Like Open Books in Another Language
Tuesday, December 8th, 2009It’s a pretty common story in poker, you start learning to make reads at the casino, and you soon find yourself surprised that you were missing so many in the past. I mean, this one guy always raises with KK in late position, the exact same amount, regardless of an Ace on the flop. And this and many others you’ve started getting good at become second nature. Then, you decide, “I’ve conquered this level, time to move up.” And you stumble, slip, stutter, fumble and miss your way to a losing streak and wonder why in the world you’re losing. And more than that, why are your reads so off? Well it simply comes with the fact that you’re playing better online poker players. What were simple reads at the level below, are now complicated, as the players are more adept and more than that, they’re as good as you. It’s a little known psychological term called confirmational bias. What this means is simply that you have some belief so strong, you only see things your way. And is this starting to make sense now? You’ve not adapted! You’re using what worked with your old reads and are insistent that they’re right so you keep losing. See, it happens all the time, we convince ourselves we’re right, and since being right and seeing results is easy, we continue to try to convince ourselves of our rightness. But in poker, such a bias is sure loss of stack after stack, and a sure way to reload again, and again. See when you move up in levels, you’re not playing as you used to, instead, you’ll be playing at a level above what you’re used to, and therefore have to adapt to become adept, and start winning again. If you can’t open your reading book back up again, you’ll simply be making reads in the wrong language.