Switching From Online To Brick-and-Mortar Poker

Part I said that relying on software had made online players neglect four important live game skills:

1. Acquiring information.
2. Retaining it.
3. Retrieving it quickly.
4. Seeing relationships to other information such as drinking, winning or losing.

Part II listed fourteen steps that will help you to develop these skills. Parts II-IV discussed the first twelve.

1. Understand and work within your limitations.
2. Beware of your biases.
3. Play shorter sessions.
4. Use many information-acquisition techniques.
5. Hesitate and look left.
6. Take good notes.
7. Use checklists.
8. Exploit mutual reinforcement.
9. Constantly look for patterns.
10. Take enough time.
11. Narrow your focus.
12. Practice when you’re not in the pot.
13. Separate information from conclusions.
14. Propose, and then test hypotheses.

This article will discuss the final two, add a warning about a common mistake, and recommend developing a fifth neglected skill.

Separate Information From Conclusions

Medical and psychological students are taught that we can’t make good diagnoses without this separation. Many players don’t even try to separate them. For example, they say, “I put you on ace-king” or “he’s bluffing,” but can’t say why they drew that conclusion. They just relied on feel.

That reliance is especially common with body language because it’s so subtle and ambiguous. Mike Caro and Joe Navarro, the foremost experts on poker players’ body language, emphatically rejected relying on feel.

Both clearly described many specific cues (such as glancing at chips, nervousness, and double-checking cards), and stated what these cues usually mean. For example, “Caro’s Law of Tells #9” states, “If a player looks and then checks instantly, it’s unlikely that he improved his hand.” Note the word, “unlikely.” Mike knows that tells aren’t 100 percent reliable, a subject we’ll discuss later.

If you jump to any conclusion, you’ll distort later evidence. You’ll overemphasize evidence that supports that conclusion and ignore or minimize evidence that conflicts with it.

It’s much better to take note of exactly what someone did, consider all that signal’s possible meanings, and look for more evidence to exclude various possibilities. Physicians and psychologists call that process “differential diagnosis.” We slowly narrow the range of possibilities and try to make the diagnosis that fits all the information.

Separating information and conclusions improves your decision-making process. When you’re right, you know why you were right. When you’re wrong, you can review the entire process, see where and why you went wrong, and improve this decision and future ones.

Propose, and then Test Hypotheses

This technique is a foundation of scientific research. Scientists frequently say, “If my theory is correct and I take a certain action, then this will happen.” If their prediction is confirmed, they have additional support for their theory. If it’s incorrect, they use the new information to revise (or even reject) their earlier position.

This technique is a sophisticated form of probing that you can apply to poker. Let’s analyze that silly, but common, conclusion, “I put you on ace-king.” Instead of assuming you’re right, test that conclusion by making predictions, then taking actions to confirm or revise your first reading.

Let’s say that your limit hold’em opponent is a tight, straightforward player who raised UTG, everyone else folded, you’re the big blind and called (perhaps incorrectly) with king-queen suited. The flop is king-seven-two rainbow.

A reasonable hypothesis is, “If he has ace-king and I bet, he will raise.” If you bet and he doesn’t raise, then he probably doesn’t have ace-king (or aces), meaning you’re probably ahead. If you bet and he raises, you’ve learned that you’re probably behind. If you checked and he bet, you wouldn’t know where you were. By betting, you’ve quickly and cheaply acquired information that will help you to play future streets.

Can you be sure of your read? Of course not. He may call the flop and raise the turn. But betting still provided more information than you’d get by just checking and calling. If you play the hand to showdown, you may learn why your thinking was right or wrong, which will improve future decisions. For example, if he called the flop and raised the turn, you’ve learned that he’s trickier than you thought.

Scientists use the hypothesis-testing approach because it helps them to identify and learn from their mistakes. In fact, they generally won’t use the word, “theory,” for any position that can’t be tested. If you apply this approach, your analytic and decision-making skills should improve rapidly.

Never Say “Always” Or “Never.”

People are too variable to be 100 percent certain about any conclusion. Yet even distinguished experts make that mistake.

For example, Joe Navarro wrote, “always assume that when anyone stops moving, freezes, or otherwise overcontrols (restrains) himself, he’s bluffing.” (Phil Hellmuth Presents Read ’em And Reap: A Career FBI Agent’s Guide To Decoding Poker Tells, p. 30.)

Although I greatly respect Joe’s work, saying “always” is a mistake. Freezing may nearly always mean bluffing, but people freeze for other reasons, and the meaning of any signal depends upon the individual and situation. You can’t be sure of any signal’s meaning without observing it repeatedly and seeing which cards this player has or what he does next. You can infer that he’s probably bluffing, but observe carefully and, if necessary, correct your thinking.

A Fifth Neglected Skill

I’m embarrassed to confess that I didn’t include a supremely important and frequently neglected skill: patience. When my Card Player colleague, Matt Lessinger, read my earlier articles, he told me that patience is the most important skill for online players to develop.

I didn’t include it because I didn’t regard patience as a skill. But a discussion with Matt and our mutual friend, Preston Oade, convinced me that I was wrong. We could argue about semantics, but why bother? It doesn’t matter whether we call patience a skill, a trait, or something else. The important points are:

• You can’t beat high cost B&M games without patience.
• You can develop it.

After playing hundreds of online hands per hour, B&M games’ slow pace can cause impatient people to make extremely serious mistakes. And, of course, impatience was a major reason that so many online players multi-tabled. They could be in nearly continuous action instead of having to fold, fold, fold.

Fortunately, Matt has written two excellent columns about developing patience that you can read at cardplayer.com. I wholeheartedly recommend them.

Final Remarks

Switching from online to live play is probably harder than you expected. Because you played so many hands and had help from software, your learning curve was extremely steep.
You expected to crush live games, but have been disappointed and wonder: Why are my results so disappointing?

There are two reasons. First, you need a bigger edge to overcome the effects of the greatly increased costs. Second, B&M players have skills you couldn’t develop online. So you had better develop them now. ♠

Do you often wonder, “Why are my results so disappointing?” Ask Dr. Al, [email protected]. He’s David Sklansky’s co-author for DUCY? and the sole author of five poker psychology books.