something sauce said

This is from his leggo blog, a July entry.

'People continually underestimate variance, which isn't surprising given our brains are made to hunt and gather.'

can someone explain what he's saying?

our perception of effective strategy (when hunting for success, be it bringing down a woolly mammoth or scooping a 400bb pot) is fashioned around the perceived success or failure of choices and outcomes that are significantly informed by superstition and pure dumb luck

we are, cognitively speaking, results-based animals and are built to respect and learn from results that are almost always impossible to consider with a long-term perspective

it s hard to be long term results oriented when you re hunting for your survival. in fact, it doesn t make biological sense

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Genitruc

our perception of effective strategy (when hunting for success, be it bringing down a woolly mammoth or scooping a 400bb pot) is fashioned around the perceived success or failure of choices and outcomes that are significantly informed by superstition and pure dumb luck

we are, cognitively speaking, results-based animals and are built to respect and learn from results that are almost always impossible to consider with a long-term perspective

it s hard to be long term results oriented when you re hunting for your survival. in fact, it doesn t make biological sense

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my head is about to explode

you should always add "..., so simply ...." bro)

Our brains constantly try to make patterns and tell a story that makes sense of the randomness. Read Fooled By Randomness by Nassim Talib.

On top of that, we're hardwired to be attracted to low odds of succes but high potential reward risks (mostly males here), because throughout evolution those that did hit their jackpots overtook the genepool. That's why so many play the lottery, roulette and other -EV gamblings.

hmmm very thoughtful responses in here.. just what i was looking for

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Genitruc

our perception of effective strategy (when hunting for success, be it bringing down a woolly mammoth or scooping a 400bb pot) is fashioned around the perceived success or failure of choices and outcomes that are significantly informed by superstition and pure dumb luck

we are, cognitively speaking, results-based animals and are built to respect and learn from results that are almost always impossible to consider with a long-term perspective

it s hard to be long term results oriented when you re hunting for your survival. in fact, it doesn t make biological sense

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good post sir!

this is one of the classic articles:

http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc...=rep1&type=pdf

Human minds use heuristics to quickly estimate probabilities. K + T and others try to explain these heuristics with an argument from evolutionary biology, and show where the heuristics are biased. Many situations where our (evolved) heuristics suck are situations which are highly abstract.

In poker, doing an operation like estimating variance is very vulnerable to these heuristics and biases. Despite consciously trying to accurately estimate your variance and the accompanying BR management strategy you will almost invariably be too conservative or too aggressive based on recent history and other date which you are hardwired to overvalue in your calculations.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by sauce123

In poker, doing an operation like estimating variance is very vulnerable to these heuristics and biases. Despite consciously trying to accurately estimate your variance and the accompanying BR management strategy you will almost invariably be too conservative or too aggressive based on recent history and other date which you are hardwired to overvalue in your calculations.

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The same thing can easily happen in play, where recent results bias the quick range estimations you have to constantly make. I find that's especially true of newer players that start multi-tabling on auto-pilot.