Stimming: poker players fiddling with chips.

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If you stand next to the poker room at the Bellagio, you can hear the soft clicking of hundreds and hundreds of poker chips. It sounds like a large group of insects! Same for the poker room at the Venetian, a definite hum of background noise of clickclickclickclick. Stand next to a post, put you hand on the post to keep yourself centered, and then close your eyes. And then you can really hear it!

With poker, you’re trying to keep in contact with the thread of what has been going on, for example on previous betting rounds and on previous hands (who has been aggressive, who has been passive, who might be shifting gears). You’re trying to keep in contact with what cards are happening right now, how likely certain hands are, maybe even pot odds. And then you’re trying to stay open to what going on right now in front of you socially, which might be ‘obvious’ if you merely pay attention, has someone perked up, is someone angry, is someone excited in which they seem to like what is going on, etc?

And to maintain this concentration, people fiddle with chips in their hand. And people have their own style: turning two chips over and over again, or expanding a stack partially off the felt and then letting it quietly, but not silently, settle back down, or separating and shuffling over and over again a mid-sized stack.

In fact, it’s so common that TV shows on poker will sometimes have a brief segment on chip tricks. Or sometimes a new player will get in a discussion with another player or the dealer on how to “shuffle” two mid-sized stacks with one hand. (dealers tend not to like to talk shop and have detailed discussions directly on poker, but sometimes are very open to conversations slightly tangential)

So, it’s normal! When human beings are trying to maintain a certain level, or type, of concentration, we tend to stim. Now, as Aspies, we might have different styles, habits, and methods of concentration, both strengths and weaknesses, and therefore are likely to have different habits and times of stimming. So be it. It all becomes a question of time and place. It becomes a question about how to channel a natural urge, not block it.


(I recommend poker as one way to add to social skills. I do not recommend it as a way to make money.)

Playing the boardgame Risk as a young teen with this kid and his brother a couple of streets over, I distinctly remember the older brother saying that I had least didn’t make noise when I played with the pieces in my hand. He was irritated with his slightly younger brother who did make noise as he played with the pieces.

Like poker, there’s a baseline of math (can you win this battle, can you sweep, and how far?) and then the whole social dynamic of who’s allied with who, and when players might make moves. And then your box of little plastic pieces representing armies is so very available, to maintain the concentration, a lot of players do play with the little pieces.

And then there’s the fact that a lot of people will bounce a knee, or wave a knee back and forth opening and closing their legs, as they work on math problems. Both NTs and Aspies will do this. (and again, no one is truly “normal,” and how boring would that be anyway!)

Rocking is normal too, hence rocking chairs. NTs are massive hypocrites on stuff like this.

But, if you think about it, it might be possible that Aspies are better at pocker, since we don't tend to show our emotions through facial expressions, and can sort of "zone out" of our surroundings and concentrate.

Some time ago I realized that whenever I had a good hand I would start fiddling with my chips, the other people at the table noticed this and adjusted their game accordingly. Now I play with a chip all the time as it helps mask the activity.

And I prefer the poker game at the Mandalay Bay.

Vanilla_Slice

I like Mandalay Bay, too. And if you walk between Mandalay and “THEhotel” there are crystals and art exhibits under glass, not a whole lot, but enough to make for a quiet little break from the casino.

I don’t know if poker players rock their bodies or not!

I am great at tone of voice. It’s almost like I have a “photographic memory” for tone of voice.

But body language is more like a second language to me. I have to work at it, and it’s in a more piecemeal that I add to my skills, which is fine. For example, monitoring a high school math test by standing in the back of the classroom, I saw that 6 or 7 students out of 25 were bouncing or waving a leg at any one time. I also detected ear reddening, probably in 4 or 5 students at a time (it was such a fascinating phenomenon to watch that I kind of forgot to count!). Ear reddening is a sign of anger or frustration, although it may be broader than that.

I have also had some success in letting my eyes soften or fuzz a bit and maintaining a casual, medium-size look at a person’s eye slit area (more than just the eyes because you also get the muscles around the eyes, and downward toward the nose, and even the mouth and the muscles around the mouth in your periphereal vision).

I feel I am very strong at probability. I have even written short C++ programs on probability. I have studied a number of poker books (I particular recommend Mike Caro’s CARO’S BOOK OF POKER TELLS). I realize that table selection is crucially important. And I keep a honest poker diary, and if there’s any one thing that separates the men from the boys, it might be that. And in addition, I would sometimes review successful hands before a session.

And yes, yes, like you said, some of our "weaknesses" play to strength at the poker table. For example, I tend anyway to watch people like I'm watching a movie and lose track that I'm doing this, and at the poker table this is a definite strength. And I think just being different, in any way, is initially an advantage because it makes you harder to read. And I do have the ability to concentrate intensely. (And I learned to not to engage in other than brief answers when fellow players made social overtures, for it took away too much from my concentration. And since I was playing at small stakes, I think many of these offers were genuine. So, even though I very much enjoy conversation, especially about technical subjects, I learned to instead stop off at the TV chairs in the sports book for a possibility of a conversation there, say a one out of three chance.)

So I did a lot of things right.

But still, all that, and I broke even.

And the biggest factor is natural variance. I mean, just due to luck, you will have fairly long positive runs---and fairly long negative runs.

I think playing online would work very well for aspies. As for the rest, don't forget you have to read body language very well - reading others and making fast decisions based on that is crucial and so is the ability to handle stress - you can't have a meltdown because one of the players annoys you or is even deliberately trying to break your concentration.