My last column said that intuitive players can read and adjust to players better than most people, and these skills are critically important in no-limit hold'em (NLH). Here, I'll describe a system to reduce their edge. The essential first step is to demystify "intuition."
Professor Arthur Reber has been researching this subject for 40 years, and he has argued that "intuition" should be called
implicit learning. He defines it as "the capacity to pick up information about complex situations, largely without awareness of either the process or the products of learning."
Intuitive people do
not have an inherently greater capacity to process information, but they work harder at picking up and understanding certain cues. Since they don't seem to be working, you can believe that they "have skills that seem natural, almost magical. You sense that you will never compete with them."
If you're a logical person - especially one who still thinks like a limit player - you focus on your cards, pot odds, and the technically correct strategy, while intuitive people pay much more attention to "the subtle patterns of betting, physical movements, facial changes, vocal stress, hand position, and so on." You aren't intuitive because you lack some genetic capacity, but because you focus on different information.
It's not an either-or issue. Don't minimize math and strategy as some intuitive people do, and don't minimize the behavioral cues as some mathematically logical people do. Try to focus on both.
The critical question is:
How can you shift your attention to develop your "intuition"? Your intuitive opponents have been focusing on these subtle cues for a lifetime. Jan Siroky (NLH tournament coach) and I have developed a system for doing two things that intuitive people do automatically:
• Gather different kinds of information
• Practice and get feedback on understanding its meaning
Gather Different Kinds of Information
Constantly try to learn what kinds of people your opponents are.
Don't focus only on the way they play their cards. Learn as much as you can about:
• Their basic personality (aggressive, conservative,
sociable, and so on)
• Why they play poker (to make money, to get the kick of gambling, to test themselves against challenges, and so on)
• Their current mental and emotional state (confident, flustered, angry, and so on)
People generally play poker the way they do other things. Their playing style, clothes, voice, gestures, attitudes, and vocabulary all reveal and express their underlying personality. The more information you have, the more you will understand your opponents and the better you will be able to adjust to them. You should constantly observe, listen, and question.
Observe everything possible. People give away information about themselves, but you have to look for it and try to understand its poker implications. For example, someone who bullies waitresses or dealers will probably play a bullying style. An older, quiet, well-dressed woman is probably more conservative than a loud young man with green hair and tattoos. Someone who watches the TV is obviously not that serious or aware. A tourist who is leaving for the airport in an hour probably won't wait for premium cards.
Listen to
everything, even apparently irrelevant remarks about work, play, family, homes, and so on. If someone whines about how much money he has lost in the pits, he is clearly a gambler, and perhaps a foolish one. If he brags about himself, he is probably an egotistical player.
Ask
questions about anything that can help you to understand people. Some apparently innocuous questions can provide valuable insights into their character:
• Do you mow your own lawn? (People who do tend to be conservative, and perhaps even cheap.)
• What's your favorite game besides poker? (Craps players tend to be gamblers, even wild ones. Most chess players are unemotional thinkers.)
• Which poker books and authors do you like? (People generally play the way their favorite authors recommend.)
• Who are the best players? (Someone who admires Dan Harrington will play very differently from a Gus Hansen fan.)
Practice and Get Feedback on Understanding its Meaning
Reading and adjusting to players are skills, and you can't develop any skill without practice and feedback. Constantly try to read and adjust to players and get accurate feedback about how well you have done. Take five steps:1. Put people on a range of hands.
2. Make predictions about what they will do.
3. Record your results.
4. Analyze the causes for your good and bad decisions.
5. Discuss steps No. 1-4 with other people.
Because these steps can be very tiring, focus only on a few players at first, the best and worst ones in the game. As you gain experience, you can slowly increase the number of players you study.
1. Put People on a Range of Hands
Doyle Brunson wrote: "Once you decide what a man's most likely to have - especially in no-limit - you should never change your mind." (
SuperSystem 2, Page 551) David Sklansky emphatically disagrees: "Do not put undue emphasis on your opinion of your opponent's hand. I know many players who put someone on a certain hand and play the rest of the hand assuming he has that hand. This is taking the method of reading hands too far … Instead, you must put a player on a few different possible hands with varying degrees of probability for each of these hands." (
Hold'em Poker, Page 49)
Doyle's advice is seductive. You will sometimes think, "I
know what he has," but you must fight that tendency. Doyle and a few other intuitive geniuses can accurately put people on hands, but you're not one of them. If you were, you wouldn't be reading this column. So accept and work within your limitations.
Study the action all the time. Otherwise, you will miss most of your learning opportunities. You play only a few hands, but you can learn from every hand. When you're involved in a pot, you hope for various cards, and you naturally concentrate on winning the pot. When you're just observing other people, you can be much more detached and analytical about them.
2. Make Predictions About What They Will Do
The feedback cycle is much faster and more reliable for predictions than for putting people on hands. Since only a few hands go to showdown, you usually will not know whether your reads are correct. But you will get immediate feedback about your predictions. If you expect someone to check, but he bets, you can immediately recognize your mistake. If you bet, expecting him to fold, but he raises, you obviously misunderstood the situation.
3. Record Your Results
The more notes you take, the more you will learn. You will learn the most from your mistakes, the times that people had different cards or acted differently from your predictions.
Every time you make a serious mistake, write it down. "I thought he had a big pocket pair, but he had A-J suited." "I thought he would raise, but he folded." "I thought he was bluffing, but he had the nuts."
4. Analyze the Causes for Your Good and Bad Decisions
With enough notes, you will see patterns. You can accurately read Joe, but can't read Suzie. You are good at bluffing people, but not at snapping off bluffs. You can bluff certain types of players, but not others. The critical question is:
Why are you making good and bad reads and decisions?
• Why did you think he had those hands?
• Which signals affected your assessment or prediction?
• How did you interpret those signals?
• Why was your interpretation correct or incorrect?
To answer those questions, you must ruthlessly analyze yourself. What personal strengths and weaknesses help and hurt you? How can you build on your strengths and overcome your weaknesses? Self-examination is unpleasant, but it's an essential step toward becoming a better player.
5. Discuss Steps No. 1-4 With Other People
If you and another competent player frequently discuss these steps, you both will gain immensely. He will see things that you miss and vice versa. When you explain
why you put someone on a hand, you will often realize how your thinking was flawed. You either missed some signals or misinterpreted them.
Final Remarks
This system is hard work, but Thomas Edison, history's greatest inventor, once said: "Genius is 1 percent inspiration and 99 percent perspiration." Some apparently intuitive geniuses have been working on their feel for most of their lives. To close the gap between you and them, you have to work even harder.
Dr. Schoonmaker coaches only on psychology issues, such as controlling impulses, coping with losing streaks, going on tilt, and planning your self-development. E-mail him at [email protected].
