Neroscience + Poker

Poker Neuroscience

Take your level of play further with neuroscience techniques applied to poker

Neuroscience + Poker

Poker Neuroscience

Take your level of play further with neuroscience techniques applied to poker

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What is It?

Poker Neuroscience

Poker neuroscience is a service that applies neuroscientific techniques to training and improvement in the mental sport of poker. Through neuroscience techniques, an analysis of individual emotional and unconscious response is performed to better understand the strengths and weaknesses of the poker player, exploit the mental game and prevent or treat the tilt.

We apply our more than 20 years experience in research and application of neuroscience to human behavior to improve your poker.

We Make

Neuroscience to improve your Poker

Example of an experiment analyzing the game, in which the following emotions are measured every second: happy, sad, angry, surprised, disgusted, scared, emotional arousal, engagement, focus, stress, relaxation and heat map of the player´s gaze

We conduct individualized research studies, so the poker player can detect which aspects or situations of the game cause the most emotional activation, identifying the basic emotion that produces them (joy, sadness, fear, anger, surprise, disgust and neutrality), and a set of secondary emotions fundamental to the game, such as emotional intensity, stress, engagement, emotional valence, excitement, focus, and relaxation.

We use implicit association test techniques to detect unconscious connections between poker game concepts and attributes or qualities. For example, it could be observed that a 3B or 4B situation produces, at an unconscious level, an aversion to risk, or an excessively aggressive response.

Scientific rigour

Objective data

Real improvement of the game

Last technologies

Prevention and treatment of the tilt

Individualized coaching and reports

All this neuroscientific information is used to identify aspects of the game that have led or may lead to tilt, and strengthen those that the player has more consolidated.

Services.

We design neuroscientific consulting studies on gambling, both on-site in our facilities, and online. It is also possible to travel with our portable laboratory to the player’s home.

The online programs use technologies based on facial coding, implicit assocation test software, eyetracking, with your own computer camera. An easy to use electroencephalogram of the latest technology is also sent to the player’s residence, for a more accurate scientific data. The process is always guided by the Poker neuroscience staff, to obtain reliable and systematic information.



We gather unconscious and emotional information from different poker sessions of the player (both in person and online). This data is used to elaborate a complete report in which the player’s strengths and improvement areas are defined. The design entails analysing the emotional response to different game situations, and detecting elements and scenarios that can interfere with the correct game, being susceptible to tilt. For those players who are currently on tilt, this analysis offers a valuable tool to get out of it, relying on our coaching services, always based on the rigor of neuroscientific data.

We also offer both on-site and online training services in the physical and mental game of poker.

Contact Us

Video example. Experiment analyzing the game, in which the following emotions are measured each second: happy, sad, angry, disgusted, surprised, scared, emotional arousal, engagement, focus, stress, relaxation and heat map of player´s gaze

 

Facial Coding

Galvanic Skin Response

Implicit association test

Electroencephalogram

Eye tracker

Heart Rate

Poker is a zero-sum, incomplete information mental sport. Decisions are made through success rates in each one individually, so the total perceived risk is high. It’s a game where a hand like “5 7 o” beats “A K s” more than one out of three times.

In no other sport does a world star lose as much as in poker, so an amateur could beat a top player, due to the great influence of variance. No one in their right mind would bet they could win a game at world number 1 in chess or tennis. But the same is not true in the case of poker. That is why professional players must work their mental game as intensely as their knowledge of the physical game (mathematics, statistics …).

It is a sport in which neither the variance, nor the cards nor the rivals’ game is controlled. You only control what you can do with the cards that you play. You can lose everything in one hand. And you can make two triple-ups in a row and become the chip leader almost from the bottom.

These situations require a systematic game based on a physical and mental game plan, with its own objectives and strategy, so that the results are based on objective metrics, beyond economic achievement, highly influenced by variance.

Bad beats. Coolers, flips. Fish winning. Downswings. Control illusion. Bankroll breakdown (negative emotions fear, loss of confidence, risk…), there are many aspects in poker that can lead the player to a mental block or tilt situation.

Mikel Alonso, CEO of Poker Neuroscience, defines tilt as “unconscious and emotional impulse that occurs for various reasons and events in the mental sport of poker and that leads the player to screw it up hopelessly”.

There are different types of tilt, such as variance tilt, error tilt, villain tilt or personal tilt. But they all have an unconscious origin and their prevention and precise treatment of information of an unconscious and emotional nature for their overcoming, through psychological and coaching techniques ”.

About Us? .

Poker Neuroscience is a consulting, training and research service applied to poker, developed in collaboration with BRAINTERPRETER®, and directed by Mikel Alonso.

Mikel Alonso

Mikel Alonso is CEO of Poker Neuroscience

Researcher, writer, speaker and doctor from the UCM with a cum laude doctoral thesis in neuroscience applied to people’s behavior, he has given lectures in multiple companies, including a Smart talk for Banco Santander in January 2020, and has been included in the catalog TOP 100 Speakers of Thinking Heads 2020. Associate professor for more than 25 years at the Universidad Complutense, Universidad CarlosIII and ESIC, he has dozens of research articles in neuroscience in the main international scientific journals. Director and Founder of Neuromarketing School®, a company of Consulting and Training in neuroscience, has developed the brain research solution BRAINTERPRETER®, and has more than 20 years of experience investigating behavior through neuroscience. A fan of Texas Holdem without limits, he is a recreational player of physical poker and professional of mental poker.

Mikel Alonso

Director de Poker Neuroscience

Tania Jauni

Psicóloga especializada

Tania Jauni

High performance specialist psychologist

She has worked in high performance sports programs at the University of Valencia at the Sport Psychology Research Unit. His great knowledge of the human brain thanks to his degrees in Psychology and Chemical Sciences and his postgraduate degree in Systemic Therapy, allow him to carry out high-performance programs to improve the particular mental game strengths of each player, and to carry out advanced cognitive restructuring techniques and systemic coaching to overcome tilt.

Contact.

Write to us and we will get in touch with you.

    E-mail

    poker@pokerneuroscience.com

    Dirección

    C/Hermosilla 48, 1º drcha
    
Madrid 28001, Spain