When you knew there were nuts...
Grigoriy 'ahlinpoker' Skrypnik finishes his series about our brain's perceptive distortions. Today, you'll find out that your earlier decisions at the tables were, most likely, better than you thought.
Today, we finish discussing cognitive distortions and how they affect our poker play. The first, second, and third articles deal with seven important biases. If you missed these articles, you should really read them first!
Might in hindsight
I saved this part for last, and not without good reason. While playing poker, we constantly make decisions and analyse them, then make other decisions and analyse them all over again, and so on. The problem is, when we analyse our actions already knowing the result, our attitude is biased. Consequently, people tend to think about past events as more predictable then they actually were.
"I knew that!" we often say when our opponent shows nuts at the showdown again, before blaming ourselves for not pushing the "Fold" button while it was obvious, or so it seemed at the time, that we were beaten.
It can be even worse than this too. During downswing, it's easy to get a feeling that our every line is wrong, whatever we choose. If we call, we'll see nuts, if we fold, they're obviously bluffing. Does this sound familiar to you?
Well, don't be so hard on yourself. Other people are not as predictable as we think. It's very hard to overcome this bias in poker since it's a game in which we constantly make assumptions while never quite having enough information. Even if it seems that we know an opponent's range, it's only an estimate. Some experienced players, whose estimates become more accurate over time, often develop a feeling, possibly wrong, that any action can be predicted if you try hard enough to deduce a pattern, a hidden design, a strategy leak or a soft spot.
But we're humans, and that means there's always a place for unpredictability in our actions, and we have to learn to live with that while accepting that our brain isn't perfect.
Conclusion
We can't make our thinking perfect, it's impossible for us not to make mistakes. We must accept that all these cognitive distortions exist. They are an inherent part of our psyche and were programmed into our brain's neural architecture.
However sometimes, just acknowledging their existence, we can try to consciously overcome them and make ourselves think objectively. And this is my wish for you on this hard road towards mastering the game called "Poker" and on the even more magnificent journey called "Life".
Other articles by Grigoriy "ahlinpoker" Skrypnik
- Why our feelings don't agree with the maths?
- How overconfidence could be your downfall
- How your brain betrays you at the poker table
- The best exercise for your poker skills
- Five reasons you can't beat low stakes
- How to double your hourly win rate
