5 ways to shush a whiner

The economist Daniel Kahneman (a Nobel prize winner) together with Amos Tversky studied how people's evaluation process works. They asked to several people if in English are more frequent the words with the letter R in first position or in third position. The correct answer was "Third", but most of them answered "First". Why? Simply because it was easier to remember words starting with R than words with R in third place.

The same applies to a poker player: he reminds the bad beats (because he perceives them as unfair), while quickly forgets the good beats because he thinks he deserves the luck. Because he plays better.

This is the "Availability Heuristic".

What about the complains for the completed draws, even if they aren't a bad beat? A Norwegian psychiatrist, Jan Smedslund, showed some clinical analysis to a group of professional nurses. In 50% of the cases a symptom A and an illness B were both present or absent. In the other 50% only one of them was present. The majority of the nurses stated there was a correlation between symptom and illness even if in half of the cases they appeared independently from each other.

We remember better two facts if they happen together. In the same way the poker players associates oppo's draw to a losing hand because because they often happen together. Even if he's loosing because he doesn't play well enough.

These are the "Illusory Correlations".

A Dutch mathematician, Frederik Schuh, asked to a group of persons to make a prediction on a coin toss. In all the cases Schuh had tossed the coins several times and head had come out three times in a row. Most of the persons predicted tail even if the "Big Number Law" clearly states that the chances were always the same.

In the same way a poker player, after losing several coinflips in a row, will have the sensation to have more chances for the following one, even if it isn't true.

This is "Intuitive Statistic".

A good poker player knows the law of large numbers. So why does a skilled player think that he's unlucky after few thousands hands of downswing? The psychologist Thomas Gilovich and Robert Vallone studied the "hot hand" in the basketball. If there's a long streak of 3-points shoots in a row, people tends to think that the next one will be in. But the stats demonstrated it was false.

When something lasts so long that it's considered "abnormal" our brain is victim of the "Law of Small Numbers" heuristic and reacts exactly the opposite of the Intuitive Statistic: we'll think that the trend will never stop if it didn't stop before. Similarly a poker player after 20k hands of downswing can think it will never last.

This is the "Clustering Illusion".

Try to show a whiner that poker rooms aren't rigged talking about their strict certifications. They will be more persuaded that there's something wrong! Why this? Are they mad? Not at all. The sociologist Paul Rozin, together with his colleagues Markwith and Ross, made an experiment: he gave to some persons two boxes stating there was food inside and asked them to choose what to eat. In one of the boxes was written "NOT POISONOUS". Most of people chose the other one.

Our brain in these cases thinks "Why did they write not poisonous? There was a risk it was?" and chooses the other box. Whiner's brain does the same, thinking "If they do so many tests, it means that there can be something rigged".

This is the "Magical Thinking".