Underestimating Your Opponents

My recent columns have focused on the problems online players (OLP) have adjusting to brick and mortar players (BMP) and games. This one will discuss the adjustment problems OLP and BMP have with each other. These problems are partly caused by underestimating each other.

People generally underestimate their opponents, not just at the poker table, but almost everywhere. The consequences are often catastrophic such as unwinnable wars.

For example, even though his generals were extremely opposed to fighting a two-front war, and Russia had never been invaded successfully from the west, Hitler “knew” his Aryan supermen would easily defeat the inferior Slavs. He was so confident of a quick victory that he did not even arrange for his troops to have enough winter clothing and supplies. That mistake destroyed him.

The Japanese militarists thought that their attack on Pearl Harbor would terrify and cripple the effete Americans and force us to sue for peace. So they started a war they couldn’t win.

We often see similar arrogance at poker tables. Countless players are so deluded about their superiority that they challenge better players and play way above their bankrolls. They essentially say, “You may need to play in smaller games, but I am so much better than these fish that I can ignore the bankroll rules.”

Why Do Players Underestimate Their Opponents?

Poker players are particularly likely to make this mistake for five reasons:

We want to believe we’re superior.
Poker skill is hard to measure.
We selectively remember evidence that supports our desires.
We selectively recognize mistakes.
There’s a generation gap.

We Want to Believe We’re Superior

It’s a natural human desire that affects nearly everything we think about ourselves.
Most people overestimate their abilities. Students – even failing ones – think they deserve good grades. Nearly all workers think they do a good job, even ones who are fired for incompetence… if asked to rate themselves on almost any ability, most people will rate themselves well above average, a statistical impossibility.
Overestimation is so common and important that David Sklansky discussed it on the very first page of The Theory of Poker.

“From the expert’s point of view, the veneer of simplicity that deludes so many players into thinking they are good is the profitable side of the game’s beauty … Losers … return to the table again and again, donating their money and blaming their losses on bad luck, not bad play.”

“Luck has such enormous short-term effects that it is extremely easy to delude ourselves… about how well we play.” (Overestimating Our Abilities,” Card Player, November 7, 2003)

Underestimating our opponents is the “flip side” of overestimating our own abilities. To make ourselves feel better, we exaggerate their weaknesses and ignore or minimize their strengths. This tendency is especially noticeable in railbirds. They bore and irritate us by telling obvious lies about the “great game” they can easily beat if we would just back them.

Poker Skill Is Hard To Measure

Unlike golf, bowling and many other games, there are no objective measurements. The only “measurement” is results, and they are affected by so many factors – especially luck – that it’s almost impossible to be sure of how well anyone plays.

In addition, many players lie about their results, even to themselves. They “forget” to record all the chips they buy, or they don’t count certain sessions for spurious reasons (such as, “I had two bad beats” or “I was distracted and couldn’t play my usual game.”).

Some people don’t keep records because they want to deny reality about their results. They would rather lie to themselves than know how badly they do.

We Selectively Remember Evidence

Our memories are very selective. We tend to remember what makes us feel good and forget what makes us feel bad. Because we want to believe that we play well, we remember our great bluffs, heroic calls, and brilliant laydowns and value bets. We also remember bad beats because they reinforce our belief that bad luck prevents us from getting the results our excellent skills should produce. We forget our stupid mistakes and lucky breaks because they conflict with our desire to believe we play well.

We Selectively Recognize Mistakes

It’s much easier to see other people’s mistakes than our own. So we recognize and exaggerate the importance of our opponents’ mistakes, but ignore or minimize our own. You can see this tendency very clearly in the way a conservative and an aggressive player judge each other.

They underestimate each other because they make different kinds of mistakes. The conservative player sees the aggressive one as a foolish gambler who plays too many hands, raises too often, and bluffs too much. The aggressive player sees the conservative one as a wimp who doesn’t get the full value from his winning hands, loses pots because he doesn’t protect his hands, and misses good bluffing opportunities.

Both believe that his style is correct because his mistakes aren’t that important. In fact, both may believe that he isn’t making the mistakes that are so obvious to the other one. The both believe their preferred style is the only correct way to play. Even if they have nearly identical winrates, both believe, “I’m a better player.”

There’s A Generation Gap

BMP are generally older and less aggressive than OMP, and we just saw that conservative and aggressive players look down on each other. In addition, older people often see younger ones as arrogant and disrespectful, while younger people tend to see older ones as rigid and unimaginative.

OLP And BMP Are Deluded About Each Other.

All five factors cause OLP and BMP to underestimate each other. Both want to believe that they’re better. They remember whatever “proves” their strengths and forget anything that reveals their weaknesses. They recognize the other’s mistakes while ignoring or minimizing their own. And, of course, they look down on the other because of the generation gap.

The first four factors affected the reactions to a blog I posted at cardplayer.com on April 26, 2011, eleven days after Black Friday. Perhaps the generation gap was also a factor, but I don’t know the most posters’ ages.

Because many OLP would be switching to B&M games, I asked, “Will Online Players Become Predators Or Prey?” I asked similar questions on a twoplustwo.com forum and our discussion group’s email exchange “forum.” Readers had four extremely different answers:

OLP are so superior that they will become predators.
OLP are so inferior that they will become prey.
OLP vary so much that they will become both.
OLP are generally superior, but need a transition strategy.

I was shocked by the size of the differences. Both groups immensely underestimated each other, often with extreme contempt. They felt the others were so inferior that they would easily crush them. My next column will report and analyse their answers. ♠

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.