Winners Use Feedback Loops Well

Poker writers rarely refer to feedback loops, but engineers use them all the time. They design systems that acquire and use new information to make adjustments. For example, if the temperature falls a few degrees, a thermostat turns on the heat. After the temperature rises a little, it turns off the heat. These small corrections prevent the room from becoming too hot or too cold.



Even if they never use the term "feedback loop," winners frequently apply their principles to prevent small miscalculations from becoming serious mistakes and to adjust to changing situations. They look for new information and keep their minds open so that they understand and adjust to it.



You can't use feedback loops well without being brutally realistic. If denial, prejudices, egotism, inability to admit mistakes, or anything else distorts your thinking, nothing else matters much. It also helps to prepare thoroughly, concentrate intensely, and probe effectively. These subjects were discussed in recent columns that you can read at CardPlayer.com.



Then, you must take four steps:



1. Continuously acquire information. The more information you get, the better your conclusions will be. That point may seem obvious, but far too many people stop acquiring information after jumping to a conclusion.



2. Interpret all of that information. What does it mean? How does it change your conclusions?



3. Use all of that information to revise your strategy. What should you do differently?



4. Implement that revised strategy well. No matter how much you improve your strategy, you gain little unless you implement it well.



The relationship between these steps is often circular. While interpreting information, you may recognize that you need more of it. While revising your strategy, you may see that you have misunderstood some information. While implementing the new strategy, you may realize that it is wrong and repeat the whole process.



Because poker is an incomplete-information game and conditions change so rapidly, you can't beat competent players without using feedback loops well. You need them for almost everything you do, but I will discuss only three subjects:



1. Reading your opponents' cards



2. Assessing your opponents' strengths, weaknesses, and styles



3. Assessing and developing yourself



Reading Your Opponents' Cards



This skill depends heavily on feedback loops. Losers focus on their own cards and ignore information from their opponents. Mediocre players focus primarily on their own cards; they quickly decide which cards their opponents have and then stick with that impression. When they get conflicting evidence, they ignore or minimize it.



Winners keep getting and using information to improve their reads. David Sklansky wrote:



"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 … Theoretically, what we are using is a process of elimination … As he plays his hand, we can narrow down those hole cards." (Hold'em Poker, pp. 49-56)



Some players can't or won't do it. You have often heard people say, "I put him on ace-king," or, "I thought he was on a flush draw," even though the overall pattern of his bets clearly indicated that he had different cards. It's an extremely common and terrible mistake.



A feedback loop has three important characteristics.:



1. Sensitivity is the ability to detect small deviations or errors. Smaller is better.



2. Speed is the amount of time needed to take all four steps. Faster is better.



3. Reliability is the frequency of errors. Fewer errors is better.



The value of reliability is easy to see, but it's a bit harder to evaluate sensitivity and speed. Let's look at how speed and sensitivity affect the way a loser, a mediocre player, and a winner read cards. In completely separate situations, all three of them believe they have the best hand on the flop. They all bet.



The loser may not recognize that he is behind even after his opponents have raised and reraised. A mediocre player may need to be raised only once to suspect he is beat. A winner may recognize the danger without being raised; the look on an opponent's face or the way he handles his chips can tell him enough to adjust his read and strategy. By quickly realizing that he is behind, the winner substantially reduces his loss.



Assessing Your Opponents' Strengths, Weaknesses, and Styles



Because these assessments are so important, most serious players try to categorize unknown players quickly, using cues such as their age, gender, and the way they dress, talk, and handle chips. The danger is that labeling someone may cause you to ignore or minimize conflicting evidence (See "First Impressions – General Principles," Card Player, May 12, 2004).



For example, if an older woman is quiet and dressed very conservatively, and a young man talks loudly and has pierced eyebrows, a nose ring, green hair, and several tattoos, many people might label them "timid grandmother" and "crazy kid."

The losers would ignore later evidence, while the winners would use the feedback loop. The losers might let the "timid grandmother" bluff them out, even after the winners realized she was an aggressive bluffer, and the losers would gamble with the "crazy kid," even after the winners recognized he was extremely solid.



In their forthcoming book, World Class High-Stakes and Shorthanded Limit Hold'em, Ray Zee and David Fromm use the term "think dynamically" to describe how high-stakes winners use feedback loops to assess opponents:



"Instead of making a judgment and sticking to it, they constantly fine-tune their assessment of their opponents' skills, motives, and thought processes to determine how they are playing now …



"They recognize the toughest players, but closely watch how they are playing now because even the best players play badly at times, especially if they have lost a lot of money recently. Equally important, they think about how the bad players are playing and why they are acting that way.



"However, their assessment hardly stops there. After beginning to play, they constantly update their views of everybody, paying close attention to:



• "What happens to them (such as bad beats or winning a huge pot)



• "How they react to bad and good luck



• "Any other changes in their usual play"



That's the way you should think: Constantly look for new information, try to understand it, and then adjust your strategy.

Assessing and Developing Yourself



The most important feedback is about yourself. Nobody, not even a top pro, is completely objective about himself. If you don't get and use feedback, you can't assess yourself accurately and develop yourself effectively. My next column will tell you how to do it.



To learn more about yourself and other players, you can buy Dr. Schoonmaker's books, Your Worst Poker Enemy and Your Best Poker Friend, at CardPlayer.com.