[bookie]

There's this book blink that came out last year that's about the psychology of snap decisions--especially as experts make them. The thread on journal keeping reminded me of it. Experts sometimes do worse when they reason out why they think what they think...anyway it's an interesting book for those who are into thinking out the handicapping process.

[Mudcat]

I haven't read it.

I am definitely on the side of reasoning all my moves out. Snap decisions may work out once in awhile, but they aren't a good idea for me long-term.

I used to be much more impulsive (and I used to be a very bad gambler). Now if I get an impulse to snap for something, I stop myself. If it's right at gametime, I'd rather just pass and do nothing than make an impulse play. As I said, that has definitely not always been the case for me.

It has taken years to develop a calm discipline about these things but I believe it is one of my greatest assets.

[bookie]

One of the points of this book, though, is that experts know what they know so well that it's stored in their bodies as much as their brains and they more often get a feeling when something is right or wrong then an articulate insight.

Being impulsive, as I understand it, is actng for no reason at all except you want to act. Where as line-making, for example, causes you to refer back to all your line-making experience. Maybe this is one of the ways handidcapping can be said to be different than linemaking. The handicapper is looking for reasons that a certain game won't be like all the other games that are sort of like it.

[jjgold]

I think snap decisions are good sometimes but if you do it all the time you will make mistakes and some might be big..

[why]

"Moral of any story"; don't overthink, whatever that means!

[Illusion]

Sounds like a good read, I will have to check it out.

[bookie]

Illusion please get back with some comments after you've read it...it's not a book about handicapping, but I think the kind of intelligence it explores has everyhting to do with what handicapper's do and I'd be interested in discussing it more.

[Illusion]

I sure will bud.

[JMS33]

I agree with your assessment of" Blink" and how it may
relate to handicapping.
When I finish reading it, tomorrow or Sunday, I'll get back to you.

Excellent book! I can't believe that whole Coca-Cola Pepsi thing.

John.

[Illusion]

Welcome to SBR JMS33.

[bookie]

Nice to see somebody saw this thread JMS...look forward to your comments.

[JMS33]

Ok, I've finished Blink.
First of all, don't read this book for handicapping insights.
Read it because it's a great book about decision-making .

Bookie, do you agree with the author that you can train yourself

to make better snap decisions" Thin slice"?

I think when we are talking about handicapping we should talk
about decision-making, not snap decisions.
We are talking about sports betting, where our decision on a game
may come to us in a snap, but we don't have to react to it in a snap.

I just realized I may be over thinking this whole thing, which is not
what we are supposed to do.

[bookie]

Here's my take on Blink.

Blink is about two kinds of snap decisions. The kind experts make in their area of expertise, and the kind the rest of us make semi-unconsciously.

When it's about experts it's about how and why they go with their gut and it works for them, when it's about how the Joe Sixpack in all of us makes snap decisions it's about how and why those tend to go bad.

There's a stage of any decision-making process that has to do with information gathering. In handicapping there's obviously a potentially overwhelming amount of stuff to consider, so the trick (the condition for being an expert) is having a defined way to go through the cues to which you've decided to pay attention.

But then having done that, and in my case made a line, there's the further decision of what your confidence level is in that line. I made the Lions -1.5 over St. Louis last week and when I saw the opener at -3.5 I knew I'd made a mistake and just accepted the consensus line. I fold. No play.

How did I know? It was a feeling I got because I work really hard to get it. Blink's point for handicappers, I think, is that no matter what your spreadsheet tells you about correlation betweent this and that there's a moment at the end of the process where you have to decide whether to pull the trigger or not--and this book is about that moment.

[pags11]

never have heard of these guys...

[JMS33]

Is there any way to erase my previous posts
because
after a few days of reflection I've concluded
that I made a snap decision which was wrong.

I'm not going into a lot of detail here, actually none.

The bottom line is, those who made the right decisions
were the ones with the most experience and training.
Add information and instinct to the mix and you have
a good handicapper or line maker. And that's all I believe it is.

Talk about a 180° turn. I bought into the whole thing
much like I've done in the past with a hyped up game. You know
the ones were the whole world including the announcers are on
the same side of a game. Now I play the other side or not at all.

One last point; if I make a line on a game 1.5 and it comes out
at 3.5, I take a serious look at grabbing the 3.5. If you trust
your own line making you gotta figure the other guy screwed up.

[bookie]

The thing of it is that trusting your line-making is not an all or nothing thing. If you spend a lot of time following a sport I think you have to make a line on all games, that is, you have to have an opinion or try to have one by making a line. You have to do that to keep your feel. Assigning a confidence level to that line, however, is a seperate kind of decision. And one of the factors that can go into making it is the unexpected decisions of other price-makers.