flop is low ball 3 4 7 rainbow. I bet big and lose three players. The turn is a 5, a possible straight. I bet big again and get re-raised all in. I insta-call. The river is a blank. I flip over AA and Lift Ticket has Pocket 66. for the nuts.

The very next hand I get pocket kings--it was Dijon Vu, the same old mustard--My emotional return on investment however, my EROI, was saying "SEAT OPEN!" and the table could smell it and I got four callers again. I actually wanted to go home broke..and I did. That's right,wanting to lose money. And that emotional return was more of a payoff than the financial one--when my Kings got cracked by suited connectors.

Granted, too much respect for money makes you a bad NLH player but I walked away from that session with knowledge: First, that my brain is the "most powerful computer." Second, when on tilt, my brain is the most powerful "broken computer ."

Tilt makes us sub-optimal for evaluating rewards, sizing up risks and calculating probabilities. It's like selling the car for gas money.

I walked away with a less broken computer, less sabotaging behavior, and more insight into the fact that self-delusion is more than possible in poker - it's highly likely!

Behavioural Finance ---The Black Box Flight Recorder has a name for my crash landing -- The Sunk Cost Fallacy --the refusal to get out of a losing position, because you've already written the money off -- resulting in losing even more money.

The British and French governments continued to fund the Concorde project long after it was determined that it was a loser---merely to justify past investment in it, rather than assessing the current rationality of investing.

You have an over pair on the flop and bet big. You get called. On the turn the texture of the board is dangerous. You bet out in the dark---suddenly you are stuck as your opponent straightens out.

We are in fact more sensitive to decreases in our chip count than we are to increases in them.

Doyle Brunson, a member of the MENSA Poker Club says: Great players lay down great hands. In fact, the ability to accept a loss and get away from a great hand is probably the most important (and difficult) skill to learn in poker. It's the difference between lightning and a lightning bug.

The ability to take a small loss to avoid a big one is the hallmark of this poker genius.We all start out as geniuses, and then allow our emotions to de-genius us. If you put good players into bad situations they usually turn bad.

Secrets to Beating America's 92 Million Irrational Poker Players

Common sense is not so common, and these common flaws are often consistent, predictable, and can be exploited for profit.

Illusion of control - the tendency for players to believe they can control or at least influence outcomes which they clearly cannot. NLH is 100% luck and 100% chance. An opponent can (suck out) win one hand 100% of the time. NLH is too random to be left up to chance-yet good results will have you rejecting alternative ways to play--Nothing fails like success. Doing things right the first time is an obscenity--If your game isn't broke, don't just break it, break it before the competition does.

Loss aversion - The pain of chips lost generally is much greater than the pleasure of a chips gained. Playars strongly prefer avoiding losses over acquiring gains ( Quit early when winning and playing marathon sessions when stuck or chasing---see also sunk cost effects. To win money over the long haul, you’ve got to win big pots. And to win big pots, you can’t be held back by this thinking error. You can't play a safe tight- is -right solid game and expect to win. You can't avoid crisis, you must be in a perpetual one that you create...but selectively picking your spots).

Bias blind spot - The left side of the brain will do the math. But the right side will "tag" it with a story. That story usually doesn't compensate for one’s own cognitive biases.

Choice-supportive bias - It's called "anchoring" remember one’s choices as better than they actually were. (Using the past to predict the future). There is never a certain prescribed way to play a hand, just a way to think about them. I've had racks of chips only to be felted 14 hours later because instead of an attitude of gratitude, I had the Mick Jaggar Tumbling Dice "Anything worth doing is worth overdoing"soundtrack playing.

Endowment effect - When I own something, I will tend to value it more highly. If I have to sell it, I will probably want to ask more than it is really worth. (Not being able to let go of QQ,AA,KK---rookie moves, and over betting the pot) There's the expected result, based on analysis, and the actual result, based on events. Poker is a game of situations---I've learned to thrown away Kings, Queens, and with a four card flush on the board, even two red Aces!

Confirmation bias - The Indians Rain Dance worked because they never stopped dancing! The Jeane Dixon effect-of making a few right predictions, and overlooking the false ones. Searching for information in a way that confirms one’s preconceptions. The delusions of reference--tells, lucky charms, hunches and coincidences.

Bandwagon effect - Do things because smart money people do or believe the same, like playing Helmeuth starting hands, or walking the painted line of Sklansky's Theory of Poker or Doyle's Super System. Related to groupthink, herd behaviour. That's what I find so cool about my game--being able to fire three barrels with squadush. (Thank you Poker Stars Sit and Go's)

Déformation professionnelle - the tendency to look at things according to the conventions of one’s own T.O.E., time on earth; assuming things that have similar traits are likely to be identical; forgetting any broader point of view. Past experience and feedback loops can make you Hola Lupe.

Disconfirmation bias -. We tend to use the information that is most handy when we make decisions/predictions. The path of least resistence mashed up with thin slicing.

Focusing effect - prediction bias occurring when players place too much importance on one aspect of an event; causes error in accurately predicting the utility of a future outcome.

Hyperbolic discounting - the tendency for players to have a stronger preference for more immediate payoffs relative to later payoffs, the closer to the present both payoffs are.

Impact bias -Our minds are suited for solving problems related to our survival, rather than being optimised for poker decisions. Players overestimate the length or the intensity of the impact of future feeling states.

Information bias - SeekingTMI, too much information, even when it cannot affect action.

Neglect of probability - the tendency to completely disregard probability when making a decision under uncertainty. Expected Value and Variance---weighing all the possible outcomes, weighting the more likely outcomes, and coming to a conclusion---play a big part in the decision process. There is therefore, never a certain prescribed way to play a hand, just a way to think about them

Mere exposure effect - the tendency for players to express undue liking for things merely because they are familiar with them. If it's not broke, break it!

Omission bias - The tendency to judge harmful actions as worse, or less moral, than equally harmful omissions (inactions).

Outcome bias - the tendency to judge a decision by its eventual outcome instead of based on the quality of the decision at the time it was made.

Planning fallacy - the tendency to underestimate task-completion times. It has taken me ten years to become an overnight Holdem success!

Post-purchase rationalization - the tendency to persuade oneself through rational argument that a purchase was a good value.

Pseudocertainty effect - the tendency to make risk-averse choices if the expected outcome is positive, but make risk-seeking choices to avoid negative outcomes.

Selective perception - the tendency for expectations to affect perception. (Gamblers Fallacy)

Status quo bias - the tendency for players to like things to stay relatively the same.

Von Restorff effect - Purple Cows and items that “stands out like a sore thumb” have a tendency to be more likely to be remembered than other items.

Zero-risk bias - preference for reducing a small risk to zero over a greater reduction in a larger risk.

behavioral finance Poker Sunken Cost Bicycle Casino

Read Full Poker Blog Post

What You Think Is Right Is Wrong With Your Poker Game

Date: Sun, Jan 27, 2008 Professional Live Tournament

Egonomics 101---Overconfidence, Myopia and Hubris

The power of mind over money is rooted in mental bias . It is our own idiosyncratic way to distort our map of reality. Just as the menu is not the meal, this map is not the territory--because everyone experiences gambling differently. When your reality check bounces---change your map.


FLOUNDERS verses ROUNDERS -The difference in playing with the belief and intention of winning against just being social.

For the poker Balla, nothing is better than when that average Joe Player sits down at a poker table. Why? Because he just sat down with money he INTENDS to lose! There is no more +EV situation, and most tables in a live poker room are filled with players exactly like that. When you treat No Limit Hold em as only a game of chance instead of skill, it is not a law of probability, it's a fact for games with negative expectations: Risk of ruin is 100%.


Call them perpetual shortcuts JOES make when losing poker ASAP; and as any of the PROS will tell you, they don't need cards to win--that's for amateurs. Pro Players specialize in other people's biases! especially that malignant optimistic one that beats its chest and says, "I'm the best player at the table".

Pros know the 60/40 end of a proposition--- when to hold em and when to fold em--- when you have some competitive advantage over somebody else. And you don't bet, you don't gamble, you don't invest, unless you have some competitive advantage.

Poker is a game of partial information, and when you have a competitive advantage you have to take into account this and, more important, behavioral factors. There is wise.... and there is otherwise:

Behavior Has Consequences

Irrational default modes of playing tend to show up in our game both when we win---the House Money Effect chip overload of playing loose with their money, and when we are getting on tilt with bad beats: That's when emotion and even confidence cloud our judgment and misguide our actions. The Volatility and Variance of NLH rewards patience, a clear mind, and, selective aggression.

American Airlines AA and the Concorde Effect—A True Story at the $100 Buy-In Bicycle Casino- Eating Dessert First.

I’m UTG, deep stacked with four limpers. I raise and get called by all four. I’ve got pocket aces. The flop is low ball 3 4 7 rainbow. I bet big and lose three players. The turn is a 5, a possible straight. I bet big again and get re-raised all in. I insta-call. The river is a blank. I flip over AA and Lift Ticket has Pocket 66. for the nuts.

The very next hand I get pocket kings--it was Dijon Vu, the same old mustard--My emotional return on investment however, my EROI, was saying "SEAT OPEN!" and the table could smell it and I got four callers again. I actually wanted to go home broke..and I did. That's right,wanting to lose money. And that emotional return was more of a payoff than the financial one--when my Kings got cracked by suited connectors.

Granted, too much respect for money makes you a bad NLH player but I walked away from that session with knowledge: First, that my brain is the "most powerful computer." Second, when on tilt, my brain is the most powerful "broken computer ."

Tilt makes us sub-optimal for evaluating rewards, sizing up risks and calculating probabilities. It's like selling the car for gas money.

I walked away with a less broken computer, less sabotaging behavior, and more insight into the fact that self-delusion is more than possible in poker - it's highly likely!

Behavioral Finance ---The Black Box Flight Recorder has a name for my crash landing -- The Sunk Cost Fallacy --the refusal to get out of a losing position, because you've already written the money off -- resulting in losing even more money.

The British and French governments continued to fund the Concorde project long after it was determined that it was a loser---merely to justify past investment in it, rather than assessing the current rationality of investing.

You have an over pair on the flop and bet big. You get called. On the turn the texture of the board is dangerous. You bet out in the dark---suddenly you are stuck as your opponent straightens out.

We are in fact more sensitive to decreases in our chip count than we are to increases in them.

Doyle Brunson, a member of the MENSA Poker Club says: Great players lay down great hands. In fact, the ability to accept a loss and get away from a great hand is probably the most important (and difficult) skill to learn in poker. It's the difference between lightning and a lightning bug.

The ability to take a small loss to avoid a big one is the hallmark of this poker genius.We all start out as geniuses, and then allow our emotions to de-genius us. If you put good players into bad situations they usually turn bad.

Secrets to Beating America's 92 Million Irrational Poker Players

Common sense is not so common, and these common flaws are often consistent, predictable, and can be exploited for profit.

Illusion of control - the tendency for players to believe they can control or at least influence outcomes which they clearly cannot. NLH is 100% luck and 100% chance. An opponent can (suck out) win one hand 100% of the time. NLH is too random to be left up to chance-yet good results will have you rejecting alternative ways to play--Nothing fails like success. Doing things right the first time is an obscenity--If your game isn't broke, don't just break it, break it before the competition does.

Loss aversion - The pain of chips lost generally is much greater than the pleasure of a chips gained. Playars strongly prefer avoiding losses over acquiring gains ( Quit early when winning and playing marathon sessions when stuck or chasing---see also sunk cost effects. To win money over the long haul, you’ve got to win big pots. And to win big pots, you can’t be held back by this thinking error. You can't play a safe tight- is -right solid game and expect to win. You can't avoid crisis, you must be in a perpetual one that you create...but selectively picking your spots).

Bias blind spot - The left side of the brain will do the math. But the right side will "tag" it with a story. That story usually doesn't compensate for one’s own cognitive biases.

Choice-supportive bias - It's called "anchoring" remember one’s choices as better than they actually were. (Using the past to predict the future). There is never a certain prescribed way to play a hand, just a way to think about them. I've had racks of chips only to be felted 14 hours later because instead of an attitude of gratitude, I had the Mick Jaggar Tumbling Dice "Anything worth doing is worth overdoing"soundtrack playing.

Endowment effect - When I own something, I will tend to value it more highly. If I have to sell it, I will probably want to ask more than it is really worth. (Not being able to let go of QQ,AA,KK---rookie moves, and over betting the pot) There's the expected result, based on analysis, and the actual result, based on events. Poker is a game of situations---I've learned to thrown away Kings, Queens, and with a four card flush on the board, even two red Aces!

Confirmation bias - The Indians Rain Dance worked because they never stopped dancing! The Jeane Dixon effect-of making a few right predictions, and overlooking the false ones. Searching for information in a way that confirms one’s preconceptions. The delusions of reference--tells, lucky charms, hunches and coincidences.

Bandwagon effect - Do things because smart money people do or believe the same, like playing Helmeuth starting hands, or walking the painted line of Sklansky's Theory of Poker or Doyle's Super System. Related to groupthink, herd behaviour. That's what I find so cool about my game--being able to fire three barrels with squadush. (Thank you Poker Stars Sit and Go's)

Déformation professionnelle - the tendency to look at things according to the conventions of one’s own T.O.E., time on earth; assuming things that have similar traits are likely to be identical; forgetting any broader point of view. Past experience and feedback loops can make you Hola Lupe.

Disconfirmation bias -. We tend to use the information that is most handy when we make decisions/predictions. The path of least resistence mashed up with thin slicing.

Focusing effect - prediction bias occurring when players place too much importance on one aspect of an event; causes error in accurately predicting the utility of a future outcome.

Hyperbolic discounting - the tendency for players to have a stronger preference for more immediate payoffs relative to later payoffs, the closer to the present both payoffs are.

Impact bias -Our minds are suited for solving problems related to our survival, rather than being optimised for poker decisions. Players overestimate the length or the intensity of the impact of future feeling states.

Information bias - Seeking TMI, too much information, even when it cannot affect action. Try playing in the dark, or blind---With less information to be processed and filtered, the brain assigns higher priority to the information that it does receive.

Neglect of probability - the tendency to completely disregard probability when making a decision under uncertainty. Expected Value and Variance---weighing all the possible outcomes, weighting the more likely outcomes, and coming to a conclusion---play a big part in the decision process. There is therefore, never a certain prescribed way to play a hand, just a way to think about them

Mere exposure effect - the tendency for players to express undue liking for things merely because they are familiar with them. If it's not broke, break it!

Omission bias - The tendency to judge harmful actions as worse, or less moral, than equally harmful omissions (inactions).

Outcome bias - the tendency to judge things on their outcome, and not on their process. Over weighing and overeacting to a bad beat-- the most recent information or circumstances.

Planning fallacy - the tendency to underestimate task-completion times. It has taken me ten years to become an overnight Holdem success!

Post-purchase rationalization - the tendency to persuade oneself through rational argument that a purchase was a good value.

Pseudocertainty effect - the tendency to make risk-averse choices if the expected outcome is positive, but make risk-seeking choices to avoid negative outcomes.

Selective perception - the tendency for expectations to affect perception. (Gamblers Fallacy)

Status quo bias - the tendency for players to like things to stay relatively the same.

Von Restorff effect - Purple Cows and items that “stands out like a sore thumb” have a tendency to be more likely to be remembered than other items.

Zero-risk bias - preference for reducing a small risk to zero over a greater reduction in a larger risk.

Behavioral finance Poker Sunken Cost Bicycle Casino

Read Full Poker Blog Post

What You Think Is Right Is Wrong With Your Poker Game

Date: Sun, Jan 27, 2008 Professional Live Tournament

Egonomics 101---Overconfidence, Myopia and Hubris

The power of mind over money is rooted in mental bias . It is our own idiosyncratic way to distort our map of reality. Just as the menu is not the meal, this map is not the territory--because everyone experiences gambling differently. When your reality check bounces---change your map.


FLOUNDERS verses ROUNDERS -The difference in playing with the belief and intention of winning against just being social.

For the poker Balla, nothing is better than when that average Joe Player sits down at a poker table. Why? Because he just sat down with money he INTENDS to lose! There is no more +EV situation, and most tables in a live poker room are filled with players exactly like that. When you treat No Limit Hold em as only a game of chance instead of skill, it is not a law of probability, it's a fact for games with negative expectations: Risk of ruin is 100%.


A Joe plays when he "feels" like it, a Pro, all the time! Call them perpetual shortcuts JOES make when losing poker ASAP; and as any of the PROS will tell you, they don't need cards to win--that's for amateurs. Pro Players specialize in other people's biases! especially that malignant optimistic one that beats its chest and says, "I'm the best player at the table". Hotel Anyware considers himself an average player, except for the fact that he considers himself an average player!

Pros know the 60/40 end of a proposition--- when to hold em and when to fold em--- when you have some competitive advantage over somebody else. And you don't bet, you don't gamble, you don't invest, unless you have some competitive advantage.

Poker is a game of partial information, and when you have a competitive advantage you have to take into account this and, more important, behavioral factors. There is wise.... and there is otherwise:

Behavior Has Consequences

Irrational default modes of playing tend to show up in our game both when we win---the House Money Effect chip overload of playing loose with their money, and when we are getting on tilt with bad beats: That's when emotion and even confidence cloud our judgment and misguide our actions. The Volatility and Variance of NLH rewards patience, a clear mind, and, selective aggression.

American Airlines AA and the Concorde Effect—A True Story at the $100 Buy-In Bicycle Casino- Eating Dessert First.

I’m UTG, deep stacked with four limpers. I raise and get called by all four. I should muck right there but I don't. I’ve got pocket aces. The flop is low ball 3 4 7 rainbow. I bet big-a Dan Harrington "information" bet to see where I am at... and lose three players. The turn is a 5, a possible straight. I bet big again and get re-raised all in. I insta-call. The river is a blank. I flip over AA and Lift Ticket has Pocket 66. for the nuts.

The very next hand I get pocket kings--it was Dijon Vu, the same old mustard--My emotional return on investment however, my EROI, was saying "SEAT OPEN!" and the table could smell it and I got everyone calling, a family pot. I actually wanted to go home broke..and even though I tripped up, I lost to runner, runner, heart flush. I did. That's right,wanting to lose money. And that emotional return was more of a payoff than the financial one--when my black Kings got cracked by suited connectors (hearts, a baby flush!).

Granted, too much respect for money makes you a bad NLH player but I walked away from that session with knowledge: First, that my brain is the "most powerful computer." Second, when on tilt, my brain is the most powerful "broken computer ."

Tilt makes us sub-optimal for evaluating rewards, sizing up risks and calculating probabilities. It's like selling the car for gas money.

I walked away with a less broken computer, less sabotaging behavior, and more insight into the fact that self-delusion is more than possible in poker - it's highly likely!

Behavioral Finance ---The Black Box Flight Recorder has a name for my crash landing -- The Sunk Cost Fallacy --the refusal to get out of a losing position, because you've already written the money off -- resulting in losing even more money.

The British and French governments continued to fund the Concorde project long after it was determined that it was a loser---merely to justify past investment in it, rather than assessing the current rationality of investing.

You have an over pair on the flop and bet big. You get called. On the turn the texture of the board is dangerous. You bet out in the dark---suddenly you are stuck as your opponent straightens out.

We are in fact more sensitive to decreases in our chip count than we are to increases in them.

Doyle Brunson, a member of the MENSA Poker Club says: Great players lay down great hands. In fact, the ability to accept a loss and get away from a great hand is probably the most important (and difficult) skill to learn in poker. It's the difference between lightning and a lightning bug.

The ability to take a small loss to avoid a big one is the hallmark of this poker genius.We all start out as geniuses, and then allow our emotions to de-genius us. If you put good players into bad situations they usually turn bad.

Secrets to Beating America's 92 Million Irrational Poker Players

Common sense is not so common, and these common flaws are often consistent, predictable, and can be exploited for profit.

Illusion of control - the tendency for players to believe they can control or at least influence outcomes which they clearly cannot. NLH is 100% luck and 100% chance. An opponent can (suck out) win one hand 100% of the time. NLH is too random to be left up to chance-yet good results will have you rejecting alternative ways to play--Nothing fails like success. Doing things right the first time is an obscenity--If your game isn't broke, don't just break it, break it before the competition does.

Loss aversion - The pain of chips lost generally is much greater than the pleasure of a chips gained. Playars strongly prefer avoiding losses over acquiring gains ( Quit early when winning and playing marathon sessions when stuck or chasing---see also sunk cost effects. To win money over the long haul, you’ve got to win big pots. And to win big pots, you can’t be held back by this thinking error. You can't play a safe tight- is -right solid game and expect to win. You can't avoid crisis, you must be in a perpetual one that you create...but selectively picking your spots).

Bias blind spot - The left side of the brain will do the math. But the right side will "tag" it with a story. That story usually doesn't compensate for one’s own cognitive biases.

Choice-supportive bias - It's called "anchoring" remember one’s choices as better than they actually were. (Using the past to predict the future). There is never a certain prescribed way to play a hand, just a way to think about them. I've had racks of chips only to be felted 14 hours later because instead of an attitude of gratitude, I had the Mick Jaggar Tumbling Dice "Anything worth doing is worth overdoing"soundtrack playing.

Endowment effect - When I own something, I will tend to value it more highly. If I have to sell it, I will probably want to ask more than it is really worth. (Not being able to let go of QQ,AA,KK---rookie moves, and over betting the pot) There's the expected result, based on analysis, and the actual result, based on events. Poker is a game of situations---I've learned to thrown away Kings, Queens, and with a four card flush on the board, even two red Aces!

Confirmation bias - The Indians Rain Dance worked because they never stopped dancing! The Jeane Dixon effect-of making a few right predictions, and overlooking the false ones. Searching for information in a way that confirms one’s preconceptions. The delusions of reference--tells, lucky charms, hunches and coincidences.

Bandwagon effect - Do things because smart money people do or believe the same, like playing Helmeuth starting hands, or walking the painted line of Sklansky's Theory of Poker or Doyle's Super System. Related to groupthink, herd behaviour. That's what I find so cool about my game--being able to fire three barrels with squadush. (Thank you Poker Stars Sit and Go's)

Déformation professionnelle - the tendency to look at things according to the conventions of one’s own T.O.E., time on earth; assuming things that have similar traits are likely to be identical; forgetting any broader point of view. Past experience and feedback loops can make you Hola Lupe.

Disconfirmation bias -. We tend to use the information that is most handy when we make decisions/predictions. The path of least resistence mashed up with thin slicing.

Focusing effect - prediction bias occurring when players place too much importance on one aspect of an event; causes error in accurately predicting the utility of a future outcome.

Hyperbolic discounting - the tendency for players to have a stronger preference for more immediate payoffs relative to later payoffs, the closer to the present both payoffs are.

Impact bias -Our minds are suited for solving problems related to our survival, rather than being optimised for poker decisions. Players overestimate the length or the intensity of the impact of future feeling states.

Information bias - Seeking TMI, too much information, even when it cannot affect action. Try playing in the dark, or blind---With less information to be processed and filtered, the brain assigns higher priority to the information that it does receive.

Neglect of probability - the tendency to completely disregard probability when making a decision under uncertainty. Expected Value and Variance---weighing all the possible outcomes, weighting the more likely outcomes, and coming to a conclusion---play a big part in the decision process. There is therefore, never a certain prescribed way to play a hand, just a way to think about them

Mere exposure effect - the tendency for players to express undue liking for things merely because they are familiar with them. If it's not broke, break it!

Omission bias - The tendency to judge harmful actions as worse, or less moral, than equally harmful omissions (inactions).

Outcome bias - the tendency to judge things on their outcome, and not on their process. Over weighing and overeacting to a bad beat-- the most recent information or circumstances.

Planning fallacy - the tendency to underestimate task-completion times. It has taken me ten years to become an overnight Holdem success!

Post-purchase rationalization - the tendency to persuade oneself through rational argument that a purchase was a good value.

Pseudocertainty effect - the tendency to make risk-averse choices if the expected outcome is positive, but make risk-seeking choices to avoid negative outcomes.

Selective perception - the tendency for expectations to affect perception. (Gamblers Fallacy)

Status quo bias - the tendency for players to like things to stay relatively the same.

Von Restorff effect - Purple Cows and items that “stands out like a sore thumb” have a tendency to be more likely to be remembered than other items.

Zero-risk bias - preference for reducing a small risk to zero over a greater reduction in a larger risk.

Behavioral finance Poker Sunken Cost Bicycle Casino

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Get your BS in Holdem-"Pimp My Harvard"

Date: Fri, Jan 25, 2008 Professional Live Tournament

The Oracle: Professor Charles-Kingsfield-Nesson's Mashed Up Pulp-Free Poker Chase--- Get your BS in Holdem-"Pimp My Harvard"

Harvard Law School, the West Point of capitalism, has a little creative destruction going on at Roscoe Pound 's new student-led Poker Strategic Thinking Society (GPSTS), led by the mad hatter-- Professor Chuckles Nesson , the Crimson's own human hangover.Here he is putting a spin on the Confucian Idea: Give a man a fish you teach him for a day; teach him how to play poker, you don't have to teach him anything! The devil's advocate advocating for the devil---online gambling! Yea baby... Oh behave Gnarles.

A great many people think they are thinking about poker when they are merely rearranging their bad habits. Part card sharks, part Mother Teresas’ it’s still nice to see the education outreach of legal elite F.O.P. Friend of Poker- Alan Dershowitz ; AND Charlie Nesson , a tweeds-to-riches—Crimson Prof high on silicon crack. The Alan and Charlie show are in a tag team steel cage smack down match against the “Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act”(UIGEA) and the powers that be. barring U.S. banks from transferring money to online gaming companies. Gaming Law is in Vogue-and they are ready to take a bite of the apple. a once forbidden fruit.

It's so pre 9/11: Committing jihad on our basic life, liberty and the pursuit of a fast buck--- The assumption that gambling is bad has outlived its usefulness. Now anyone can do it with complete ease, because it means nothing at all, thanks to the CNN effect of dealing with everywhere and everything at once-Props to Full Tilt, Poker Stars and Bodog! and the acronyms--WPT and WSOP and GSN. When you start to read about the evils of NLH, you have to give up only one thing--- reading. Get smart watch TV---Get your Ph.D. in No Limit From ESPN's WSOP coverage, Get your license to thrills with WPT and GSN's High Stakes Poker.

Few things are harder to put up with than a good example--- If it wasn't for pimps, prostitutes, hustlers, gangsters there wouldn't be any No Limit Poker as we know it today. There was a time when one could almost be afraid to call himself a poker player because it meant so much, now it means so little. You are not keeping up with the Joneses. You’re dragging them down to your level on the green felt jungle.

White Angry Holdem--Listen up---Poker is the new golf, the new dude sport, so, relax and lower your standards. Former Senator Alfonso D'Amato, now chairman and chief spokesperson/lobbyist for the Poker Player's Alliance (PPA), along with Florida State Representative Robert Wexler have!

Cobert Report
GPSTS Charles Nesson Online Poker UIGEA Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act

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Get your BS in Holdem-"Pimp My Harvard"

Date: Fri, Jan 25, 2008 Professional Live Tournament

The Oracle: Professor Charles-Kingsfield-Nesson's Mashed Up Pulp-Free Poker Chase--- Get your BS in Holdem-"Pimp My Harvard"

Harvard Law School, the West Point of capitalism, has a little creative destruction going on at Roscoe Pound 's new student-led Poker Strategic Thinking Society (GPSTS), led by the mad hatter-- Professor Chuckles Nesson , the Crimson's own human hangover.Here he is putting a spin on the Confucian Idea: Give a man a fish you teach him for a day; teach him how to play poker, you don't have to teach him anything! The devil's advocate advocating for the devil---online gambling! Yea baby... Oh behave Gnarles.

A great many people think they are thinking about poker when they are merely rearranging their bad habits. Part card sharks, part Mother Teresas’ it’s still nice to see the education outreach of legal elite F.O.P. Friend of Poker- Alan Dershowitz ; AND Charlie Nesson , a tweeds-to-riches—Crimson Prof high on silicon crack. The Alan and Charlie show are in a tag team steel cage smack down match against the “Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act”(UIGEA) and the powers that be. barring U.S. banks from transferring money to online gaming companies. Gaming Law is in Vogue-and they are ready to take a bite of the apple. a once forbidden fruit.

It's so pre 9/11: Committing jihad on our basic life, liberty and the pursuit of a fast buck--- The assumption that gambling is bad has outlived its usefulness. Now anyone can do it with complete ease, because it means nothing at all, thanks to the CNN effect of dealing with everywhere and everything at once-Props to Full Tilt, Poker Stars and Bodog! and the acronyms--WPT and WSOP and GSN. When you start to read about the evils of NLH, you have to give up only one thing--- reading. Get smart watch TV---Get your Ph.D. in No Limit From ESPN's WSOP coverage, Get your license to thrills with WPT and GSN's High Stakes Poker.

Few things are harder to put up with than a good example--- If it wasn't for pimps, prostitutes, hustlers, gangsters there wouldn't be any No Limit Poker as we know it today. There was a time when one could almost be afraid to call himself a poker player because it meant so much, now it means so little. You are not keeping up with the Joneses. You’re dragging them down to your level on the green felt jungle.

White Angry Holdem--Listen up---Poker is the new golf, the new dude sport, so, relax and lower your standards. Former Senator Alfonso D'Amato, now chairman and chief spokesperson/lobbyist for the Poker Player's Alliance (PPA), along with Florida State Representative Robert Wexler have!

Cobert Report
GPSTS Charles Nesson Online Poker UIGEA Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act

Read Full Poker Blog Post

The Power Of Paradoxical Thinking in High Stakes Poker

Date: Wed, Jan 23, 2008 Professional Live Tournament

I'm at Starbucks on a T-mobile hot spot, watching on Youtube, Season Four of High Stakes Poker. It's the nuts! By far, the best cash game ever recorded.

ESPN’s WSOP (World Series of Poker) Celebrity Poker on Bravo and the Travel Channel’s WPT (World Poker Tour) have done for poker what Jamba smoothies did for high fiber diets---it reinvented the often indigestible into an energizing and delicious experience that can no longer be ignored. This game has juice! Unfortunately our national poker id has A.D.D. With final cut, the monotony is edited out.

Calling poker a sport is like calling bald a hair color. Yet our male pattern madness--- an 800 lb gorilla known as Texas No Limit Hold em (a.k.a. NLH) has replaced baseball not only as the national pastime, but also America’s bellybutton. It’s not a sport, it’s a concussion!

GSN's-High Stakes Poker Looney-tuned tension gets its storyline from the Cartoon Network. In a New York minute, an ACME anvil pancakes you, and then a split second later, you’re expanded - accordion-style - back to normal, like some tempurpedic mattress. It’s a formula of ins and outs, need and speed, aggravation and acceleration.

Makes me think on: The Sweet Spot--- where your passion meets your purpose. Everyone's got one, but not everyone has a relationship to it. It is the doorway to your most authentic voice, and everyone's is different. Mine is NLH.

The number #1 thing I hate about the game I love--The surest way to win a huge pot in NLH is to spot 'em the nuts and suck out! When this happens: Hate the win, not the winner. The winner has crazy delicious poker courage-heart, if he only had a brain...

Last month I was heads up--all in-- at the Bellagio! Getting my money in bad with Anna Kournikova-AK against Pocket Rockets AA-Getting a miracle runner runner King King on the turn and river for trips - I even called it, saying I was the favorite. Sure , NLH is a game of high cards. but sometimes you can put the sin back in sincere-

“Let there be flop"

It was a dramatic and startling experience that completely altered my understanding of the game, making me into new playah It was so overwhelming, it is as if I had shifted into a new dimension, as if my mind had expanded by a Power of 10.

The power of new, something always new and surprising in the game. Poker is too random to be left up to chance. It's better to be skillful than lucky; Yet, I sent that guy home broke, getting lucky with trip KKK's-the three wise men.

It's nice to see the the full power of paradoxical thinking in no limit holdem ---NLH on the Game Show Network. Eating what you kill is so money. You can't spell manslaughter , without laughter: so when these pros eat what they kill, they make sure the starngerhood- neighbors are having a good time. It’s not some felony conviction; more of a firm belief in magic, the process of putting the con back in confidence and creating community.

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Happy 2008 From Ka'a'wa, Hawaii

Date: Tue, Jan 1, 2008 Professional Live Tournament

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Ho Ho Holdem

Date: Sat, Dec 22, 2007 Professional Live Tournament

Dear Santa, please send my readers Pocket Aces and 1st place in the Poker Stars $215 Sunday Million tournament.

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Why Be A Man When You Can Be A Success---Annette_15's Year In Review

Date: Sat, Dec 22, 2007 Professional Live Tournament

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David "Chip" Reese ---The One With The Most Chips Still Dies! (1951-2007)

Date: Wed, Dec 5, 2007 Professional Live Tournament

He wasn't just any grinder. Many, including his best friend and business partner,Doyle Brunson, consider Chip the greatest cash-game player who ever lived.

He graduated from Dartmouth, stopped in Vegas on his way to Stanford Business School and never looked back. (He won a tournament for $60K and continued to grow his bankroll to over $100K.)

Game Over--The People's Poker Pro vs. Larry Flynt-One Of The Richest Side Games in the Country.

When I played NLH in L.A's Hustler Casino during the Moneymaker era, right next to me in "The Sunday Big Game" -there were cash specialists Chip Reese , Barry Greestein,Phil Ivey, cutting chips like they were nothing against Larry Flynt, sitting in his $80,000 gold-plated wheelchair. They were not playing together, but were not playing against other either. They were there to win Flynt's money.The game was a $2000-$4000 Seven-Card Stud with a $500 ante. An average pot was around $40k.

It was so cool. Reese set the standard for professional gambling. Chip's demeanor at the table was even keeled. He never steamed or went on tilt. He took his bad beats and the monster wins the same way. I knew I had to "Level Up" to my credible mentor. I started to think of the game more as excelling than winning or losing.

Part Midwesterner "Main Street USA" and part Ivy League New Yorker Wall Street, Reese's road less traveled was admired and emulated by all of us. He was cool,