Your reputation doesn’t matter. Once the rules are changed, you are on a slippery slope of changing rules. The game slowly ceases to be poker.
When I am playing chess, I demand that the white moves first. When I find myself as the black, knowing that the opponent had whites the last game and it is now my turn to make the first move, I rather change places or rotate the chessboard than play the first move with the blacks, although it would not change my chances of winning. (I don’t remember the standard openings, so I wouldn’t be confused by the change of colors. And even if I were, this would be the same for the opponent.)
Rules are rules in order to be respected. They are often a lot arbitrary, but you shouldn’t change any arbitrary rule during the game without prior consent of the others, even if it provably has no effect to the winning odds.
I think this is a fairly useful heuristic. Usually, when a player tries to change the rules, he has some reason, and usually, the reason is to increase his own chances of winning. Even if you opponent doesn’t see any profit which you can get from changing the rules, he may suppose that there is one. Maybe you remember somehow that there are better or worse cards in the middle of the pack. Or you are trying to test their attention. Or you want to make more important changes of rules later, and wanted to have a precedent for doing that. These possibilities are quite realistic in gambling, and therefore is is considered a bad manner to change the rules in any way during the game.
I don’t know how to respond to this. I feel like I have addressed all of these points elsewhere in the comments.
A summary:
The poker game is an example. There are more examples involving things with less obvious rules.
My reputation matters in the sense that they know wasn’t trying to cheat. As such, when pestered for an answer they are not secretly thinking, “Cheater.” This should imply that they are avoiding the cheater-heuristic or are unaware that they are using the cheater-heuristic.
I confronted my friends and asked for a reasonable answer. Heuristics were not offered. No one complained about broken rules or cheating. They complained that they were not going to get their card.
It seems to be a problem with ownership. If this sense of ownership is based on a heuristic meant to detect cheaters or suspicious situations… okay, I can buy that. But why would someone who knows all of the probabilities involved refuse to admit that cutting the deck doesn’t matter? Pride?
One more thing of note: They argued against the abstract scenario. This scenario assumed no cheating and no funny business. They still thought it mattered.
Personally, I think this is a larger issue than catching cheaters. People seemed somewhat attached to the anti-cheating heuristic. Would it be worth me typing up an addendum addressing that point in full?
If this sense of ownership is based on a heuristic meant to detect cheaters or suspicious situations… okay, I can buy that. But why would someone who knows all of the probabilities involved refuse to admit that cutting the deck doesn’t matter? Pride? … People seemed somewhat attached to the anti-cheating heuristic.
The System 1 suspicion-detector would be less effective if System 2 could override it, since System 2 can be manipulated.
(Another possibility may be loss aversion, making any change unattractive that guarantees a different outcome without changing the expected value. (I see hugh already mentioned this.) A third, seemingly less likely, possibility is intuitive ‘belief’ in the agency of the cards, which is somehow being undesirably thwarted by changing the ritual.)
I really don’t know. Unusual mental architecture, like high reflectivity or ‘stronger’ deliberative relative to non-deliberative motivation? Low paranoia? High trust in logical argument?
People seemed somewhat attached to the anti-cheating heuristic. Would it be worth me typing up an addendum addressing that point in full?
Depends, of course, on what exactly you would say and how much unpleasant the writing is for you.
My reputation matters in the sense that they know wasn’t trying to cheat. As such, when pestered for an answer they are not secretly thinking, “Cheater.” This should imply that they are avoiding the cheater-heuristic or are unaware that they are using the cheater-heuristic.
I would say that they impement the rule-changing-heuristic, which is not automatically thought of as an instance of the cheater-heuristic, even if it evolved from it. Changing the rules makes people feeling unsafe, people who do it without good reason are considered dangerous, but not automatically cheaters.
EDIT: And also, from your description it seems that you have deliberately broken a rule without giving any reason for that. It is suspicious.
I would say that they impement the rule-changing-heuristic, which is not automatically thought of as an instance of the cheater-heuristic, even if it evolved from it. Changing the rules makes people feeling unsafe, people who do it without good reason are considered dangerous, but not automatically cheaters.
This behavior is repeated in scenarios where the rules are not being changed or there aren’t “rules” in the sense of a game and its rules. These examples are significantly fuzzier which is why I chose the poker example.
The lottery ticket example is the first that comes to mind.
EDIT: And also, from your description it seems that you have deliberately broken a rule without giving any reason for that. It is suspicious.
Why wouldn’t the complaint then take the form of, “You broke the rules! Stop it!”?
Why wouldn’t the complaint then take the form of, “You broke the rules! Stop it!”?
Because people aren’t good at telling their actual reason for disagreement. I suspect that they are aware that the particular rule is arbitrary and doesn’t influence the game, and almost everybody agrees that blindly following the rules is not a good idea. So “you broke the rules” doesn’t sound as a good justification. “You have influenced the outcome”, on the other hand, does sound like a good justification, even if it is irrelevant.
The lottery ticked example is a valid argument, which is easily explained by attachment to random objects and which can’t be explained by rule-changing heuristic. However, rule-fixing sentiments certainly exist and I am not sure which play stronger role in the poker scenario. My intuition was that the poker scenario was more akin to, say, playing tennis in non-white clothes in the old times when it was demanded, or missing the obligatory bow before the match in judo.
Now, I am not sure which of these effects is more important in the poker scenario, and moreover I don’t see by which experiment we can discriminate between the explanation.
But this isn’t a rule of the game—it’s an implementation issue. The game is the same so long as cards are randomly selected without replacement from a deck of the appropriate sort.
That the game has the same structure either way is recognized only at a more abstract mental level than the level that the negative reaction comes from; in most people, I suspect the abstract level isn’t ‘strong enough’ here to override the more concrete/non-inferential/sphexish level.
The ideal decision algorithm used in the game remains the same, but people don’t look at it this way. It is a rule, since it is how they have learned the game.
Your reputation doesn’t matter. Once the rules are changed, you are on a slippery slope of changing rules. The game slowly ceases to be poker.
When I am playing chess, I demand that the white moves first. When I find myself as the black, knowing that the opponent had whites the last game and it is now my turn to make the first move, I rather change places or rotate the chessboard than play the first move with the blacks, although it would not change my chances of winning. (I don’t remember the standard openings, so I wouldn’t be confused by the change of colors. And even if I were, this would be the same for the opponent.)
Rules are rules in order to be respected. They are often a lot arbitrary, but you shouldn’t change any arbitrary rule during the game without prior consent of the others, even if it provably has no effect to the winning odds.
I think this is a fairly useful heuristic. Usually, when a player tries to change the rules, he has some reason, and usually, the reason is to increase his own chances of winning. Even if you opponent doesn’t see any profit which you can get from changing the rules, he may suppose that there is one. Maybe you remember somehow that there are better or worse cards in the middle of the pack. Or you are trying to test their attention. Or you want to make more important changes of rules later, and wanted to have a precedent for doing that. These possibilities are quite realistic in gambling, and therefore is is considered a bad manner to change the rules in any way during the game.
I don’t know how to respond to this. I feel like I have addressed all of these points elsewhere in the comments.
A summary:
The poker game is an example. There are more examples involving things with less obvious rules.
My reputation matters in the sense that they know wasn’t trying to cheat. As such, when pestered for an answer they are not secretly thinking, “Cheater.” This should imply that they are avoiding the cheater-heuristic or are unaware that they are using the cheater-heuristic.
I confronted my friends and asked for a reasonable answer. Heuristics were not offered. No one complained about broken rules or cheating. They complained that they were not going to get their card.
It seems to be a problem with ownership. If this sense of ownership is based on a heuristic meant to detect cheaters or suspicious situations… okay, I can buy that. But why would someone who knows all of the probabilities involved refuse to admit that cutting the deck doesn’t matter? Pride?
One more thing of note: They argued against the abstract scenario. This scenario assumed no cheating and no funny business. They still thought it mattered.
Personally, I think this is a larger issue than catching cheaters. People seemed somewhat attached to the anti-cheating heuristic. Would it be worth me typing up an addendum addressing that point in full?
The System 1 suspicion-detector would be less effective if System 2 could override it, since System 2 can be manipulated.
(Another possibility may be loss aversion, making any change unattractive that guarantees a different outcome without changing the expected value. (I see hugh already mentioned this.) A third, seemingly less likely, possibility is intuitive ‘belief’ in the agency of the cards, which is somehow being undesirably thwarted by changing the ritual.)
Why can I override mine? What makes me different from my friends? The answer isn’t knowledge of math or probabilities.
I really don’t know. Unusual mental architecture, like high reflectivity or ‘stronger’ deliberative relative to non-deliberative motivation? Low paranoia? High trust in logical argument?
Depends, of course, on what exactly you would say and how much unpleasant the writing is for you.
I would say that they impement the rule-changing-heuristic, which is not automatically thought of as an instance of the cheater-heuristic, even if it evolved from it. Changing the rules makes people feeling unsafe, people who do it without good reason are considered dangerous, but not automatically cheaters.
EDIT: And also, from your description it seems that you have deliberately broken a rule without giving any reason for that. It is suspicious.
This behavior is repeated in scenarios where the rules are not being changed or there aren’t “rules” in the sense of a game and its rules. These examples are significantly fuzzier which is why I chose the poker example.
The lottery ticket example is the first that comes to mind.
Why wouldn’t the complaint then take the form of, “You broke the rules! Stop it!”?
Because people aren’t good at telling their actual reason for disagreement. I suspect that they are aware that the particular rule is arbitrary and doesn’t influence the game, and almost everybody agrees that blindly following the rules is not a good idea. So “you broke the rules” doesn’t sound as a good justification. “You have influenced the outcome”, on the other hand, does sound like a good justification, even if it is irrelevant.
The lottery ticked example is a valid argument, which is easily explained by attachment to random objects and which can’t be explained by rule-changing heuristic. However, rule-fixing sentiments certainly exist and I am not sure which play stronger role in the poker scenario. My intuition was that the poker scenario was more akin to, say, playing tennis in non-white clothes in the old times when it was demanded, or missing the obligatory bow before the match in judo.
Now, I am not sure which of these effects is more important in the poker scenario, and moreover I don’t see by which experiment we can discriminate between the explanation.
This is the best synopsis of the “true rejection” article I have ever seen.
That works for me. I am not convinced that the rule-changing heuristic was the cause but I think you have defended your position adequately.
But this isn’t a rule of the game—it’s an implementation issue. The game is the same so long as cards are randomly selected without replacement from a deck of the appropriate sort.
(The first Google hit for “texas hold’em rules” in fact mentions burning cards.)
That the game has the same structure either way is recognized only at a more abstract mental level than the level that the negative reaction comes from; in most people, I suspect the abstract level isn’t ‘strong enough’ here to override the more concrete/non-inferential/sphexish level.
The ideal decision algorithm used in the game remains the same, but people don’t look at it this way. It is a rule, since it is how they have learned the game.