Projection in Poker
Projection is a classic phenomenon in psychology, and poker. Understanding projection could make you a lot of money around the green felt. Here's they key line from the Penguin Dictionary of Psychology.
Projection: The process by which one ascribes one's own traits, emotions and dispositions to another.
The definition goes on for nearly a page, but this single sentence captures the essence of the concept and gives us what we need to see how this principle can be crucial in poker.
There are innumerable times at the table when we are forced to make an educated guess about what is happening in a hand, what our opponents are likely doing and what message is being told by the various elements of the game in progress. As many have noted, poker is a game of incomplete information. We have data on betting patterns, we get to see some of the cards, we know the position of each player in a hand and, of course, we have what our opponents have given us by how they have been playing. But, still, we often don't really know all that much.
So, what do we do? If we're decent players we sift the information that we have. We read our opponents as best as we can, we calculate pot odds and implied odds and make what we hope are the best decisions. If we are experienced players, we probably have a few other arrows in our quiver. We can make decent reads on our opponents, try making moves by putting pressure on them and seeing how they react and use whatever plays we have to try to make them make a mistake. But, in the final analysis, whether we fold, call or raise depends heavily on what we believe our opponents are holding.
What Would I Do?
Here is where projection comes in. Poker players, being members of this quirky species of ours, often make erroneous reads because they assume that their opponents are just like them. Assuming that someone is "just like me" is, in a rather primitive way, what all the fancy psycho-babble about projection comes down to.
In psychology, projection is considered to be a defense mechanism. This means that people use it to protect themselves from anxiety and other psychologically disturbing circumstances. We all use projection to defend ourselves from unhappy truths. Classic examples abound. People often assume that other people are angry when it's really them. Others insist that a friend of theirs is frightened about upcoming events when they themselves are the fearful ones. It's a useful defense because it works. It is much easier to live your life if you think others are wee timid beasties, than have to admit you're the wimp.
But, as the great geographer of the human soul, Sigmund Freud, noted, all defense mechanisms have booby traps associated with them. If you consistently misrepresent matters and lead yourself away from truths that are known to others, you can end up with problems worse than ones your defense mechanism was protecting you from in the first place.
And so it is in poker.
Players who bluff tend to think that other players are bluffing when they bet. Those whose game is built around aggressive pushing of strong hands tend to interpret others as strong when they raise or check-raise. Players who like to make "moves" see others as making them. Those who only bet with the nuts are fearful of all-in bets by others.
In short, they tend to project their own "traits, emotions and dispositions to another" just as the dictionary says. And, fascinatingly, all this takes place with little or no conscious awareness.
Ok, this isn't terribly controversial, but, is it bad? Is it good? Well, of course, it's both, as good old Siggy noted. All defense mechanisms work to protect us, provided the circumstances are appropriate. And so it is in poker. Projection will work just fine if you're right. If your opponent does, indeed, tend to bluff often, then you are more likely than most others to catch him at it. If he's going to bluff off of his chips, you're going to get them. The same goes if your opponent plays in any of a number of other ways, so long as they match yours. You will be less likely to get trapped by a trapper and more likely to detect a move by an opponent who is a bit of a trickster.
But the danger is that there are so many ways to play, so many different kinds of moves to make, so many varied strategies to engage that it becomes less and less likely that your "projections" are correct. And when they're not, you're going to be in trouble.