In a variety of walks of life, we often hear the phrase “trust your instincts”. Whether it’s in sports, relationships, business, the arts or anything else, there seems to be an innate recognition of the role of ‘instinct’ in success at almost any level of almost any discipline.

But what of poker? In a domain so clearly founded on the idea of mental competition, where physical skill, timing and technique don’t exist, but where decisions are made in real-time on a far more direct basis than in most other fields, can we still look at instinct in the same way? After all, we know it’s not about muscle memory in poker.

What is ‘instinct’?

Instinct is often quite poorly or vaguely defined. Someone might use a term like ‘gut reaction’ to mean something similar, but on a base level when we refer to instinct we’re really talking about a psychological mechanism that goes all the way back to the fight-or-flight response that humans have possessed for millennia.

If you’ve ever read any books by Jared Tendler, one of the most prominent names in the field of poker psychology (if you haven’t, I suggest you do), then you’ll have come into contact with the four types of competence that he outlines as a fundamental part of the learning process, the Adult Learning Model. One can be either Competent or Incompetent in something, and one can be either Conscious or Unconscious about it.

When we talk about instinct, we’re mostly talking about the things that are done (either correctly or incorrectly) on an unconscious level, so we’re either talking about Unconscious Competence or Unconscious Incompetence. Which one of those we’re talking about depends on how reliable one’s instincts are in the context.

The role of instinct in poker decision-making

In making decisions in poker, we often have a variety of impulses to sort through before we actually act in a hand. For some players, their first instinct often guides them to a significant degree – they don’t take a long time to act, and they often make mistakes as a result of a failure to consider all the relevant variables.

However, other players fall into the opposite category – they suffer from a mild kind of ‘decision paralysis’, where they are so out of touch with their instincts or lacking confidence in them that they attempt to subvert them completely, and simply ‘think their way out’ of every situation.

What we can learn from these two polar opposite types of players is that while our instincts are an important guide that we can use to aid us in difficult situations, we must avoid becoming over-dependent on them, while working hard to identify the situations that require conscious thought in order for the right decision to be made.

In short, we must figure out the areas in which our instincts can be relied upon, and the areas in which they can’t – or, in other words, separate the areas in which we are Unconsciously Competent from those in which we are Consciously Incompetent. This distinction represents the difference between making decisions based on instinct and making decisions based on conscious thought and logic.

If you’re wondering why we can’t look at the areas in which we’re Unconsciously Incompetent, it’s because we’re not conscious of them! It’s much easier to be confident in our competence at something which comes as second nature to us (Unconscious Competence) than it is to guess how much there is left that we don’t know.

You know more than you think you do…

One thing to remember about trusting your instincts is that experience counts for a lot. You may have an entire skill set below the surface that hasn’t shown itself at the level of conscious awareness yet.

Those players you see making huge hero-calls or big bluffs seemingly without a lot of rhyme or reason? A lot of the time they wouldn’t even necessarily be able to explain why they did it, it just ‘felt’ like the right spot, and they trusted that instinct. That instinct comes from practice and experience, and while it might be hard to explain using logic and rationality, it can often be quite reliable.

Of course, it’s important to recognise that these well-developed instincts are much like muscle memory for an athlete, in that they only show up after hours and hours of practice. But they’re there for almost anyone with the right level of experience, so even if you don’t consider yourself to be a poker expert, there might be times when your unconscious mind is trying to tell you something that your brain can’t quite decipher.

These instances will often be the times when you just get a ‘bad feeling’ about a certain situation – you’re playing live poker and your opponent just somehow looks very strong, or you’re playing online and a player’s timing tells just seem unusual somehow. You might not be able to confidently say, “players who do this are usually doing it for reasons X, Y and Z, and therefore I should do A, B or C”, but if you have the requisite level of experience, your gut might be correct anyway.

…But you don’t know everything

Despite all this, it’s crucial to recognize that if you’re still in the learning stages of your career, your instincts simply won’t have developed up to the appropriate point at which you should begin trusting them. Adopting a ‘beginner’s mind’ approach where you assume you don’t know something until proven otherwise would be wise to start out with.

A great number of inexperienced poker players have gotten themselves into trouble trusting their instincts when those instincts weren’t well-founded enough to justify it. Even high-level players might find that an unwillingness to take a moment or two before making an important decision could cost them a tournament or a huge cash game pot.

The key is to strike a balance between working hard enough on your game to develop the confidence of knowing that your instincts are based on experience, while also working on the habit of acknowledging your instincts in the moment of playing a hand, but pushing past it to allow for conscious thought on top of that.

You might sometimes see a hand on TV where a player will be on the verge of making a certain play, then think for a moment longer, change their mind, and end up at the right decision. The players who can do this are the ones who have mastered their instincts – they trust them enough to know that they are valuable, but not so much that they ignore conscious thoughts and logic. This is where you can get to in time, but like anything else, it starts with self-awareness and a willingness to change.