Joined: Nov '09
Location: Canada
Age: 55 (M)
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Have you every looked at your hole cards, and even though they are nothing special something inside of you said to play those cards? And then those cards hit? This has happened to me live as well as online, sometimes I played them and sometimes the price was too high and couldn't justify playing them, but they were winners nonetheless.
I have wondered about this and finally this is what I think: your brain is constantly trying to make sense of multiple inputs all around you and make decisions about these inputs. When faced with random cards being placed in front of us (please assume the cards are random, don't turn this into a POKER IS RIGGED thread) and playing them, your brain tries to make order out of disorder, and most of the time the sh*t cards are the right ones to lay down. But sometimes your brain sees a pattern and starts to "call" the winning cards. It might only last a brief amount of time, but during that period you can win with almost anything.
What do you think? I would be interested if any BRM members have psychology backgrounds to say what they think based on their education. I have no psychology studies, just been wondering about this when I am stuck in traffic staring at the car bumper in front of me.
Joined: Jan '10
Location: Germany
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yeah, sometimes you are right. I just call with my pocket pair even though it isn´t right but still i hit my set. This moment is really special because only few moments later we are all in at the flop or the turn.... and the river is the last spade for his flush or the T to his straight draw
Joined: Dec '09
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this depends if your talking about you get a 106 sooted and get a feeling you are going to hit with this crap infront of you or you mean you enter a pot against someone that you think you can out play on the flop turn and river with any 2. i do the first the odd time and i do the 2nd often
Joined: Mar '11
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i don' t know how many time i've decided to call with 3 5 offsuit and hit fullhouse on the flop...theres something to this...maybe our brains are smarter then we are...
Joined: Nov '10
Location: Serbia
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Yes, that is nice theory. I have same feeling too. I look at cards and cant resist to call! Sometimes also I have nice cards but somehow I have strong feeling they will lose. And seems that instinct is always correct! Maybe because we remember only when we are right that we had feeling and when we are wrong we just fold them without thinking about it
Joined: Apr '09
Location: Australia
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My girlfriend is a psychology major, believe me, there's perfectly rational explanations why you may start to think this way, the least of all is that your subconscious is noticing patterns or anything like that. It's more to do with perception - and how you perceive what happened - especially in retrospect.. More often - you have this feeling and nothing comes of it. Occasionally something does and you perceive it as meaningful.
Joined: Jan '09
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Posted by jovicakralj: Maybe because we remember only when we are right that we had feeling and when we are wrong we just fold them without thinking about it
yes mate , if I am not wrong it is called selective memory.
I have another unfailing method for card calling: - when I need an ace to fall on the board I keep draving half-moons with my mouse and it work perfectly - if I need a non faced card (for example I have pocket pair and i need to set) I drag and drop it from other tables opened in thet moment (this method has a bug: if those cards doesn't appear on other tables there is nothing to do) - when I need a faced card I stand up and walk around my chair counterclockwise (the bug here is if you are sitting on a sofa close to the wall)
Joined: May '08
Location: Sweden
Age: 55 (M)
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When I get tired, after having been playing for too long, I start to become a calling station. I call raises with suited A:s and stuff, fully aware of that I'm probably up against a better ace and am just asking for trouble.
This hasn't been happening that often lately, since I have learned to avoid the situation. But the last time it did, I started to get that feeling. "It's not a good call, but I'm gonna win this hand." And lo and behold, I hit my flushdraw on the flop! I played the hand pretty lousy and ended up paying a better hand off, without hitting my flush.
This happened about three times in a row. Flushdraw, and even flush _and_ straightdraw on the turn.
Hit nothing. Played bad. Lost money.
So my "magical" instincts are pure and utter crap.
Congratulations though to those of you who have working such.
Joined: Apr '08
Location: Finland
Age: 35 (M)
Posts: 1613
The brain works in strange ways when it comes to memory. THe brain always tries to make the best for the body ( winning the most money in a poker game for example ). Example: 2009 you watch WSOP and a guy goes all in preflop with 4 5 suited and wins ... your brain writes this in memory " 4 5 suted = $$$" then in 2011 you go and play online and get 4 5 suited and your brain pulls out the memory "HEY this is a winning hand !"
And then you lose of course and the memory is thrown into the trashbin ...
Joined: Sep '10
Location: Romania
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i dont know wy last week i played in the facebookfreeroll on FT and had 3 times 99 somthing always in my brain pusht me to go whit this pair and is was awesome winn 3 times whit the pairs and they was lot of chips involved so i hit the final tabel finnishing the third with 16$ on my acount on FT
Joined: Nov '09
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Posted by jessthehuman: My girlfriend is a psychology major, believe me, there's perfectly rational explanations why you may start to think this way, the least of all is that your subconscious is noticing patterns or anything like that. It's more to do with perception - and how you perceive what happened - especially in retrospect.. More often - you have this feeling and nothing comes of it. Occasionally something does and you perceive it as meaningful.
Sorry it took a while to respond, I started this thread when I wasn't feeling well earlier in the month and wanted to thank you Jess for your response. I was hoping that someone had some kind of training in this and would chip in. Thanks to everyone else as well for their opinions.
Joined: May '08
Location: Netherlands
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Posted by magatt966: I have another unfailing method for card calling: - when I need an ace to fall on the board I keep draving half-moons with my mouse and it work perfectly - if I need a non faced card (for example I have pocket pair and i need to set) I drag and drop it from other tables opened in thet moment (this method has a bug: if those cards doesn't appear on other tables there is nothing to do) - when I need a faced card I stand up and walk around my chair counterclockwise (the bug here is if you are sitting on a sofa close to the wall)
@topic - well, sometimes it happens to me too. I call a raise from strong player with something like J8o and I hit nut straight. It might be something with brain but well, even vs. AA J8o has small chance to win, but still there is a chance, so you'll win once per six hands and as long as you don't have J8o in your range you might hit this "one" hand more often than in 18% of hands.
Many pros will tell you to go with your gut. I've responded to this type of question before. There are certain people that have abilities to "see" or determine the outcome of events seemly that take place in the future. It's not that they actually "see" with their eyes, it's more like knowing without knowing and trusting that they already know. My intuition is strong which is unusual for a male, certain traits have been passed down to me from my grandmother on my mom's side. Heavy Celtic tradition. Traits like these skip a generation. One of my grandsons' has it, I saw it the day he was born and he's not proving me wrong today. So how does this all relate to poker? One must develop the dual mind concept. Most people have a dominate side (mind or physycal). That in it's effect is not good, what needs be done here is to balance the two so they co-exist in harmony. When this is achieved great strides occur mentally and physically. For some this is a never ending battle...most give up. They just can't seen to be able to balance out or reconcile the opposits. I'm not allowed to direct anyone, it is strictly forbidden. Each must find their own path. How does one go about this? Ask...from your heart of hearts with no ill intent ask...your answer will come. And if it's not in you, do yourself a favor don't try to force anything...your life may become untenable.
Joined: Feb '08
Location: United Kingdom
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I tend to be a skeptical person and don't believe in psychic abilities, luck or sixth sense but I like to think I keep an open mind and will look at things logically before I say what is fact and what is possible. Usually there is a logical explanation for the unexplainable. How many times have you seen a magician perform and couldn't get your head around it? So when you see someone read your mind or predict the future you shouldn't automatically think it's real.
It has already been said that predicting cards can be explained through psychology. Selective memory, gut feelings, the way the mind works and probability easily explain why you might think you predicted a winning hand. But lets assume there is an alternative reasoning where you really could predict cards. Possibility 1: Maybe the brain can count cards subconsciously. No random generators are completely random so maybe the human mind that we still know fairly little about can recognize data and after playing millions of hands can predict the outcome. But baring in mind we know the mind is flawed and can be tricked into seeing all sorts of illusions, wouldn't you say that most of the time we would guess wrong anyway. Possibility 2: We have a sixth sense and can actually see the cards with our minds eye. We've all felt we've been watched or predicted the phone was going to ring but there has never been any proof that these thoughts work and as a man of science I seriously doubt these are real. The fact is no one has ever been able to prove these abilities work and there are always excuses by the psychics when they don't. Possibility 3: You don't actually predict the cards. You predict your opponent and what they have. Your brain consciously or subconsciously reads the signals and tells you when you are likely to win against this player. Again it would be naiive to think you could always trust your brain to be right but it could slightly increase your chances.
Joined: Feb '11
Location: Canada
Age: 39 (M)
Posts: 1660
Agree with Jess and the others here (Note: I'm not qualified, only did first year psych). I think memory selection plays a huge roll.
Here's a personal anecdote: When I first started Multi Tabling I noticed that the hole cards I got on one table would've been great on the other table, and would never hit on their own table. After a while I actually commited to keeping track of how many times it occured and when the hard data was in front of me it became obvious there wasn't a special trend.
I did the same when my friend swore that Asians only drive Asian cars. After counting at a street car the numbers were only the same.
The mind can only hold a small sample size and when you're already looking for something you're more likely to remember the "relevant" results, which skues your data.
