When to Trust Your Instincts at the Poker Tables

In his bestselling book Blink, author Malcolm Gladwell cites a study where shoppers in grocery store are asked to sample some jams: The booth either contains six different jams, or 24 different jams. The results are quite surprising. It turns out that 30% of the people who were faced with six different jams ended up making a purchase: for the people who had more choices -who common sense says should find something that suits them-only 3% purchased a jam! Why is this? Because they were overloaded, and their mind simply shut-down.

Poker players take notice, this example –how to run a jam sampling booth in a grocery store– is very applicable in the poker world. Because when it comes to collecting information in poker, you can quickly find yourself inundated with data, often to the point that it becomes situation overload, and your brain simply shuts down. This is where our instincts take over, and often times when you are feeling overwhelmed the best thing to do is to listen to that little voice in your head.

Below is a list of the different bits of information that can happen throughout a hand of poker:

• Your cards
• Your position
• The Pot odds you’re receiving
• The action in front of you
• The number of players left to act after you
• Your opponents’ style of play
• Your opponents’ current mind-set
• Your Table Image
• Tells and body language
• Your opponents’ tendencies in similar situations

In most situations you’ll only be factoring two, three, or maybe four of these pieces of information. For instance in some situations your cards will dictate your decision, in other situations your cards and you pot odds will come into play, and in others your cards, your pot odds, your position, and your opponents style of play will play a role. And most players can handle these types of calculations in a five or ten second timeframe, so for basic decisions it’s best to take a rational, logical, approach to the situation.

On the other hand, when your decisions become clouded, and the choice isn’t quite as clear-cut, your instincts can often be the best determinate you have. Once you start factoring in so many pieces of information that you find yourself confused you have overwhelmed yourself with information, and rational, logical, decisions are next to impossible: At this point you will simply be guessing.

Think of it this way: If I were to give you a difficult math problem -one you could solve with time and effort-you could rationally come up with the answer. But if I have people constantly interrupt you, loud music playing, and other distractions going on you will be overwhelmed and unlikely to solve the problem.

A difficult decision in poker presents the same problems: Players are widening their data collection to find the piece of information that will be useful, but all the bits that aren’t useful are distractions. When you are confronted with a decision that could go either way, and you’re factoring four, five, or even six or more different pieces of information at once, it’s unlikely you will piece together the proper decision in a few seconds or even minutes. You’re better off going with your instincts in these situations.

So, sometimes the less we information we try to rationalize the better our choices will be. If you were to simply focus on your cards, your position, the pot odds, and your opponent’s style of play, and leave the rest of the information to your super computer you’ll often make quick, crisp, and most importantly, correct decisions! When you try to rationalize all of that information plus your opponent’s mind-set, minor body language tells, and so on, your brain often turns into a customer confronted with 24 choices of jam.

This is where it’s important to trust your instincts. Your instincts aren’t premonitions or ESP; they’re information processed by your unconscious and sent to you as a vague signal. However, many people ignore their instincts because we cannot rationalize them. We don’t know why we think it’s a good idea to fold a hand, so we don’t, even though something inside is telling us to fold. So the next time you’re faced with a difficult decision, and your trying to logically work your way to the answer, if your Spidey Sense is tingling and screaming “something is wrong here” don’t simply discount these feelings, they are often correct.

For a better understanding of this concept I highly recommend Malcolm Gladwell’s book Blink.