The Psychology of Poker: Part 4

Psychology of Poker: The Benefits of Training.

 

‘Training'. Yes, this word in psychology has the same meaning as it does in everyday life; Practicing by putting effort into a task, in a repetitive manner, before completing the task for real.

 

Actors, who repeat scenes and lines of dialogue, are a prime example to explain the manner in which training influences levels of proficiency. Comedians want to know their texts and prompts by heart before performing in front of an audience. The reason is that they want to be totally free to add their own interpretations, without being encumbered by concentrating on the words or actions of the scene. Comedy is not simply a question of dialogue; most of it rests in the delivery.

 

Now, let us discuss how this relates to poker. Not only do you not want to reveal anything to your opponents, neither the cards that you hold nor the reflections you are making of the game, but you also want to be able to produce false ‘tells' from time to time. In poker, a good training can stop you ‘leaking' information to your opponents through body-language when you have a particularly good hand, or you are about to wager a large amount- these are critical moments and many players show their opponents that they are cracking under the pressure, with nervous tics, profuse sweating, posture, etc.

 

Training gives you courage:

A player pushes you to the maximum, meaning you would have to go all-in if you choose to follow; it is your survival in the game that is now in play. After your ‘read' (-of their body language), you have around a 65% chance of leading and the pot, which is already enormous, does not leave you any choice but to follow...but...it is an important decision, the tournament itself is important, if you fold, you will never have a stack that is any larger than the average players stack. You are worried, what if you have ‘misread' your opponent? You lack confidence and hesitate.

 

If I were able to pose you a question at this precise moment, it would be; "have you ever found yourself in a similar situation?"  In a £5 tournament, or a low-limit cash game, for example? If the answer is no, then why not? Training for these important decisions, which are yet to come, comes back to the need to practice by playing multiple hands making mistakes and learning from them, but in games of low limit where you can feel yourself at ease.

 

It will not suffice simply to have read the theory in a book, and even less so to ensure that you know the ins-and-outs of the game. You really need to have already found yourself in a similar position and have already performed the manoeuvre.

 

Try now to recall a one of the biggest hands that you have played, and in which you were in danger- for our purposes, it does not matter whether you won or lost this hand. Can you remember one? I bet that you will not be flustered the next time you are faced with this situation, simply because you have now assimilated the move into your own personal poker arsenal.

 

You have trained yourself for this state of affairs, having encountered the situation in real life and made the move. The next situation of this type will thus pose you less of a problem, and will probably not be etched into your long-term memory.

 

Training renders you master of your emotions:

But training is not concentrated on building the confidence necessary to execute the correct move. This confidence also signifies that you will not be revealing any ‘tells' to your opponents, that you will not have shaky hands or any other physical giveaways. This training also implies that you can try to employ ‘reverse-tells' to put your opponents off the scent of your game.

 

Training will help you to develop an even temperament and a balanced comportment, even under pressure. If you always take 30 seconds to check, raise, bet or fold, and that pressure mounts during the course of the tournament, you will continue to perform these actions in 30 seconds because you have already trained yourself to deal with the pressure, through training.

 

The obvious question is of course: "Can a sit ‘n' go at £5 really serve us to train for a large tournament, like the World Series of Poker?" The answer is a resounding yes!! Providing that you have put in some serious training, and that you have not played the £5 tournament below your best game level. But if you have played you ‘A game', then the decisions that you have taken will be the same at the amateur table as they will be at the professional table. If in your mind you tell yourself "the £5 game is just a simple satellite game" then you will not be training to your optimal potential. Without this concentration and the implications that come with it, all the training in the world will not give you the confidence you need in order to hide your true feelings.

 

Psychology of Poker: Implosion.

The above section on training has now familiarised you with the benefits of repetition of tasks in order to become better at them; difficult decisions become easier to deal with and this then reduces the chances of ‘leaking' body-language cues to your opponents.

 

One of my psychology lecturers at university once suggested to me that I explore the other facet of this phenomenon, a therapeutic technique called ‘implosion'.

 

Implosion, a particular form of training:

Implosion is the process by which we imagine and revisit difficult, anxiety generating, situations. Therapy consists of exposing the patient to a number of situations with the same negative stimulus, but in a less stressful environment. The original theory of this technique advocated that the negative stimulus, through the force of repetitive exposure, will become less and less anxiety provoking to the individual.

 

This is completely comparable to the suggestions made in the above section of this article, because I recommended playing many hands in low limit games, in the hope of reducing anxiety that is generated when the difficult decisions arise. We all know that it is difficult to go all-in with a top-pair, but much less so in a £5 game than a £1000 game.

 

And there exists another technique of implosion, still in the same manner to reduce the physical signs that accompany making difficult decisions in poker.

 

Implosion: put in practice:

Suppose that your problem is in delivering a third ‘barrel' in pure bluff at the river, after a ‘continuation bet' and a second barrel at the turn. The theory of implosion says that you need to perform the same action as many times as you need in order to reduce your stress levels to zero. This reminds me of a technique I employed as an apprentice.

 

My poker professor was a player who participated in ‘low-limit' cash games, brought up on Stud poker and other closed variations. He subsequently taught himself Texas Hold'EM on the first internet casino sites. I am not entirely sure that you could call them poker sites, however, all the games where played in a chat format.

 

My teacher had difficulty delivering the famous third barrel. He explained to me that he had had the same problem when he had tried to master the ‘continuation bet' at the flop. Once the move become ingrained, he overcame his fears of wasting more chips at the turn (the second barrel) plus that of delivering the third barrel at the river, in the shadow of a combination in hand and that all the cards had been dealt. Here is the solution that he found, which is a perfect example of implosion.

 

Thus, he played poker on the internet in low-limit and he decided to put himself in danger by sending three missiles each time the situation permitted. Without the ability to ‘read' his opponents (given games where all in chat) and without even having any good hands to play, he sent his three missiles as long as he needed, until the point at which he was totally desensitised to the fear, to the point that he did not feel anxiety when he encountered the situation in real-life, and therefore did not give away any ‘tells' to his opponents.

 

You have to pay to learn:

It is true that his level of winning suffered in the beginning, but as he says today "I had to pay in order to learn". And the advantage of the low stakes is that the price he paid was always relatively moderate. By betting three successive time, without posing himself any questions, he fear of bluffing evaporated completely; the following stage consisted simply of raisin the limits and putting into application his new method in a live game.

 

Whether you want to baptise yourself in the method of training or implosion is of little importance. What matters, in fact, is to know if you are capable of applying yourself to this level of discipline to the point that the difficult decisions create no more stresses. When we play a game of poker, you have to be able to leave your emotions at the door and play you're A-game without being overtaken by the fear. Knowing how to curtail the demonstration of your emotions demands strict training because we are not born with this quality naturally, it is a learned behaviour.

The Psychology of Poker: Part 1 The Psychology of Poker: Part 2 The Psychology of Poker: Part 3 The Psychology of Poker: Part 4

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