Annie spoke with Hidden Brain host Shankar Vedantam in 2014, and described what it was like to succumb to the fear that stereotypes about women in poker might be true. This is an idea in psychology. Poker is known to prevent brain-related sicknesses because the brain works better when it's used for critical thinking, although there should be a check on this. Living as a poker player is profitable, especially If you're skilled enough to win games against your opponents, then you'll be making money while keeping your brain healthy.

It’s a commonplace of contemporary competitive sport that the mental game is as important as the physical game. Poker is a card game that has made the transition from recreational pursuit to professional competition, it has become a spectator sport and for the top professionals a lucrative career.

So what distinguishes the amateur from the professional? A study by partypoker set out to answer the question. Six players, two beginners, two intermediate and two experts were observed playing forty minute sessions of Texas Hold’em poker. All the participants wore electroencephalography (EEG) headsets by Emotiv and the data was then converted to colour coded brain maps. The brain activity of amateurs and experts were then compared at key stages of the game.

Deal

When cards are initially dealt is when the amateur is most focussed and their decision making is led by logic. The experienced players, however, are making less mental effort but reaching quicker decisions.

Flop

This is when the first three cards are put out face up, altogether. The amateurs exhibited minimal brain activity but this is the stage of the game at which the experts were most engaged and they spent far more time than the amateurs processing information.

Turn

When the fourth card is dealt, face up, amateurs responded with emotional decision making, whilst the decisions of the experts were dictated by logic and intuition. The brain maps show increased activity in the front right side of the brain for the amateur (an area associated with emotion), but an increase in both sides of the brain for the expert (associated with solving mathematical problems).

River card

A key phase of the game when the fifth card is dealt, face up. Again, brain maps show a striking distinction between the amateur, whose decisions are the result of intuition and the expert, whose decisions are dictated by logic.

Check

This is the decision to not bet, with the option to call or raise later in the round. It is a meditative phase of the game, but where the amateur is passive and disengaged, the expert brain is engaged in logical, critical thinking, highlighted by the increased activity in the left side of the brain.

Raise

Excitement peaks when stakes are raised but whilst the brains of both amateurs and experts show heightened alertness, the amateur brain reveals much higher levels of emotion.

Call

This is where a player puts into the pot an amount of money equal to the most recent bet. It is a more relaxed phase of the game than the raise but once again the brain maps of the experts suggest a much lower level of emotional activity compared to the amateurs.

All in

Running out of chips while betting or calling is a crucial moment for a player and the brain maps for both amateur and expert are very similar, indicating high levels of engagement and increased emotional activity.

Conclusions

Sports psychologists characterise emotion style in a variety of ways. At one end of the spectrum is ‘the seether’, a player whose anger and frustration bubble beneath the surface and threaten to disrupt the quality of the performance. At the other end ‘the Zen master’, a player unperturbed by the vagaries of play and consequently always able to perform at the highest level. The findings of the partypoker study would support this model of emotions. Expert players did not dwell on bad hands and were led by intuition and logic, over emotion. They demonstrated consistent engagement, self-control and patience, they were not distracted by emotion, frustration or excitement.

Photo Credits
Emotiv headset – from Emotiv
Brains – from partypoker

Contributing Author Bio
Richard Sheppard

Richard is a film, travel and literature enthusiast and freelance writer who has written for a range of online publications.

Recent Contributing Author Articles:

How to Rewire Your Poker Brain

You raise from the button with QJo. Your opponent calls you from the big blind. You both are 50 BBs deep.

The board comes 9-6-2 rainbow. Your opponent checks to you. There’s 6 big blinds in the middle.

What do you do?

Do you bet?

If you bet, how much do you bet?

In this situation, what do you honestly do? What have you done the last fifty times you played in this spot?Did you say you bet half-pot here normally?

Great. Why?

“Because that’s my normal continuation bet size,” is not an answer.

That’s the same as me asking why you do something, and you answering, “because I do it that way.”

To be a profitable poker player, you must challenge your belief systems.

You likely said to yourself, “I bet half-pot there to fold out Ace-highs and King-highs that miss the board.”

Great. Does he fold ace high to a half-pot sized bet?

“I don’t know anything about this player,” you might have answered to that question.

You don’t know anything about 80%+ of the players you play against. Yet, you still must play against them.

What do you think the field does in that spot? Do they fold ace high to a half-pot sized bet?

I can tell you the answer, because I’ve studied billions of poker hands, and their statistical breakdowns:

The field is all over the place versus that half-pot sized bet.

In European online poker, you might get a fold, because that’s considered a big bet there. In American online poker, you’ll get a call a high percentage of the time. But there’s a ton of variability from player to player in both these continents.

Now, let’s back up to the half-pot bet you made. Why did you make that bet?

Most people bet half-pot because that’s what they always do, and it’s a habit.

Habits kill you in No Limit. The game changes constantly, but habits do not.

I had problems for years getting poker players to change their bad habits. No one on Earth has done more private poker lessons than I have, and in those thousands of hours I tried damn near everything to get people to change their play. I showed them field databases. I showed them Flopzilla hand ranges with statistical rundowns. I made them look at the results of surveys. Yet, many people stayed with their habits.

It’s hard to change something we do so often. If I told you to brush your teeth a different way, you’d probably keep forgetting to do it because you’ve brushed your teeth your way so many times. Poker habits are just like that. They’re engraved.However, one day, I found a way to get people to change.

On every decision they saw in my simulations I’d ask my students, “what is the most important thought here?”

Don’t tell me everything you think about a particular hand. That doesn’t do you any good in the field. You have seconds to make your decisions online and live. I need you to think about the most important thing as fast as possible.

When I showed people that 9-6-2 board and said, “what’s the most important thought?” then they would answer:

“I need to fold out high cards. Ace highs especially. If I do that he folds more than 50% of the time, generally. My bet will be profitable.”

“Good,” I’d say, “so what’s going to be your bet size?”

They’d stop. “I don’t normally do this, but I guess I should bet more than half-pot, because people tend to freak out and fold to that bet size a lot with their missed high cards.”

Bingo. We’d found a way to rewire a poker brain.

Every single time you have a poker decision, ask yourself, “what is the most important thought here?”

Poker Training Site

I guarantee this simple question will change the way you play. You will be in control. You will also be far less fatigued, as you focus on what’s important, as opposed to every thought that goes through your head.

Gambling Brain

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