On Aggression in Poker

On the nature of aggression in Poker

The following piece is taken mostly from an article written by Stephen Bloomfield in the magazine Ante Up. Poker has many parallels with Life. Timid, risk-averse humans don't usually thrive in life, especially in war combats.Neither do they play poker as the game requires aggression and killer instinct. Kyle Siler of Cornell University recently published Social and Psychological Challenges of Poker in the Journal of Gambling Studies. Siler established that poker is largely a game of skill. Additionally, Siller based his findings on an analysis of database of millions of hands played online in six-max no-limit poker. 

Siler finds poker is "a complex strategy of skill and luck, rationality and intuition, mathematics and psychology, fraught with uncertainty over outcomes, best practices and their relationships to success."

The study finds that tight-aggressive style is most profitable for most people whereas loose-aggressive play produces the best results for a limited number of players and the worst results for a much larger number of people. 

The study also suggests that as folks move up in stakes, competitive edges shrink. 

As Man is a flexible, highly adaptable animal, he can be taught to cultivate aggression. Military training of raw recruits is all about instilling aggression and discipline at the same time. Likewise, poker's skills which include aggression can be learned. 

Richard Nixon financed his campaign for Congress partly out of the winnings he made during his service in the Navy. Harry Truman was an avid poker player. Nixon ordered Christmas bombings over Hanoi in 1972. Truman didn't agonize over the decision to drop atomic bombs over Hiroshima and Nagasaki. He didn't hesitate to sack General McArthur over insubordination. Don't mess with aggressive poker players. You don't know what to expect from them unless you are a dedicated poker player yourself. 

Wissai

2/21/14