Momentum (which can be either positive or negative) is one of those intuitive words that has escaped definition in the poker world, but is often used. How exactly can we define it?
In previous articles, we have concluded that the flow of the game is specifically a human phenomenon, or is the moment also? Is the moment a figment of our imagination, a psychological construct, or is it a real thing embedded in the game? Would a computer playing poker have an instant psychological advantage?
Let's imagine that we have lost two buyins, and the river barrels into us a third time. We miss the draw, so we think for a long time and fold. The opponent thinks about it and doesn't show his cards. We are now down three buyins and, as you would expect, we feel we have lost and our opponent has had a moment.
How exactly does it appear in this example? Of course, the biggest part comes from our emotional response. Even the best players in the world would have at least a small emotional response in such a situation.
Let's consider another experiment. Let's imagine that we have no emotional response in this hand. Let's cut out the emotional element completely by saying that a family recluse has just bequeathed you ten million dollars, so you shouldn't care at all about the three losing buyins you just became a multi-millionaire. Money is completely irrelevant at this point.
The opponent shoves all-in, you fold after thinking for a long time, and the cards are not dealt. How now? Is the negative moment still there? Do you still feel it?
I guess so. Even if you don't feel the psychological pain, you still feel as if you are behind your opponent. You feel a negative moment.
If this is true, the moment should be more than an emotion. It can be concluded that, as with emotional dynamics, the opponent's expectations affect the course of the game as much as the emotions themselves. So if your opponent expects you to be "behind", you have to react to that expectation - that's what the moment is about.
An opponent's expectation that you will feel emotions is due to less than accurate information - the opponent makes assumptions about you without knowing you personally. But let's say you're playing someone who knows you just got ten million dollars, so he knows that three buyins doesn't affect you emotionally. Is the moment still there? Close your eyes and imagine it. He knows how much money you have, he pushes all in, you fold after thinking for a long time.
Is your game still lagging behind? Yes, it's still lagging behind the opposition. So what creates the moment then?
Some people imagine that the moment is an error in the gambler's mind, but it is not quite
Yes. The real answer is more subtle.
When, after thinking for a long time, you folded the river, missed the draw and didn't see what your opponent had, the feeling that came over me was more than just an emotional stab. At the same time, you created an information asymmetry. In other words, the opponent gained more information than you. He knows from the fact that you thought about folding that you thought about a hero-call but chose to fold instead. From this information, he can reconstruct your playing style and strategy. And you don't know if he bluffed or not, so you have only gathered a small amount of information, while your opponent has got a lot of information. This is the asymmetry of information. And this is a significant reason why, in a negative moment, even if you remove the emotions, you are still behind the opponent.
Of course, there are also the usual negative moment situations that do not have information asymmetry. A good example of this is the big hero call. Suppose you are bluffing on a board with a miss draw and your opponent snapcalls the river to your shove with bottom pair. He has learnt the lesson that you shove the river out of thin air, but you also have the information that your opponent calls with anything and clearly doesn't believe you. So, even though you lost your buyin in this situation, you learned a valuable lesson about narrowing down against this opponent and not bluffing in these situations.
This is an example of a psychologically induced moment. But again, in a real match, the negative moment will remain anyway, partly because of the emotional reaction. But it can also remain because you don't trust yourself to 'read' your opponent.
The moment is real and is caused by more than one sensation, so you shouldn't feel bad if you notice a negative moment and stop playing. Simply by stopping the game and starting a new one some time later, you can do it all over again with information equality. There are plenty of fish in the sea, and therefore plenty of matches to play, so if you feel the moment is not right, stop the game.
EN 
LT 
DE 
FR 
SV 
ES 
IT 
FI 
LV 
SK 
SL 
TR 