Post by krcmdc on Dec 5, 2017 20:51:56 GMT
There are a many things that poker players, and/or gamblers in general do to improve their chances of winning. Some are clearly superstition, many are just plain nonsense, and some others "work" on placebo effect alone. I've tried a few with the mindset that it can't hurt to try, and it never did hurt, but it was always nonsense. Most notably for me would be something like meditation or mindset coaching or tilt control techniques, etc. And I am fully aware that many people who do far better than I do at poker, claim to have wonderful results due to meditation. While I maintain that meditation has nothing to do with it. Proper meditation, and maintaining a proper schedule of meditation requires a high level of self discipline. It's the self discipline that leads to those results imo. Stop meditating and start studying and your results will improve even more rapidly, imo. So, clearly, I'm forever a skeptic of everything outside the scope of obvious work to improve results.
With that in mind, I tried something that I have never heard anyone in poker talk about. I was, and I still am a skeptic. However, something strange is happening to me during my play. I attribute it to placebo effect, but I'm often wrong, so maybe this nonsense isn't complete nonsense and it simply falls into a category that I can't explain and don't understand. Admittedly, I've done nearly zero research into the real science behind this, so maybe it's already been proven one way or the other, I honestly don't know and will probably never spend any time doing such research to find out it's validity.
I've always had trouble maintaining focus while I play. This problem is greatly enhanced when I try to play on Bovada/Ignition. The game play is so slow, and the 4 table limit makes it impossible for me to pay attention to the tables while I play. So about 2 weeks ago I tried something that I heard about on a podcast completely unrelated to poker. It's called "binaural beats", it's basically a bunch of noise, similar to music, and most people call it music, but that's a stretch imo. It's just sounds. Supposedly, or allegedly, certain sounds are capable of stimulating different parts of the brain, and the types of sounds called "binaural beats" stimulate whatever part of the brain that is needed for things like focus, concentration, memory, etc. I'm not saying that it works, but I can say that so far, it has worked for me, even if it's placebo effect. I play longer sessions, and more daily sessions than I have since the days of crushing games for 20 bb/100 across 20 tables, all while watching a movie on the side. And when I play, my mind doesn't drift away from poker, literally the only non-poker thing that I ever find myself thinking about during play is that I sometimes find myself thinking that my mind isn't drifting away as it usually does.
And I don't actually "listen" to the sounds, I don't even realize that they are there 99.9% of the time. I use my cell phone, with ear buds, and play a youtube video of these "binaural beats". I can still hear the computer just fine at normal volume. It isn't music, so you don't find it occupying any of your thoughts, it doesn't stimulate any emotion as music does, it's just background sound. It isn't annoying, like most background "noise" would be. It's very easy, at least for me, to just play poker and completely forget that the sounds are even there. The only time I'm reminded of them is that 0.1% of the time when I move my arm, snag the ear bud wire and rip it from my ears, or literally there are times that I so thoroughly forget about it that I pause a poker session for a bathroom break, stand up to walk to that bathroom, and rip the ear buds from my ears because I forget to remove them before walking away. Other than that, I don't lose focus, I don't have other thoughts entering my mind. I sit here playing poker, thinking about poker, in the moment, never dwelling on bad beats, never pondering "what if's", seldom do I even check the replayer unless there is a valid reason to do so for future EV. I find myself naturally playing more aggressively, attacking in more spots, because I'm noticing more spots, because I'm not thinking about a bad beat, or who might be on skype or about what movie I could watch while I play, I'm not singing along with whatever music I have in the background. I'm just playing poker, about as well as I can play, as bad as that might be.
Anyone ever tried "binaural beats" and if so, results?
With that in mind, I tried something that I have never heard anyone in poker talk about. I was, and I still am a skeptic. However, something strange is happening to me during my play. I attribute it to placebo effect, but I'm often wrong, so maybe this nonsense isn't complete nonsense and it simply falls into a category that I can't explain and don't understand. Admittedly, I've done nearly zero research into the real science behind this, so maybe it's already been proven one way or the other, I honestly don't know and will probably never spend any time doing such research to find out it's validity.
I've always had trouble maintaining focus while I play. This problem is greatly enhanced when I try to play on Bovada/Ignition. The game play is so slow, and the 4 table limit makes it impossible for me to pay attention to the tables while I play. So about 2 weeks ago I tried something that I heard about on a podcast completely unrelated to poker. It's called "binaural beats", it's basically a bunch of noise, similar to music, and most people call it music, but that's a stretch imo. It's just sounds. Supposedly, or allegedly, certain sounds are capable of stimulating different parts of the brain, and the types of sounds called "binaural beats" stimulate whatever part of the brain that is needed for things like focus, concentration, memory, etc. I'm not saying that it works, but I can say that so far, it has worked for me, even if it's placebo effect. I play longer sessions, and more daily sessions than I have since the days of crushing games for 20 bb/100 across 20 tables, all while watching a movie on the side. And when I play, my mind doesn't drift away from poker, literally the only non-poker thing that I ever find myself thinking about during play is that I sometimes find myself thinking that my mind isn't drifting away as it usually does.
And I don't actually "listen" to the sounds, I don't even realize that they are there 99.9% of the time. I use my cell phone, with ear buds, and play a youtube video of these "binaural beats". I can still hear the computer just fine at normal volume. It isn't music, so you don't find it occupying any of your thoughts, it doesn't stimulate any emotion as music does, it's just background sound. It isn't annoying, like most background "noise" would be. It's very easy, at least for me, to just play poker and completely forget that the sounds are even there. The only time I'm reminded of them is that 0.1% of the time when I move my arm, snag the ear bud wire and rip it from my ears, or literally there are times that I so thoroughly forget about it that I pause a poker session for a bathroom break, stand up to walk to that bathroom, and rip the ear buds from my ears because I forget to remove them before walking away. Other than that, I don't lose focus, I don't have other thoughts entering my mind. I sit here playing poker, thinking about poker, in the moment, never dwelling on bad beats, never pondering "what if's", seldom do I even check the replayer unless there is a valid reason to do so for future EV. I find myself naturally playing more aggressively, attacking in more spots, because I'm noticing more spots, because I'm not thinking about a bad beat, or who might be on skype or about what movie I could watch while I play, I'm not singing along with whatever music I have in the background. I'm just playing poker, about as well as I can play, as bad as that might be.
Anyone ever tried "binaural beats" and if so, results?
