Helium Hands and Blinking Lizard Brains

Was talking w/ Mr. Multi today after a lunchtime poker meeting, and he mentioned something his wife calls "helium hand" syndrome. This is where you're in a meeting and the boss asks for a volunteer. Despite your better judgment, your hand seems to rise on its own accord, thereby volunteering yourself for something for which you didn't really want to volunteer.

This same syndrome sometimes afflicts me on the poker tables. My brain is screaming, "FOLD!" but for some reason, the helium balloon attached to my mouse moves it over to the raise button and I come over the top on somebody. Sometimes this is a good thing, and sometimes it's not. When it is a good thing, more often than not it's due to dumb luck. When it's a bad thing, generally speaking I deserved what I got.

In the (great) poker book Positively Fifth Street, author James McManus talks about his two alter-egos: Good Jim and Bad Jim. Good Jim whispers in his ear to fold that JTs, but Bad Jim is egging him on to RR all-in. It's Homer Simpson and his perennial good angel/bad angel dilemma.

So why do I bring this up? Well, honestly I'm not sure. Or maybe I am. It depends on whether I'm listening to Good Bug or Bad Bug. Or maybe I mean Brain Bug or Gut Bug.

Huh?

See, I've been playing a lot of Rush lately. Sometimes I buy into a single game of $25NL, while other times I play four games of high-speed $10NL full ring. In the single game, I play a more cerebral game, using logic and cunning and generally playing level 2 or level 3 poker. Every play is thought out, I'm putting players on fairly narrow ranges, and I'm thinking one or two streets ahead. If a third spade comes on the river I can bet a small amount, therefore repping the flush and making it look like a value bet....

In contrast, when I'm playing 1200 hands per hour of four table Rush, I'm necessarily just playing ABC rote poker. Often I am acting without really thinking about the other players. Or maybe I am, and I just don't know it. Or, rather, I just "know" what the right play is. In these instances, my lizard brain sees patterns and I'm just reacting to them without a lot of thought. A big stack is raising UTG and I've got a small pair, therefore I call. A short stack UTG does the same, so I fold. In both cases I'm making the right play without really thinking it through.

The funny thing is that I tend to make the same ~8 BB/100 hands in both situations. Obviously, I'm doing something right in both cases, even though they're very different animals. In the high speed four games, I'm relying on Bad/Gut Bug to take over and let me just react instantly to situations that I've seen hundreds of thousands of times before. This is almost like the old Think Long, Think Wrong problem that the book Blink describes. I see a situation, I react, I move on.

In contrast, in the single table big games, I've got Good/Brain Bug making a persuasive case for every action I take.... but I also have a gut reaction to a player's actions that help inform the brain. In a sense, I've got a base "pattern" to begin with, and then I refine that pattern with logical thought, putting players on ranges, narrowing those ranges, and trying to manipulate pot sizes to suit my reads.

So what's my point? Good question. I think what I'm trying to do here is defend my 1200 hands per hour ABC rote poker that the Guru (AKA Poker Moses) is always on my case about. He says I'm not playing real poker when I flying through hands, and that I'm hurting my game by playing such a simple-minded, dumbed down approach to poker.

Maybe he's right, but perhaps not. I think I'm actually helping my game by simply seeing thousands and thousands of hands, and therefore imprinting specific game situations and patterns into my subconscious mind. This has to be a good thing.

I think.

Or maybe I just know.

All-in for now...
-Bug