Knowing Your Opponent's Cards |
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Posted Wed Apr 18, 2007 4:29 pm GMT by lwestatbus
We've all seen certain players call out their opponents' hands with incredible accuracy and maybe some of you are good at it. This post isn't really about, "How do they do that?" It's more, "I've done it a few times but don't know how I did it."
I don't mean the obvious calls--you have the second nuts and a solid player goes into a raising frenzy. Gee--I wonder what he has? And I don't mean the obvious reads--3-flush on the board or a two-gap straight.
Four or five times over a couple of years (mostly in the last six months and mostly in live games) I've been in hands where I just KNEW what my opponent had. This is hard to describe but it wasn't a guess, wasn't a theory, wasn't an analysis. I KNEW what he had with 100% confidence.* And I was right each time that occurred. The problem is I don't know how I did it!! And I'd sure as hell like to be able to do it on command.
Any of you psychologically oriented folks out there (deuces, are you listening?) know how the mind does this? Or any of you psychotically oriented folks (won't name names)?
* What I knew was the hand he was betting. Not the suit or the kicker if the suit or kicker wasn't important.
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Posted Wed Apr 18, 2007 4:42 pm GMT by Phil14312
Its just experience that breeds intuitive thinking like that.
Posted Wed Apr 18, 2007 7:18 pm GMT by Sean_in_NJ
| Phil14312 wrote: | | Its just experience that breeds intuitive thinking like that. |
+1
The times I've done it, it's because the other player's betting pattern couldn't be anything else but the hand I called.
One example, some MTT I was in, EP raised and I called with JJ in LP. Flop came Q33. He checked, I checked. Turn was a brick. He checked, I bet 3/4 the pot, he called. River was an under card that made a 3 flush to the board. He bet half the pot, and I said, "QQ huh?" and folded.
He was nice enough to show it.
Posted Wed Apr 18, 2007 9:24 pm GMT by jeffonline
From a very young age we learn by our mistakes eg: fall and hurt yourself, you lean to walk, touch something hot and you get burnt, it hurts, we soon learn not to fall, not to touch hot things, every time we get beaten at poker it hurts, the more it hurts the better you become at knowing what cards your opponent may have. I’m still at the “it hurts” stage of poker but I know why it hurts. Some can work it out faster than others, some will never work it out. Its called brain power, It take practice practice practice.
Posted Thu Apr 19, 2007 3:36 am GMT by tame_deuces
Memory is a subjective process, not an accurate representation of what events actually occured.
In psychology effects like these are commonly referred to as confirmation bias. Literally thousands of tests/experiments show that humans weigh more credibility to what reinforces their belief (I knew he didn't have it!) than what disproves it (Oh well, he had it this time, lucky bastard).
Another common thing is socalled 'selective thinking' which is also widely credited to exist. Basically favorable evidence is more easily remembered than the opposite. You literally will have a much easier time remembering the hands you were right in, than the hands you were wrong in.
So its quite interesting. You can't actually trust your own memory to be accurate, many times the certainty on what he had is a memory created afterwards the hand is actually over. You remember yourself to be completely certain, and voila he had it. When he didn't have it, you'll remember yourself to be uncertain. And when you are right you feel like a psychic. Its the old police-interview problems regarding memory all over again.
Open up a pokertracker or similar and try and find your old'favorite' hands. Chances are very strong you'll be amazed at what you find. Memory has changed your hand, the number of opponents, how much you won etc. You'll probably find alot of poorly played hand also, which memory conveniently has forgotten. Its quite cool.
Combine this with the fact that the majority of people tend to put themselves in the top tiers of whatever profession/hobby their are in and you'll have an interesting mix. It certainly explains why b ad poker players think they are good. 
And no people are really beyond this, they aren't flaws in thinking but evolutionary adaptions of the human mind to easily process information.
Posted Thu Apr 19, 2007 4:26 am GMT by MrDarling
Yeah memory is a crappy unreliable thing, however those time when you "know" or your "gut" tells you something I think other forces then your memory are at work.
Our subconscious records and analyze every little thing we see or experience. In there we always know! We see betting pattern, visual reads etc. The only problem, usually we are too over occupied with our conscious to be able to communicate with it or listen to it. So we use the 2nd best thing, our brain, which is really not equipped for the job. And thus we are often wrong. We use our ego, or our wishes etc...
Nice topic!
Posted Thu Apr 19, 2007 12:36 pm GMT by supafrey
| Quote: | | And no people are really beyond this, they aren't flaws in thinking but evolutionary adaptions of the human mind to easily process information. |
1. This is almost impossible to be correct.
2. This is almost impossible for you to say with any degree of certainty.
Posted Thu Apr 19, 2007 12:50 pm GMT by tame_deuces
| supafrey wrote: | | Quote: | | And no people are really beyond this, they aren't flaws in thinking but evolutionary adaptions of the human mind to easily process information. |
1. This is almost impossible to be correct.
2. This is almost impossible for you to say with any degree of certainty. |
1. Wrong.
2. Wrong.
I guess that ended that discussion pretty well. 
Posted Thu Apr 19, 2007 1:11 pm GMT by supafrey
1. The human condition is never an absolute white or black. The susceptibility towards the gambler's fallacy is a gradient - some people are obviously completely prone to its effects (omg I always feel 5-7 coming zomg) while others shade farther and farther towards being smart players. Some refuse to delve into these ideas at all (I have trained myself to forget nearly 100% of the flops I see) and are self-aware enough to disregard their so-called intuition.
If someone, for all intents and purposes, keeps accurate records of their wins/losses/hands, "gets the game" to a degree neither of us are capable of yet, and plays with mental/physical discipline to ignore those nagging fallacious doubts, then he has effectively "conquered" the thinking you're talking about. Saying it as a flaw/benefit is a value-based judgment that I wouldn't get into, but your absolute certainty in individual mediocrity is absurd. The degree to which these "psychological studies" account for outliers is laughable - don't speak in absolutes.
2. Certainty in psychology is a joke. For a poker-based analogy, I'd say that the BS psychologists spew is sort of like a brain-based hand range... It's a wide open scope that will likely have most people fall under it, but without other tools and reasoning the specifics of any 1 hand could never be worked out. Note I just said it is impossible for you to be certain about your conclusions... You literally said "no-one". That type of ignorance-to-arrogance leaps of faith remind me of people telling me there's no bots at 30/60 fl online winning 2bb/100 ;P
Posted Thu Apr 19, 2007 3:49 pm GMT by tame_deuces
| supafrey wrote: | | That type of ignorance-to-arrogance leaps of faith remind me of people telling me there's no bots at 30/60 fl online winning 2bb/100 ;P |
Then please explain to me how a human being w/o selective thinking and confirmation bias can function in everyday life.
When every bit of new processed information is potentially as valuable as what he already knows. And when every bit of learned knowledge must go through a process of logic each time it is applied.
That people like this exists, is a logical conclusion of whatever it is you are discussing.
This isn't Dr. Phil of your prejudices come to life, this is modern day biology, psychology and data processing theories in joint union.
Posted Thu Apr 19, 2007 6:00 pm GMT by lwestatbus
| supafrey wrote: | | I'd say that the BS psychologists spew is sort of like a brain-based hand range... |
I've always suspected the existence of Brain-Based Hand Ranges but never had any evidence of them until now. Fortunately, no less an authority than supa has confirmed it for all of us.
However I'd appreciate some additional information of the application of BBHR to poker. Do you use them in an analytical mode, to bully your opponents, or even to predict what card will fall next? Also, are there national security implications to BBHR? If so, we probably shouldn't be discussing them in an open forum such as this.
Posted Thu Apr 19, 2007 6:26 pm GMT by jeffonline
Before any decisions at show down, I have the uncanny ability to pick the exact card of my opponent, It goes like this “If he got JT I’m screwed”. Yes most of the time he has that exact hand. Winning feels so good I still live in hope that he doesn’t have it. Balancing the read with greed is my difficulty.
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