pavlov's dog and poker

[troutsmart 0]

Those who have studied science or psychology have learned of the experiments in which Ivan Pavlov studied stimulus response. Since these experiments were conducted with the use of dogs, the research is often referred to as Pavlov's Dog. When a dog smelled meat it would salivate. It would not salivate to the sound of a bell, however. Yet, when the bell was rung as the dog smelled the meat, the dog soon became conditioned. In time, the dog would salivate simply at the ring of a bell.Why am I talking about such ridiculous things as Pavlov's Dog on a poker forum? I believe their is a connection.What I'm refering to is bad play and good play. Their is a reward in poker...money. When we win a pot, we are given a reward. When a pot is pushed to a player, it no longer matters whether a player played well or poorly. They could have commited the catastophic error and been lucky, or played the hand to perfection, and been drawn out. The pot goes to the player with the best hand or the last player left in a pot. For those players who commit gross errors and win large pots, a metaphoric bell begins to ring. Their bad play has been positively reinforced, creating a bad habit.Case in point: In a NL game. Blinds at 1/2A player attempting to mix up his game calls a raise to $10 by the CO. He is in the SB with T 8 . He makes this call, because he knows the player to be tight-aggressive, but one who might overplay a hand. If he makes a hand, he might take the players stack. Then the BB reraises all-in to $50. After some brief dilibiration, the CO comes over the top going all-in, a total of $65. The SB thinks about the situation and decides to gamble and call, leaving himself with $15, even though he puts at least one of his opponents on a big pair, if not both.The cards are turned up:SB - T 8 BB- A A CO- K K Their odds to win are:SB - 15.3%BB- 65.9%CO- 18.8%The flop comes T 2 2 Turn T River J Final board T 2 2 T J SB wins with A Full House Tens over duecesHe scoops the pot with a huge grin on his face while his two opponents reach into their pockets for more cash. Despite drawing out on two huge hands, this player cannot separate the joy he feels at the moment.A bad play is positively reinforced. A bell rings.The next time he finds himself in a similar situation, he repeats his error. He might win again and he might lose. How many times will he make this error? Obviously, this is a dramatic example, but one not entirely farfetched. Most errors are much smaller in scale: calling 2 bets cold with a gutshot straight draw in a small pot, limping regularly, slowplaying vulnarable hands, etc. Yet, we continually see players making these errors and being rewarded. Of course, good players love these dogs who so readily respond to the bell.Good players are not immune to this syndrome or conditioning. I myself continually have evaluate whether I'm becoming conditioned to a negative play. Lately, I've made a few bad calls with A or K high, because I was rewarded previously. Not that it is terrible to call when you think your high card is good, especially in a large pot, it's simply the fact that in each of these situations I put opponents on draws, and commited myself to the pot with my read, not thinking out other possibilities. Perhaps you have your own bell that rings. A weak or poor play that you've become conditioned to making, because you have been rewarded. I'd be curious what types of plays other players find themselves making such as this.

[BetItAll33 0]

If you've read SSHE, Ed Miller writes about the same topic. Basically he says that the iterative learning process cannot be applied to poker. He uses the example of a person trying to learn to hit a tennis ball. Generally a person would:1. Attempt to hit the ball2. Observe results3. Make adjustmentsRepeatThis clearly does not work for poker since the results of an individual hand or situation are in no way representative of the likely outcome. But we repeatedly see people making poor plays because "it worked before".