Brain power

[peterbirks]

Having a quick brain can be a bit of a mixed blessing. I mean, I don't think that I'm being ultra-elitist by claiming that nearly all the readers of this blog and its writer think at a rate just a little bit quicker and (sometimes) a little bit deeper than your average Joe. And in certain situations (notably, games with a time limit on your decisions and quiz machines) it's a distinct advantage. In life, however, it can be a pain.

1) Things which seem blindingly obvious to you appear opaque to other people. This can be frustrating.

2) Your mind is always heading off in other directions during conversations, which means that you don't want to forget an idea that comes into your head, so you vocalize it. Often this means that you interrupt other people in the middle of a sentence, appearing rude (this is a dreadful fault of mine that I have seriously tried to ameliorate over the years).

3) Your mind is always getting new ideas, so when you are talking, you tend to speak too quickly. This is not a fault that I suffer from so much, but I have noted it in others. I got round it by thinking at least a sentence ahead and trying to express my thought in the fewest number of words. And (see 1) I realized that I had to speak slowly, else no-one else would understand a blind bit of my logical processes. Perhaps I "learnt" this from several of my cleverer teachers (most, needles to say, did not fall into this category). They would often speak too quickly, so, even though they were clever, it did not make them good teachers.


Now, in poker, none of this matters, except that in live games you find the less speedy of thought frustratingly slow. Online, the faster your brain is operating, the more games you can play, and the more money you win. It's as simple as that.

Live, I'd really like a version of the online game. Speed poker, with chess clocks. That would be more fun to play.

Comments

[geoffchall.livejournal.com]

I think you might be expecting others to fall in with your philosophy because they happen to have three brain cells instead of the average two. I can empathise with point 1 as I'm sure most people can. But I think blurting stuff out because you just thought of it is not a spinoff of intelligence or perceptiveness - it's something you get with some forms of Autism - or with just being rude. I regularly think of stuff I mean to say/do but wait until the person who's speaking to me has finished.

Speaking too fast is a spinoff for some people - especially kids where speed of thought gets well beyond the speed at which those thoughts can be vocalised but you usually grow out of it because you get pissed off with people saying "what?" and "eh?" all the time.

What I suffer from (and this is personal and not by extension) is having a conversation with someone from A to B to C. I wander onwards mentally from C to J and then say something that takes me from J to L, which of course leaves whoever baffled as my mental train has gone several stations up this branchline without them.

[peterbirks.livejournal.com]

I know that not all people who think quickly tend to interrupt other people. There are other factors in play here. Being a single child, which restricts areas of social growth, is a factor. It's not rudeness per se, because you try to stop yourself doing it (in other words, eventually you come to know that it will be perceived as rude, so you try to stop yourself doing it). I think that some people just have a tendency to say something as it comes into their heads and some people have the ability to store it up for later. Categorising it as "autism" (or, another favourite these days "borderline autism") opens up another can of worms on how you define what is an illness and what is not. Tourette's for example, is an illness mainly in the sense that it makes other people uncomfortable.

I see what you are saying -- thick people can blurt out what they are thinking straight away as well, so one could argue a lack of correlation between intelligence and the blurting.

However, as you know, short-term memory and long-term memory are different things. The vocalisation of something in the short-term memory is a good way of storing it in the long-term memory. In other words, it's a rational way of keeping something that you have just thought of in your head for longer than a few seconds. It's a bit galling when acting rationally is defined as "rude" or, worse, "autism". I assume that you have some way of putting stuff into long-term memory without vocalising it. Indeed, if I practise and concentrate, I can do this too. Unfortunately, that makes it hard to listen to what the other person is saying. But, you appear polite, so what the fuck, eh?

I suppose that the obvious solution is to carry a notepad around and to make notes.

But I guess that this would be perceived as rude as well.

Oh, fuck society's norms, they really piss me off sometimes. The more I think about it, the more I realize how little I fit in.

You suffer the opposite problem (one which maths people seem to have), which is lack of vocalisation. You've thought it, but haven't said it, but you assume that the logical process has been transferred by some form of osmosis. Your very politeness (or what passes for "sensible" society's rules when it comes to politeness) has served to hamper communication between you and the other person in the conversation.

PJ

The Doctor is in

[geoffchall.livejournal.com]

I think maybe we should both be in therapy.

Your status as only child is at completely the opposite end of the range to my youngest-of-four-brothers status. So because your childhood wasn't cluttered by sibling competition, you could just blurt stuff out.

For me, with three sharp and sarcastic elder brothers, I learned not to butt in, unless what I had to say was pressing or sharply perceptive. That probably sharpened up my critical thinking and gave me the capacity to retain stuff whilst still listening. And I grew used to being patronised by brothers who were 4.5, 7.5 and 9 years older and therefore less likely to say stuff unless I was confident of it.

Then I got taught something else - that if you want to be liked by someone - probably girls at that stage - then you should be contributing around a third of the conversation with them providing two thirds. This works (and proved very good in interviews). But then the youngest sibling wants to be liked whilst the only child couldn't really give a stuff.

So that kind of pecking order stuff has more to do with all this than intelligence, speed of thought or memory-retention.

[simong-uk.livejournal.com]

I am not doubting your quick brain, but why do you think you claim to be "slow to learn" at the same time?

Is this slow to learn to the level you want to get to perhaps?

[peterbirks.livejournal.com]

I think that it's a matter of whom I am comparing myself to, Simon! I've sat down at "new" card games at games conventions and usually picked up the rules and basic strategy fairly quickly. However, when playing other kinds of games I often seem to be the slowest (of an admittedly quick group) when it comes to seeing how strategy should be developed.

In poker terms, I suppose that if I compare myself with the likes of Fargis or Paul Phillips or Greenstein, I shouldn't be upset about coming up short. However, I "learnt" my Hold 'em from Sklansky. I doubt that I would have figured out on my own (well, not for a long time), why T7s was not that much worse than AQo at limit hold 'em.

Other matters which seem to come quickly to other players took a long while to sink in with me -- that two bad cards pre-flop aren't usually that big a dog against two good cards, that two bad cards are often better than one good card and one bad card, that position is staggeringly important, that first is not so bad as middle in a multi-way pot, that the reason suited cards are much stronger than unsuited is that a hand with a 10% chance of winning compared to a hand with a 6% chance of winning is not 4% better, but 67% better, oh I could go on and on.

What I mean is that I see players who pick this up almost immediately and almost instinctively (take Gryko and Dobson discussing triple draw for an example of this), which never happens for me. It was hard reading and hard experience. So, in this sense, I am a "slow" learner at games of poker. It's the sme at bridge. I see players with a natural feel for the game and I realize that I would only achieve that if I played 100 hours a month or more.

PJ

[simong-uk.livejournal.com]

Do you have a link to that TD discussion per chance?

I think I probably put myself in the same bracket a lot of the time. I don't necessarily know instinctively whether a rough 7 draw with 2 draws to come is better than a made 9 etc (to use TD as an example) but when someone points it out to me (or I read it from someone I trust) then I am "quick to learn" in that I will immediately embrace it and accomodate it into my game and may go on at some point to introduce my own twist on it. But quick to learn not the same as quick to figure it out!

[peterbirks.livejournal.com]

The discussion was a brief talk at the Gutshot -- just make sure you are somehwere when both are in the same room and are on their third beer and drop triple draw into the conversation.

I did a heavy Excel analysis of TD and how things tended to pan out. This was of some assistance. But the way the money flies in is more complex. For example, Fargis makes the point that, in many multi-way cases, you HAVE to raise the turn with, say, a medium 8, even though the first bettor may well have you beat, because the player behind you is probably on a draw. In other words, the maths on your own hand are a part of the battle, the the macro-economic maths of the structure of the betting are another thing entirely.

PJ

[peterbirks.livejournal.com]

PS. You might want to glance at the interview with Chris Langham in The Guardian today. He uses the phrase "slow to learn" as well. Interesting...

PJ

[felicialee1.livejournal.com]

Number one no doubt!

Number two, for me, is more like I can't shut it off, can't turn it down, to save my life. I don't really tend to interrupt people, but it is still buzzing in my head no matter what. There is no "down time."

Definitely speak too fast.

As far as poker is concerned, I'm much less distracted playing live than online. While playing live, I am so hyper aware of my surroundings that there is always something to do. Online I have to surf to keep busy, and I end up just playing by rote, almost always O8. Stud would be impossible.

[peterbirks.livejournal.com]

I can cope with "live" in limit games in LV (well, usually, with the serious drunks and the poor dealers one can find, even LV games can get a bit tiring), but live games in tournaments are beyond me now:

Most annoying factors in tourneys:

1) Pointless dwell-ups when both players know that the original bettor was stealing and that he is going to fold to the reraise.

2) People who can't shuffle, or deal, or pay attention. "Oh, is it my go?"

3) People who are not there to play poker. They are there to have a laugh with their mates, or get pissed, or both, and to make a noise so that no-one misses the fact that they are in the room.

All this slows the game up and, quite often, there really isn't anything to do. I've got all the chip counts in my head. I've classified all the players. And I know what's going to happen over the next ninety seconds. And you can't even have a chat with the dealer because some MOG will tell you to shut up.

Online, yes, I'm a terrible surfer these days. I caught myself three-tabling, watching the TV AND reading a poker blog this evening. However, on the plus side, this means that I can keep going for longer at a steady grinding pace and are less susceptible to my major flaw - "FPS" (fancy-play syndrome).

PJ