2 Kinds of instincts

I got second at my poker game again Monday. Thus establishing my total inability to stick w/ this game for the long haul when I know I should be taking my wife home and going to bed. I was even up a little going into the showdown, I just bet for shit and he had a little better cards when I wanted to bluff.

At one point in the night I was way up as big stack, and I called a bet I knew I shouldn’t have, but I won with high pair cuz the guy was bluffing. The guy (Pete for those of you who go to Monday night poker) said “How did you call that, you totally shouldn’t have called that bet.” And he was 100% right, I shouldn’t have called that bet.

I answered, “sometimes I just have to trust my gut, and take my lumps if I’m wrong.” Then , who was sitting there watching made reference to my claims of logic being superior to gut reaction, and how they were wrong. Then he said “You have to learn everything you can, study and study, and read, and listen, and then when the moment comes, you have to rely on your gut, and trust that your preperation made your gut smart.” Or something to that effect.

And I was thinking that is pretty much true for me in some ways. Definitely I do what he is talking about, but, I don’t liken that to what I was doing in the Poker game. What I did in the poker game was react on a feeling, and instinct. Past data should have, and would have told me that I was going to lose some money. All the internet articles I read on poker say I should have folded, and waited until later to try to win w/ my hand. So I don’t know if that fits Jeff’s definition of his “gut”.

But I do definitely do what Jeff is talking about, but I don’t necessarily refer to that as trusting my gut. It is more of my branch predictor. The more data you feed the algorithm, the smarter the algorithm gets, and the more acurate my results get. Just like a computer, except my algorithm isn’t hardwired into my CPU, and it can change. I could extend this whole metaphor to compiler optimizations, but most of you are already confused as to what a branch predictor is on your computers CPU, so I’ll stop.

But at any rate, I think there are two default kinds of instincts or “guts” I can rely on. One tells me when to bet at poker, and the other tells the first to shut the hell up after I lose a lot of money. Both are important, and I use the “branch predictor” more because it is getting better all the time, but still sometimes I like the gut level instinct reaction to be available for feedback purposes.

Well that is all confusing like, and I think there is a lot more synergy between these two things and my conscious analytical thoughts, but I have no idea how that works. I’ll leave that for to figure out since that is his deal.