See the previous article on poker intuition here. But there is more to say about this topic. So, intuition redux.

When I first started reading about poker, which was, alas, some time after I started playing, I was struck by how confidently writers would make statements about the strength or weakness of certain hands that differed from my beliefs.

I liked hands like K-Q (suited or otherwise); thought it was a pretty good holding. I'd raise with it from early position, call raises from others and occasionally even reraise with it.

But the books demurred. I also realized that good players thought it was a deeply problematical holding that should be played with caution, if at all.

I didn't understand. It still looked like a bloody good starting hand. It was ahead of a lot of hands others were playing and it had sooooo much potential, especially soooooted. And all those pretty colors.

But life changed. When I picked up K-Q I noticed an odd emotional reaction, an affective twitch with a distinct negative feel to it. Like the smell of a food I don't particularly like or the sound of a song I hate.

Visual facsimile of a small, quiet piece of your brain leaking negative feelings.

There wasn't much thought here. I didn't find myself thinking, "Gee look at all that paint, I hate paint." I didn't find myself saying, "Oh, K-Q again. This is a hand that can be problematical. I better be careful."

No, it was more intuitive: some small, quiet piece of my brain was leaking negative feelings.

This kind of thing should feel familiar. All top-flight players get it. In fact, my claim here is that these "intuitive" sensations, these vague experiences that one hand is trouble but another not, lies behind those hand recommendations that are found in so many poker books.

Here's how it goes. Guy sits down to play poker. Picks up some hands, plays them in a bunch of different ways. Wins a couple, loses a couple; stacks some chips, rebuys ... again.

And so it goes, over and over for hours that run into days and months and years. Slowly, guy becomes pretty good at poker.

Why? Because he's now dumping hands he was playing earlier and playing other hands he was mucking before.

Why is he doing this? Because he keeps getting those funny, vague feelings that playing this holding is often followed by chip-stacking behavior and playing that one often results in that fatal cry, "Chips!"

So, you say, "Big cheese. You still haven't given me any legit advice I can use to improve my game." Actually, I have. But it's buried a bit. Let's dig some more.

What's going on here is right out of Psych 101: Classical conditioning. Pavlov and his salivating dogs.

You remember, right? Pavlov rings bell, feeds dog, dog salivates. Over and over. Eventually, Pavlov rings bell and dog salivates before the food shows up. Conditioning.

It also works in reverse. Pavlov rings bell, shocks dog. Dog experiences pain and fear. Over and over.

AC's intuition is so sharp he just heard a punter with K-Q four tables over call a UTG raise.

Eventually, Pavlov rings bell, dog experiences vague sense of fear before shock shows up. Conditioning.

See the point? Punter in mid position with K-Q calls UTG raise from rock. Gets felted. Feels pain and suffering. Over and over.

Eventually he picks up K-Q in mid position. Rock raises. Feels vague sense of anxiety. K-Q not good, like shock. Dump hand.

At last our hero makes this experience part of his conscious awareness. He realizes with scintillating insight and splendid articulatory capacity that K-Q is a trouble hand in these circumstances.

Player writes book listing K-Q as a hand to be played with great caution. Novice reads book. Appreciates what is being said in some distant, impersonal way. First time he sees K-Q thinks, "Gee, look at all those colors. Great hand. I call."

Now all this makes a certain measure of sense, and it actually explains some things.

It helps us see how the hand rankings came about. It helps us understand the role intuition plays and, importantly, it gives us insight into why practice and experience are so important.

Without the hours, days, weeks, months and years of play we can't expose ourselves to the vast array of distinct circumstances that allows us to build up that reservoir of intuitive reactions. And, of course, it lets us understand why so many Internet players got so good so fast.

There is one more professorial tidbit I need to dispense. Recently, neuroscientists at the University of Iowa had people play a simple card game by picking cards from one of two decks (A and B).

Deck A was "stacked" so that there was huge variance in the outcomes. Wins and losses were large but the deck had negative EV and, in the long run, playing with it cost money.

Deck B was less variable, with smaller wins and losses, but it had long-term positive EV. But the differences in EV weren't all that obvious, and it took a good bit of experience to discern them.

Listen to the quiet voice.

The scientists had everyone play while in an fMRI scanner so they could watch their brains when they made their choices. When Deck A was selected, activity in brain regions associated with unpleasant feelings "lit up" - and they did so before the players figured out the difference between the decks.

When asked later, they reported that they occasionally had vague negative feelings about that deck but didn't quite know why. But parts of their brains "knew" - before they knew they knew.

This is what I mean by intuition, and there's a lesson for us all here. Practice, practice, practice and listen to that quiet voice. When you experience a vague feeling that tossing chips into the pot isn't likely to be a "good thing," trust it.

You won't always be right; just often enough to make money. All top players do this and a lot of advice provided in poker books is based on it.

Author Bio:

Arthur Reber has been a poker player and serious handicapper of thoroughbred horses for four decades. He is the author of The New Gambler's Bible and coauthor of Gambling for Dummies. Formerly a regular columnist for Poker Pro Magazine and Fun 'N' Games magazine, he has also contributed to Card Player (with Lou Krieger), Poker Digest, Casino Player, Strictly Slots and Titan Poker. He outlined a new framework for evaluating the ethical and moral issues that emerge in gambling for an invited address to the International Conference of Gaming and Risk Taking.

Until recently he was the Broeklundian Professor of Psychology at The Graduate Center, City University of New York. Among his various visiting professorships was a Fulbright fellowship at the University of Innsbruck, Austria. Now semi-retired, Reber is a visiting scholar at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada.

More strategy articles from Arthur S. Reber:

• Reciprocality: Your Bottom Line Decoded
• The Bonehead Play
• Mental Edge and the WSOP Final Table
• Beyond Being Beyond-Pain