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Conditioned responses have been pretty heavily studied by science for years. It has taught researchers and scientists that many animals, even some of the more basic and considered less intelligent ones, can be conditioned to expect a certain result from an action. The less intelligent species are not able to interpret new actions or situations in the same way as the conditioned event. To make this connection, they must be conditioned to have that reaction. The animals only correlate the one specific even to the result they are conditioned to expect. Oddly enough, much of this applies to playing poker, specifically to the tells each player has and how the opponents interpret those tells.
It is very easy to get so wrapped up in a game that a player does not watch the other players. This is, however, a novice mistake. A good player will monitor the competition to see how they react to different hands they are dealt to better interpret how they handle a good hand from a bad hand. Most people will react differently, and unfortunately, rather predictably based on the hand they are dealt. Another mistake that most poker players make is to focus on just one tell for each player. Once a tell is recognized, the player will have a harder time determining or seeing another sign that could give away important information about another player. Like an animal conditioned to expect food at the ring of a bell that won’t expect the same result from any other sound, players have locked onto one single event or reaction and fail to see the correlation between other actions to the same outcome. Like the more advanced species, an outstanding poker player is able to make multiple connections for all of the opposition to different quirks, expressions, and reactions that give away vital information about what kind of cards they hold.
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