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How Do Non-Rational Players Succeed in Poker?

Im a very logical person. I used to think that logical intelligent people will always do well at
poker, and that people that are bad at math / logic that play by feel will do poorly. The superanalytical approach seemed superior to me in every way.
I would talk to players like H@llingol, MrSmokey1, Ozzy87, Sdouble, and even TheTakover
and wonder how they had success. These are all great players, but their approach was so
different from mine that I couldnt understand it. None of these guys are particular adept at
figuring out pot odds, or explaining the gap theory, yet they all do very well. I had to figure
out why.
I recently read Introducing Neuro-Linguistic Programming by OConnor and Seymour. NLP
is essentially a psychological study of skills that lead to success in all facets of life, especially
social interactions. I learned a lot about the learning process and the subconscious mind in this
book. Namely the following:
Quote:

The Four Stages of Learning


1. Unconscious Incompetence
2. Conscious Incompetence
3. Conscious Competence
4. Unconscious Competence
Unlearning is 4 to 2.
Relearning is 2 back to 4 with more choices.

To anyone that has studied psychology, it is probably very clear that the subconscious mind is
a lot more powerful and capable than the conscious mind, which is why the learning process
must work in the order listed above. Take poker for example.
1. At first its just a game. You might not realize how complicated it really is, and you
certainly dont realize how clueless you are.
2. Once you start with beginner strategy, you begin to realize how clueless you are.
3. After a while, the strategies you are learning start to sink in. You may begin thinking, A8o
in early position. The chart tells me to fold this, so I will fold it.
4. You begin to fold A8o in EP without even thinking about it. Your subconscious mind has
now taken over this step of the process, and your conscious mind now has more memory
space to start thinking about other strategies.
The conscious mind is capable of between five and nine active thoughts at one time. The
unconscious is capable of a lot more. It is integral to learning that we take our conscious
thought processes and internalize them.
The first theory I came up with, is the luck of learning theory. One problem with the
learning process in poker is that our brain is very results oriented. That doesnt always work
for poker. It is extremely hard to always be able to separate the results from our judgment in

determining what is and what is not the correct play.


This leads to luck, or maybe I should say randomness, being involved in the learning process.
Some players will 3-bet AK 4 times in a row, and lose all 4, and may start playing it slower,
be it consciously or subconsciously. If this happens enough times, a bad habit may reach stage
4 of the learning process, where it is internalized. Once this stage is reached, it becomes a lot
harder to go back and fix the problem, because at that point, its no longer thought of as a
problem, but a solution.
I think that logical, intelligent players are a lot less likely to be affected by bad luck in the
learning process. By thinking logically, they are able to better separate themselves from the
results.
In general, only a very small percent of poker players are both logical and intelligent.
However, a very high percentage of winning players are logical and intelligent. This is for
fairly obvious reasons, so I wont get into it.
What I want to talk about, are the non-logical players that do very well. But first, I guess I
should quickly say what I mean when I refer to intelligence. When I say logical and
intelligent, I am assuming the person has a very specific kind of intelligence, namely a
mathematical intelligence. These people will do very well on the math portion of the SATs
for example.
When I talk about non-logical players, notice I am not mentioning intelligence. I do believe
intelligence is absolutely necessary to be a great poker player; however, these non-logical
players have a different kind of intelligence. According to Dr. Howard Gardner there are
seven forms of intelligence. Logical intelligent players will have Logical-Mathematical
intelligence and often spatial intelligence. I find that the non-logical players that are
successful often have a great deal of Interpersonal intelligence, and to a lesser extent, spatial
intelligence.
Disclaimer: I am not well versed in psychology. The above is opinion based on my limited
observation. I can not say with confidence that this is all accurate.
Im getting slightly off topic here, so let me get back on track. What other traits do successful
non-logical players have? I find they often play by feel, and can not properly externalize their
plays. They have a feel for pot odds, but often cant calculate them on the spot, even when the
calculations are very simple. They often have poor bankroll management skills, and do not
make good grinders. Some of them are actually losers at low stakes, and winners at high
stakes. How can this be?
I believe that the biggest difference between low-stakes and high-stakes games is the
importance of hand-reading skills. This is why some of the non-logical players will inevitably
do extremely well.
The truth of the matter still is that most non-logical players, even intelligent ones, will fail
early on in their poker career. I think this goes back to the luck of learning I talked about
above. When learning, the logicals.

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