A poker player's journey is a long and difficult one. Once the middle of the journey is reached, the journey gradually begins to improve until eventually the player reaches the highest level of mastery. The ultimate goal of this journey is to climb the mountain of poker to the top. So how does a player reach the peak and develop true mastery?
Craftsmanship fascinates us to no end. From Wolfgang Mozart to Albert Einstein, from Garry Kasparov to Michael Jordan. These masters have always intrigued and attracted the human spirit. It is therefore no wonder that scientists have been studying the phenomenon of mastery intensively for 100 years. Compared to the aristocratically vague theories of 'geniuses gone wrong', we now have a much clearer picture of how skills are developed. Researchers have identified four stages of mastery:
- Unconscious incompetence
- Deliberate incompetence
- Conscious competence
- Unconscious competence
The stage of unconscious incompetence begins with each new activity. It is a blank page. To be unconsciously incompetent is to have bad skills, but no idea what is wrong or why your skills are bad.
Think back to the first time you sat down at a poker table. You probably used hands like Q6, A3 or 45o, minbets or overbets in tiny pots, with little thought as to whether it was a good or bad play. That is unconscious incompetence.
In neuroscientific terms, unconscious incompetence is the mind's attempt to cope with an external system without having an internal network that responds to every structure in the external system. For example, you come to play poker for the first time, your mind doesn't yet have the mental associations with Q6o to know if it is good or bad. It is only by gathering the information and feedback that will come after this structure that the mind will start to construct clear and meaningful categories related to each structure of the external system (e.g. the poker hand).
The second stage is deliberate incompetence. In this stage, the person already notices his incompetence. He or she understands what the real situation is and what is wrong. We often experience this stage when learning foreign languages. Imagine a language that you can speak some of, but you are still a long way from speaking it correctly. You feel your accent is wrong, you don't pronounce everything correctly, you speak too slowly, etc. You notice your mistakes, but you still can't speak correctly all the time. Your vocal cords still have to be consciously worked on to hit the right accent, your vocabulary is still narrow and fragmented, etc. This stage is passed by simply practising, speaking a new language, playing the piano, marble moulding, playing poker.
The third step is conscious competence. If you are attentive and think consciously, you will know what to do at this stage. Now you usually make good decisions when playing poker - don't call a flush on the river if the board shows double pairs, even if you want to. You no longer make decisions that you know you shouldn't make.
Now you notice all the elements that make up a poker match: bet sizes, betting patterns, the language of the clock, etc. But all this is processed deliberately. You have to actively think about it. When you play well, all your mental resources are occupied. Neurologically speaking, your centres of consciousness (neo-cortex) are actively working to process and interpret the information in front of you. If you slip out of conscious concentration at this stage, the game will deteriorate dramatically.
The last stage of mastery is unconscious competence. In this stage, you play correctly without thinking about it. The most obvious example is driving a car. Most people who drive have been doing it for years and are now in the unconscious competence stage. They do not have to consciously think about changing gears, which pedal to press and how hard to press it, how to manoeuvre or anything like that. They can hold a conversation, daydream or listen to an audio book while driving.
In poker, this stage is marked by knowing immediately what you are going to do. You don't have to stare at the board and try to figure out what's on it or imagine how your opponent will react to your bet. You just make decisions automatically. Almost always, this kind of game shows the achievement of unconscious competence.
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