Time distortion

[Swordpoker]

Most of you guys know that I'm into some bizarre mind stuff. I'm currently doing some experimentation with 'Time Distortion' and would like to hear of your experiences of this while playing poker.

To explain what I'm on about:

You know these expressions? 'A watched pot never boils' and 'Time flies when you're having fun' That's time distortion. i.e. When things happen in your mind at a different speed to reality.

Here's a common example. Have you ever been in a car crash? And did time radically slow down during that experience?

I suspect that good multi-tablers constantly use time distortion when they play, almost certainly subconsciously, but how many of you are aware of doing it?

In live play, those of you who play on 2 or 3 day tourneys. How long does it actually feel like?

I hope to use your feedback to help find ways to deliberately distort time to make multi-tabling easier and, of course, if I figure it out I'll share my findings with you.

Cheers

[Ironside]

when i crashed my bike everything went so fast i can hardly remember it

when i got dropped down the stairs everything was a blurr (might have been the 23 vodkas i had to drink)

when i won the wsop 2010 (sorry thats time travel not distortion)

[Sark79]

I think fighter jet pilots and F1 drivers must interpret things quicker than us mere mortals, it must seem perfectly normal to them and to us it would be overwhelming

[happybhoy]

Well LSD would certainly fulfill the time distortion requirements but the hand histories while multi-tabling would probably make for a good laugh if nothing else.

[madasahatstand]

hi sword

are you trying to unravel what happens in the mind in relation to this time distoration? it will be a complicated business if you are. monks and people that get themselves into time distorted states take many years to master this state of altered perception. i would be interested in your approach to the problem and where your going to begin? im not sure automatic pilot can be switched on and off just like that but it would be a great coup for you if you at least understand what variables your working with. im more than willing to help if i can keep up with you good luck 

mad

[Swordpoker]

hi sword

are you trying to unravel what happens in the mind in relation to this time distoration? it will be a complicated business if you are. monks and people that get themselves into time distorted states take many years to master this state of altered perception. i would be interested in your approach to the problem and where your going to begin? im not sure automatic pilot can be switched on and off just like that but it would be a great coup for you if you at least understand what variables your working with. im more than willing to help if i can keep up with you good luck 

mad

It definitely can be switched on and off easily.....I already do it to some extent playing poker and I have used it for years as a fencer. I not only want to become much better at it but I want to be able to distort time in other people's minds too (e.g. to get the fencers I train to be able to do it).

Yes, it's what happens in the mind to make the time distortion that I'm interested in. Different people do it in different ways. If I can try out many different strategies then I can figure out which ones work best, mess around with the variables to try to improve on them and then hopefully come up with some fab answers.

Oh, and I don't have the patience to be a monk. I'll take the fast route


Are you aware of having distorted time?

[thetank]

I think I distort it the other way, stick on some albums I like so a 4 hour sesh flies by and I can get on with, erm, the next four hour session.

[madasahatstand]

hi sword

are you trying to unravel what happens in the mind in relation to this time distoration? it will be a complicated business if you are. monks and people that get themselves into time distorted states take many years to master this state of altered perception. i would be interested in your approach to the problem and where your going to begin? im not sure automatic pilot can be switched on and off just like that but it would be a great coup for you if you at least understand what variables your working with. im more than willing to help if i can keep up with you good luck 

mad

It definitely can be switched on and off easily.....I already do it to some extent playing poker and I have used it for years as a fencer.

how can it be? do you mean like going into a meditative state or something else? im thinking off and on is a bit too clever

[Swordpoker]

I think I distort it the other way, stick on some albums I like so a 4 hour sesh flies by and I can get on with, erm, the next four hour session.

This could be interesting. I wonder if you distort times both ways at once.

If you were to 7 table cash games, would you feel you had the same amount of time to make your decisions? If not, then how much, or rather how little, time would it feel like?

When you put these albums on how long does the 4 hour session feel like?

[Swordpoker]

how can it be? do you mean like going into a meditative state or something else? im thinking off and on is a bit too clever

Yes, I change my state of mind. It's a subconscious process so I don't have to think about it or remember to switch it on, it just happens. Although now, I'm able to also consciously 'switch it on' when I want to. If I'm standing in a long queue, for example, I can speed time up so it feels like the queue has moved really quickly and I'm at the front in no time at all.

There is no 'special ability' in this. Everyone does it to some extent. I just want to find out which of you guys are really good at it so I can learn what it is that you do differently to the way I do it.

By the way. It doesn't matter if you don't know how you do it. Just let me know if you've noticed the experience first of all.

[Moskvich]

Interesting thread, am keen to see where it goes... But having said that, I'm not sure I really understand what you're on about lol.

Obviously I see that time seems to go faster at some times than others - but isn't that a function of what your brain's doing, rather than something you can adjust to help the function of your brain..? For example - in the car crash example, to most people it would seem that time slows down, which is presumably to do with the the adrenaline etc that kicks in when you know you're about to hit something. Your brain becomes completely focused on that, rather than thinking about all sorts of other nonsense that you might not even really be aware of. Similarly in sport - that feeling of being "in the zone" where everything is completely focused on what you're doing, so everything seems slower and you feel in control and as though you have more time to react.

Like you say though, this works the other way as well, as although things might seem to be slower as they're happening, the entire 'activity' might seem to go relatively quickly. I guess for me the best example I could give would be playing cricket - when you're in the zone (it's a few years since I have been lol) the ball might seem to get to you slower. But at the same time you might bat for two hours and it could feel like twenty minutes.

Doing exams used to be similar - three hours might go by really quickly, but when you think back over the three hours and realise how much you did in that time (hopefully...) it seems as if the time actually went really slowly.

Again, it seems to me that's a function of being 'in the zone'.

Obviously you want to be in the zone when you're playing poker, so that you're really focused, concentrating and in control. That will have this effect on your perception of time, just as in the sports, exams or car crash examples.

What I don't really see (and don't understand from what you say) is how you would be able to change your perception of time and hence somehow 'back in' to the zone from there. Or why you'd particularly want to try. Achieving that level of focus is presumably the aim, and I reckon thatthis  is the precondition for, rather than the result of, the different perception of time. No?

[bolt pp]

Interesting thread, am keen to see where it goes... But having said that, I'm not sure I really understand what you're on about lol.

 

Paragraph of the year!

[Swordpoker]

What I don't really see (and don't understand from what you say) is how you would be able to change your perception of time and hence somehow 'back in' to the zone from there. Or why you'd particularly want to try. Achieving that level of focus is presumably the aim, and I reckon thatthis  is the precondition for, rather than the result of, the different perception of time. No?

I'm deliberately not saying how I do it, not yet anyway. Because my intention here is to find out how other people do it.

Your comments on the 'precondition' as opposed to 'the result of' are interesting. This is a part of what I've been playing with in my mind. i.e. 'Did I really experience time distortion' or 'Is my memory of that event distorted'. I have experienced examples of the former being true for at least some cases. I've a great piece of video footage for example of a fencing fight I had. My opponent and I did 4 moves each.... paused....... then did another 2 moves. The referee made a decision after saying there were only 2 moves. Both me and my opponent (apparently also good at time distortion) argued with the ref over the decision and explained what we thought had happened. It was only when I played back video footage of the fight that I discovered the whole sequence took less than a second (and that's including the pause!). If I was refereeing I might only have seen 2 moves also. With hindsight, relying on my memory, I reckon the sequence felt like 8 or 9 seconds long. So, when I'm in the zone, I know I can slow down time by at least a factor of 8. My memory could still be distorted but our argument with the ref and discussion with a spectator definitely shows me that he had a very different perspective on 'how fast' our fight was going.

It seems to me that you are very aware of having distorted time yourself. I'll pm you with some questions.

[KingPoker]

Really two different subjects are being discussed here, one is phsiological and the other psychological.

In sport, and from studies that i have looked at reaction times are simply a process which can be developed. Its not hard to understand that Tae-kwondo experts have a much faster synaptic response to stimulus than a normal person walking down the street. It is fairly easy to train somebody to respond quicker to a stimulus and react quicker but it is impossible to say that that trained person then sees everything in slow mo and has more tme to think about what he is going to do because he doesnt. Its more like an automated response, if somebody raises their arm to punch at me (in the scenario of me being the expert) then i react quicker yes but only because i know what im going to do because it has been drilled into me through sparring, training, previous fights etc. What i would not be able to do is think about what i am going to do and then do it because he will have hit me.

You cannot use the car crash as a way of showing it is possible to slow perception of time down because that is a subconcious response which IMO cannot be brought through to the concious.

And again in my opinion pro multi tablers dont use a method of slowing time down, or 'time distortion' but instead act exactly in the same way that the above mentioned tae kwondo martial artist would. He knows exactly what he is going to do with each hand and classes his opponents like a fighter would before it all kicks off. He knows who to tackle and knows who to avoid. It is almost just an automated response and has a more developed synoptic pathway from the eye to the brain than the average player.
 
So dont go wasting your time trying to control time, just take up a martial art! Or in a more sensible way to develop your multi tabling just play play play and you will find your game will become more automated and take you a lot less time to make each decision (maybe that is what can be said to be time distortion, who knows!).  
 

[KingPoker]

What I don't really see (and don't understand from what you say) is how you would be able to change your perception of time and hence somehow 'back in' to the zone from there. Or why you'd particularly want to try. Achieving that level of focus is presumably the aim, and I reckon thatthis  is the precondition for, rather than the result of, the different perception of time. No?

I'm deliberately not saying how I do it, not yet anyway. Because my intention here is to find out how other people do it.

Your comments on the 'precondition' as opposed to 'the result of' are interesting. This is a part of what I've been playing with in my mind. i.e. 'Did I really experience time distortion' or 'Is my memory of that event distorted'. I have experienced examples of the former being true for at least some cases. I've a great piece of video footage for example of a fencing fight I had. My opponent and I did 4 moves each.... paused....... then did another 2 moves. The referee made a decision after saying there were only 2 moves. Both me and my opponent (apparently also good at time distortion) argued with the ref over the decision and explained what we thought had happened. It was only when I played back video footage of the fight that I discovered the whole sequence took less than a second (and that's including the pause!). If I was refereeing I might only have seen 2 moves also. With hindsight, relying on my memory, I reckon the sequence felt like 8 or 9 seconds long. So, when I'm in the zone, I know I can slow down time by at least a factor of 8. My memory could still be distorted but our argument with the ref and discussion with a spectator definitely shows me that he had a very different perspective on 'how fast' our fight was going.

It seems to me that you are very aware of having distorted time yourself. I'll pm you with some questions.

I see what you are saying but you seem to be looking at this like you were in a zen like state. You wernt. It is just simply (in my above post i could have used the fencer instead of the tae-kwondo as is basically the same) that you as a fencer have a highly developed synoptic pathway where your reactions may be up to 8 x the speed of a normal person. If i were to go into a fencing match with you, by the time i have lifted my sword (correct term?) to go for you, your eye would have seen me lifting my arm, sent that signal from your eye to the brain, the brain interpreted the information, decided how to respond, send that response to your arm and your muscles in your arm to be stimulated and nail me all in around 200th of a second where as if it had been you attacking and me having to respond it would probably take me around 700th of a second to respond, a massive difference!
But give me 6/12 weeks of fencing lessons and i may have that reaction time down to 400th of a second and further down the line i may be able to react at the same speed as you.
So my point being the subject you are referring to is a physiological one and not psychological.