A popular theme in the poker world today is to enlist the help of professional coaching to become a much better player.  Many websites offer these services to players who desperately want to become better players but can’t get there by themselves.

However, there’s a brand new phenomenon that’s starting to gain a foothold that I never even thought of before.  And that is the use of hypnosis to make people better poker players and it’s being offered by a company called Think Like a Poker Pro.

Now I thought that this was really interesting news because, as I mentioned before, I never really thought about the usage of hypnosis to make one a better poker player.  But hypnosis has made people do some amazing things in the past such as quit smoking, become better athletes, overcome fears, etc.

it has especially helped people in the way of sports as a lot of pro teams utilize hypno-therapists on a consistent basis to enable their athletes to gain confidence and play better.  But therein lies the problem as compared to something like poker: Poker involves a lot less confidence than sports employs and a lot more knowledge of the game.

For example, I’ve seen plenty of 6′10″ basketball players who could jump out of the gym never make it in the pros when compared to their less talented counterparts who simply had a much higher level of confidence when taking shots and handling the ball.  Thinking like a pro in this sense does make a huge difference. 

On the other hand, it doesn’t matter how high you can jump or how fast you can run at the poker table.  Just knowing the game, studying players, and making correct plays will help a person greatly in the long run while playing poker.  To me, hypnosis doesn’t stand to make the average player into a Phil Ivey-type clone

Now I can see where it might help one avoid going on tilt or to keep a better poker face in live play but beyond this, I don’t see it making a huge impact otherwise.  I could be wrong though and I’ll be interested to see the results and feedback on this poker hypnosis thing.

I for one don’t like to hear people constantly whining about their bad beats on the Internet.  Everybody has them and it’s not use complaining about and cussing out the person who delivered it.  But I had one play the other night that made wonder whether I had truly received a bad beat or just made a bad play.

I was playing a game of No Limit Texas Hold’em and the two hole cards that I was dealt were an A and a 10.  That was good enough for me to call the big blind and everyone else limped in.  The flop hit as A-Q-3 off suited and everybody except for me and one other person folded.

I now had top pair and didn’t really think this person stayed with Q-3 so I bet out a little.  My bet was called and the turn came around as another Q.  So I checked and the other player only placed a small bet which truly made me wonder what was going on.  Did this person have a set of queens and was just slowplaying me or did they truly have nothing and were just representing a queen.

Well I thought my answer came on the river as another queen landed making the board A-Q-3-Q-Q and making me think that there was no way in this six-handed game that the other player happened to have a queen with three of them already on the board.  I mean it’s definitely possible but the odds would really suggest otherwise.

So I put a big bet out there while the other play went all-in.  My chip stack was larger so I called not thinking they were truly holding the queen.  To my surprise though, they were holding a queen and they were also holding a four of a kind at that.

My initial thought was whether this could be declared a bad beat or just a bad play.  Most of the time, the lone player left isn’t going to stay in past the flop with a bigger overpair represented.  But this player had and they were rewarded for it.  I, on the other hand, lost quite a bit of my stack and was wondering what others at the table were thinking of the decision to stay in the hand with top pair.

If the same situation arose again, I think that I’d probably still make the same play to tell the truth.  We’ll see how it turns out when it comes up in the future.

A few posts ago, I discussed some of the better moments that the 2008 World Series of Poker has experienced so far.  Well the last one talked about were blown out of the water by the actions of Jimmy Shultz and Eric Brooks.

Neither one of these two are really well known among poker fans - especially Brooks who doesn’t have a whole lot of major poker experience.  But both came out on top in WSOP events as Shultz won Event #12 while Brooks won Event #14.

That wasn’t what was impressive about the two though as both did something far greater for the game of poker.  Both made huge charitable contributions among the likes that have rarely been seen by poker before.

After winning the 12th event of the WSOP, Shultz decided to donate a fifth of his $257,049 in prize money to the Charleston Fire Department.  He also wore a CFD cap throughout the tournament to support the department after they lost nine men in a terrible warehouse fire.  The 50+ grand that Shultz gave them should help out some.

Brooks went even farther in his charity by giving all of his $415,856 to the Decision Education Foundation.  This nonprofit organization is headed by Stanford University and seeks to help children how to make good choices.  Brooks has been a longtime board member of the group.

To me it’s pretty amazing when people can give these types of donations after winning a WSOP.  After all, many players choose to keep all of the money and either invest it or buy fancy things.  I can’t say I blame them either as most people would be inclined to keep that type of money as poker can be a fickle game at times and you never know when the next big win is coming.  That just makes it even more incredible that Brooks and Shultz were able to part ways with significant amounts of cash.

Last post I talked about how, for the second year in a row, pro poker players will take on the card-playing machine known as Polaris 2 at the Las Vegas Rio on July 3rd.  During the post, I mentioned former World Chess Champion Gary Kasparov and how he was beaten the second time he played the chess-playing computer Deep Blue.

I also made a connection to how the professional online poker players who square off against Polaris 2 might want to avoid being beaten by the machine or they’ll be “humiliated” like Kasparov.  Well one of the programmers for Polaris 2, Mike Johanson, came across the post and wanted to point out that they’re not trying to humiliate anybody with this poker robot.

Instead he says that the Polaris 2 project deals with learning things about AI outside of games, boasting some friendly competition, and having fun in the process.  His comments are pretty insightful and posted below along with my response to him.  And for the record,  I think what the University of Alberta is doing with Polaris 2 is really cool and that’s why I wanted to post about it.

(Mike’s comments)

Hi,

My name is Mike Johanson - I’m one of the programmers on the Polaris project. I found your blog while I was procrastinating this morning before starting on the day’s bot-coding :^D

I think the attitudes of the competitors play a large role in determining how everyone looks back on the event. The second match between Kasparov and Deep Blue didn’t end well - Kasparov was convinced the IBM team had cheated by having humans intervene during the match. He said Deep Blue had made “human” moves, that only a human (and never a computer) would make. There just isn’t any such thing - and likewise, Grundy is wrong about the psychology of bluffing being a human phenomenon. Bluffing is actually the easiest part for us, because the mathematics of game theory tells you how often to bluff and slowplay.

So, Kasparov insisted that IBM had cheated, and whether it was true or not (and I’m sure it isn’t, but hey - I’m on the computer’s side, right?), it looked like sour grapes. If he was “humiliated”, then that was a big part of it.

Poker has been different so far. The work we’ve done in poker over the last 14 years has turned up a lot of knowledge about the game that humans are able to use to improve their game. I think the pros we’ve played against (Laak, Eslami, Paradis) have learned just as much from the matches as we have. If this improves their game when they play against other humans, then I think it’s a win-win situation.

We’re certainly not out to try to humiliate anyone. By doing this research, we’re learning things about AI that apply outside of Poker and outside of games. The friendly competition we get from playing against poker pros is a) really motivating, b) good for research, and c) awesome and fun. I think the pros feel the same way.

(My response)

Hi Mike,

You make a very good point about the attitudes of the competitors playing a big role in how the event will be perceived later on. Kasparov didn’t have the best attitude after losing and I agree that it’s doubtful IBM had humans intervene (and if they did shouldn’t Kasparov been able to beat them since he was a World Champ?).

By saying “humiliated” I meant that, instead of being recognized as one of the greatest chess champions of all time, he was instead presented through the mainstream media as the chess champ who lost to a computer.

Maybe if Kasparov would have been more gracious in defeat, he wouldn’t have been shown in that light. By accusing IBM of cheating, Kasparov may have brought on plenty more negative attention.  If your poker machine does beat Paradis and the rest of the online pros, hopefully they’ll take defeat a lot better. From the quotes I’ve read by Paradis, he seems to be taking this competition in a friendly manner.

And about Grundy’s comment, I’m sure you know plenty about what Polaris is capable of since you’re one of the programmers and I believe what you say about the bluffing aspect. But, before reading your comments, I would have been in the same boat as Grundy in thinking that a computer wouldn’t be able to handle situational play such as bluffing, slowplaying, and profiling opponents.

Anyways, good luck with the competition and I look forward to seeing how it turns out.

I can still remember back to 1996 when former World Chess Champion Gary Kasparov took on an IBM computer by the name of Deep Blue in a famed match that made news headlines everywhere.  Kasparov won the famous chess match 4 games to 2 supposedly proving that no computer could beat a human at the game. 

Unfortunately, the Russian agreed to take IBM up on its offer again in playing the machine a second time.  The upgraded version of Deep Blue (nicknamed Deeper Blue) got revenge for the previous loss and won two games to Kasparov’s one with three games being draws.

What’s this have to do with poker?  Well for the second straight year, the Polaris poker playing machine will be brought out to compete against some of the best poker players in the world.  Last year saw Phil “The Unabomber” Laak and Ali Eslami defeat the 1st version of Polaris two games to one with one game being a tie. 

Now, however, the machine is upgraded and comes with a new name: Polaris 2 (flashbacks to Kasparov and the chess matches?).  And this time the opponents for the computer have changed too as Polaris will be facing off against some of the best online players in the world. 

The online players definitely know what they’re up against too as Bryce Paradis, who cashed for over 3 million dollars last year, had this to say, “Against the current AI in Polaris 2 the average poker player would be completely dominated.  The Polaris 2 team has made incredible improvements since the match last year.” 

Let’s hope that the professional poker players such as Paradis won’t be completely dominated by the machine.  Otherwise, they’ll suffer the same humiliation that Kasparov suffered back in 1997 when he became the first World Champion to lose to a machine.