Fish play vs. Professional

The difference between a fish and a professional making a bad play is
that fish learn by negative reinforcement, whereas (agreeing with
Morphy -- excellent posts by the way, sir) a professional has
justification and reasoning behind his decision. He can explain why he
did what he did, whether it was a profitable decision or not. I don't
know the context behind Doyle's decision to play A3, but if his
opponent was loose-aggressive all night, Doyle may have thought that
pairing his Ace was good enough.

Moreover, a fish will make a bad play and after winning a big pot with
a hand that he should have never played to begin with, will continue
making the same play again and again only because of the remembrance
that it worked once before. The fish/donkey doesn't understand the
rationale behind his decision, but only that he held Ax and Ace
anything is good enough to play.

For example, when I was playing a $2/$4 game last night, I held AA in
late position. I hadn't played a hand in an hour, and after an early
raise and a call, I made it three bets to go. A fish called with A3.
The flop hits 2-4-5. There was multi way action through the turn and
river. You know the story, I'm sure.

Contrarily, four hands later, I held AQo in the SB and a tight player
raised and there was a re-raise in front of me. I laid it down, and the
BB capped it. The result: one held AA, the other KK, and the third AK.
The fish from the previous story would have instantly called with AQ or
even A3 and played it to the river. Now, I'm not a professional (I
don't do it for a living), but I know enough to realize when AQ is
beat pre-flop and therefore folded it.

In any event, the fish made bad calls with weak hands all night, and
was eventually busted. I'm confident he couldn't tell you
strategically how or why he lost so much money, but only that he was
unlucky. However, he'll always remember that A3 beat AA and will
forever play hands like that because it worked once. The learning
habits by way of negative reinforcement results in their own demise.

.

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