How many times have you stared in disbelief and said, “He called me with THAT!” Most decent players know the poker mantra Don’t tap the glass. When you play poker you can make the absolute right decision and still lose, thanks to the poker gods and their whims. One of the hardest lessons you will learn in poker, is to continue doing something that isn’t working at the moment. What many people fail to comprehend is; you want people to get lucky, it’s how you make your money in the long run. And you should never explain or criticize a bad play.

The reason you should never criticize a bad play has to do with conditional reinforcement. To continue to play your best even when struggling it’s also necessary to understand conditional reinforcement..What is conditional reinforcement? Let me explain with the following example.

Suppose you were to buy a puppy and you decide that every time the puppy barks you will give him a treat. Your puppy would soon learn that to receive his reward all he needs to do is bark. This is positive reinforcement. In this case you would have a puppy that barks a lot!

Conversely, suppose every time your puppy barks you scold him. You would end up with a puppy that realizes barking is going to get him nowhere but into the doghouse, and will eventually cease barking. This is negative reinforcement.

Finally, suppose you reward your puppy when he barks the first three times. Afterwards, you sometimes scold him and sometimes reward him. After doing this for a certain amount of time you suddenly stop all rewards and only scold him. Well, your puppy is going to keep barking and barking because he has been conditioned to believe that eventually his bark will get him a reward. This is conditional reinforcement.

So how does barking puppies apply to poker? Most people who decide to play poker will respond in a similar way to our puppies, if they lose every time they draw to an inside straight they will eventually cease doing it, since there is no reward. Without a reward bad players would learn not to call with their longshots, much like our puppy it gets them nowhere. On the other hand, if a poker player were to win drawing to an inside straight and then intermittently get lucky drawing to inside straights he will continue doing it. The reason being, sooner or later he knows he will receive his reward. He will take all the scoldings he has to for that one reward.

When a player continually makes bad plays you win. Yes, occasionally they will get lucky and beat you but most of the time you will win. This is the reason why you want people to get lucky, with no luck comes no reward. No reward for bad plays means only good players.

The reason you do not want to criticize a bad play is quite simple, if you scold your puppy when he barks enough times he will eventually cease barking. Likewise, if you scold a poker player who has made a bad play enough times he will eventually stop making that bad play. Never criticize or explain a bad play, there is no reason to educate an opponent. And unlike puppies, people tend to catch on after 1 or 2 scoldings, noone likes to look the fool.

Think about it, suppose you play with Jason every day. Jason is a great player but, he makes the same unusually bad play ten times a day, and therefor is a losing player. Sometimes he gets lucky and wins but the majority of times he loses. If you were to berate him one of the times he got lucky, Jason may wise up to his mistake. Jason has now gone from a losing to player to a really good player. You have just cost yourself a lot of money, not by a bad play or being unlucky, you have lost money because you were dumb enough to clue Jason in that he was making a mistake!

It’s hard enough to win money playing poker, don’t force yourself to have to overcome your own stupidity in addition to everything else. Save the lectures for a classroom and let the bad players get their occasional reward, it will payoff in the long run.

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I find your response in this thread shallow, and pedantic...

Every time somebody sucks out on you, you have made some Sklansky bucks.

Sklansky bucks can be cashed in at the end of infinity for REAL CASH!!!

i made it 2.25 to go pf, the bb called.

flop was AsQh9s. he cheked i bet pot.
turn was Qs he cheked I cheked.
river was Ks he cheked I bet pot

he called. he had AJ with no spade.

I didn't say anything. But i really was like how can you call?

hate it

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I get more ass than a toilet seat. All shapes/colors/sizes.

caution:
http://girlvideos.blogspot.com/

I've come a log way on this yet have a long way to go, I admit.

I do my best and I've helped myself by being myself- the kind of guy that loves to laugh and make others laugh. It's helps me to laugh it off in a way where they have no idea I'm laughing at them, but the situation. When I get really mad, the last thing I'll do is look at people because they want me to steam and they'll that "What an idiot" look at me and it'll encourage me when I'm in a state of little self-control as it is.

Since the blowup I posted over a month back, I haven't really blown up and like I said, I'm getting better with this. I don't like when others tap the glass. I shouldn't do it either.

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I liked reading this thread. My brother and I play occassionally and he doesn't have much practice with the game, making the stupidiest mistakes. I love to do the old fashioned slow play on him, works everytime. What's sad is it's almost instinctive to explain what he's doing wrong but I try my best to keep him in the dark. It's impossible to make him fold though which is quite annoying.

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actually this is called punishment. negative reinforcement is the removal of a negative stimulus. an example of negative reinforcement would be buckling your seatbelt to stop the beeping your car makes.

Uh-oh. We're channeling AP Psych here. I did notice that and forgot while I was typing a response.

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This is normally not a problem of mine, but i notice as my cold streak went on and on it was. I am normally like "boy am I glad he plays so dumb" (to myself) but as my streak went on i would more often go type "what were you thinking" to "my god ur a moron" after a really bad run lol.

The first is the truth and when you are winning you know you will lose some, but when cold and losing over and over, every beat just compounds to the point that you think you really would prefer to sit a a table full of pros (and boy is that dumb thinking lol)

i cannot tell u how many times in the past 2 days i have been sucked out. I am going crazy, litterally.

While i completly understand what ur saying, i dont think it works nearly as well as it seems.

Ur not playing the same players every day, or even more then 1 session.

While yes, in the long run you should be making money against these non folding to anything donks, but your puppy comparison doesnt work. Since your not seeing the same people, its like having a puppy for 2 hours, doing what u can to train him, then passing him on to the next family, who may punch him in the fave when he barks.

I see what ur saying, but i honestly dont think u not yelling at someone when they suck you out is going to make a difference, because the next person will the next time he does it. And since poker is growing so fast new players are on every day. Its like having a new born puppy given to you daily and passing it on to the next person so on and so forth. U cant train a puppy when hes constantly being changed owners.

Then, it's a waste of your energy by that reasoning alone.

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