ICT AFCOA -Increasing Commitment To A Failing Course Of Action

Filed Under ICT AFCOA, POKER SELF

It’s a terribly powerful concept in poker because it explains so well how we go so wrong.
You’re playing Omaha/8, and you pick up a big drawing low like A-2-3-4. Against a table full of Cally Wallies, you feel justified in making a raise, and so you do. Nothing wrong with that; at this point a raise is a rising course of action. However, when the flop cornes T-9-8 in suits you don’t…, your course of action turns and mns downhill. Sure you still have a chance (about 24 percent) of catching two cards to a low, but unless there’s a table full of players chasing high, your expectation is negative-your course of action is failling. Yet you call anyway!


This is the textbook definition of increasing commitment to a failing course of action: When you keep trying the same thing over and over again, long past any reasonable hope of achieving your goal.

Say you’re heads up against a single Wally. You have tried to bluff him off his hand for five straight hands now, and he’s called you down every one. At sorne point you become convinced that he can’t possibly calI again. So you bet. He calls-and he wins. ICT AFCOA-increasing commitment to a failing course of action.
You’re in a game that’s way too tough for you and you’ve already been pushed around on a bunch of hands. Instead of trading down to an easier game, you stubbornly stick to your game plan (such as it is) of can and pray, can and pray, can and pray. Again, ICT AFCOA. Unless you catch very lucky, or come to your senses in time, you must surely go broke in the game.

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