Intuition as a Science Regarding the Poker Mind
To be good at poker “psychology” - to effectively predict your opponent’s likely thought processes - there is no need to take a seminar on Card Games and their Relation to the Unconscious. Your opponent is not your patient, and even if he/she is, no matter how well you apply Jacques Lacan to their neurosis, you are still not guaranteed to win.
While strategy is a real and important element of poker, and is certainly more basic than psychoanalysis, it is still only one important tactic. Mindreading would certainly be an asset to wise play, but is this possible? It is in a way.
Outstanding players, like outstanding artists, don’t get that way from reading a manual. They progress intuitively, summoning their powers of observation, diligently practiced and enhanced over a period of many years.
This is not merely the reason why so few good technical manuals on poker psychology exist. This is also possibly the most key point about the issue: whatever tips you may find on the net or in books, you will never be able to put them to much good use unless you have that touch of intuition which puts your thought processes beyond the reach of your opponents.
If the game could be played based on principles, it would be boiled down to predictions, simple or complex depending upon the variables by use of a computer program. Actually, this is the approach of amateurs and the not-so-gifted players - the ones that mostly lose.
The talented player, on the other hand, disdains crude cribs. Instead, they make their own observations about their own play and about that of others. Guided by their own intuition, they then combine those observations into principles according to their own whim and fancy. The resulting strategy is known only to them. The more talented the player is, the more complex (or ingeniously simple, which is basically the same thing) and idiosyncratic his secret strategy, making him less vulnerable.
This may be another reason why artists and players (two creatures in the same family) do not easily and never fully reveal their trade secrets to the general public: at best they allow some general theoretical discussion of their work or a few relatively trivial technical tips. Which may be very nice of them, but the problem is that they did not achieve their status by reading somebody else’s tips.
It is then most vital to commit yourself to the intense study of personal observation from your own practice to develop your observational skills as well as your imagination. Do this and you will independently create ways of acquiring a manner of play that is unique to you in its every detail.
Use this individually developed strategy to get under the skin of bluffers. You can only do this by letting loose of your robust intuition to which only you have access.
It takes not only hard work, persistence, and erudition, but also the courage and independence to use your imagination in ways which might seem ridiculous but may prove innovative, individual curiosity and a spirit of discovery which keeps you ahead of the rest.
All of us have intuition. Few of us have the persistence and wherewithal to aggressively fine tune it and use it, and use it often. This is something everyone has to work on by himself. While everyone has intuition, that intuition is unique to the individual.
Be prepared for a lifetime commitment: nobody who was ever great at anything, was somehow mysteriously and effortlessly great - they worked hard; and they worked independently.
To read more poker articles like this one go to The Poker Source or Big Poker Blog
Tags: card games, Casino, Gambling, games, intuition, Poker, poker psychology, psychology, recreation
