This week we will analyse an article on the psychology of poker. The authors seek to answer a simple question - how, if at all, does a poker pro's style of play change after losing or winning a big pot? The hypothesis is that even top-level players can develop a break-even mentality in order to win back losing chips.
To answer this question, watch the high-level Cash games in the Full Tilt Poker Room (blinds $25/$50). The Poker Tracker software was used as it can collect players' hand histories even if the table is only monitored. The authors chose this method because it was available 24 hours a day, free of charge.
The 6-max and Heads-Up tables were monitored separately and over the course of a few months, more than 200,000 hands were collected on the six-person tables and 340,000 hands on the two-player tables. The authors chose to monitor the style of play most closely when a pot of at least 20 BB was won or lost. In this case, the next 12 hands of both the winner and the loser were compared to their normal playing style.
According to the authors' observations, even high-level regular players experience a change in playing style after winning or losing a pot of 20 big blinds. In many cases, players become more loose, call more speculative hands and play more aggressively than usual when they lose a big pot. The reverse effect can be observed when winning - players tend to become more tight.
One of the authors' observations is the drop in win rate when you start playing more aggressively and loose. They estimate that the average win rate drops by 18%. However, the authors note that they cannot provide very precise data for this, as there is not enough information to derive accurate statistics.
Doyle Brunson has said that after big wins, you need to play more aggressively to win more from your opponents. This idea has been confirmed in studies of poker psychology and is easy for any player to incorporate into their arsenal.
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