Reckless Poker

Careful poker players pay attention to their odds, position, and opponents. However, careless players will seldom pay attention to such things. There was a 1965 Noble Prize winning Physicist by the name of Richard P. Feynman. He wisely said, "I have approximate answers and possible beliefs and different degrees of certainty about different things, but I'm not absolutely sure of anything..." Feynman would have been a good poker player who knew the questions to ask and knew that even then, there was no certainty. Reckless poker players play as if they are certain about everything-including themselves. Justin Kruger and David Dunning, then both of Cornell University, published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology in December, 1999 the results of their experiments about people who have little knowledge but systematically think that they know more than others who have much more knowledge.

They could easily have been talking about some poker players that are found in just about every game. Kruger and Dunning observed that typical skill which humans may possess in greater or lesser degree have things in common. First of all, such incompetent individuals display their incompetence by overestimating their own level of skill. How many players do you know that fit this description? Players who stayed longer than they should have were probably overestimating the value of their own hand. Secondly, such individuals fail to recognize genuine skill in others. In fact, without such players, poker could become pretty mundane. We need players who underestimate our skill. Actually, many of the more skillful players work hard to disguise their skill levels.

You will never find a competent poker player do either of these two things. They seldom overestimate their own skill, even though they may know how good they can play. They will always allow for the river-chances of dumb luck. When such happens, although disappointed, they will seldom go on tilt because of it. Also, they won't underestimate the genuine skills in their opponents. That's why they can lay down second-best hands where their opponents will stay to the bitter end and get beaten.

In the Dunning-Kruger effect, incompetent individual fail to recognize how extreme their inadequacy really is. This is a great thing to know if you play poker with such individuals. They really don't know how bad they play. And, some of them don't seem to learn over time.

Here's the good news for some and the bad news for others in the Dunning-Kruger study. Such bad players can be trained to substantially improve their own skill level. They can recognize and acknowledge their own previous lacks. It's good if you are one of the incompetent players. It's not so good if you are making money from their mistakes.

Now, truthfully, we have all been there. One of my favorite comments about Texas hold'em is that I seemed to do better when I didn't know how to play the game. I really didn't know how bad I was and how lucky I was to win the hands that I did. Ask anyone of the competent players I learned from and they will tell you some of the bad beats that came out good for me. And, eventually I learned about such things as position, outs, and odds to improve my game. Now, I just don't do well some of the time. I wish, though, that I could say that I do well all the time. However, in the words of Richard Feynman, no matter how much you know about the game of poker, "...I'm not absolutely sure of anything."

Written by Jim McKenna

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