The post below is interesting - I remember reading, long ago (and can't remember whether it was in a book or an article or what), about similar training for blackjack advantage players. Two "visual processing" skills were mentioned:
One is for the very fast dealer who, after the dealer's hand is completed, flips over the players' down cards and makes the payout and scoops them up very quickly, sometimes so fast as to be challenging for the card counter (especially when just learning) to catch what the cards were (obviously the dealer has mastered the skill in such cases).
The other was for players who try to take advantage of sloppy dealers, who may flash cards when dealing, by holding them a little too high or throwing them across the table a little high with a spin for "show" -- again, only a very brief flash usually available to identify what the card is, which, if identified, provides more information for the counter (and the further challenge of remembering which "flashed" down cards have already been counted).
When I was card counting, I never encountered the fast dealers until I was good enough to keep up with them (all of them, I could easily play 300 hands per hour of blackjack heads up with a good dealer), and I never tried to peek at flashed cards, but the point is that the visual processing of "flashed" information can be improved with practice.
Now, when I play poker, just from the experience I've had spotting cards that are exposed for a short time when being gathered up by the blackjack dealer, I can still identify partially exposed cards better than most (in poker, if one is certain of what they saw, one is obliged to speak up, although I'm not sure if the process after that point is the same for all casinos; in my home game, the card is turned up, and replaced, whether the "spotter" got it right or not in identifying the card).
Clearly, in VP, there is not only rapid identification of individual cards, but "pattern recognition" skills -- one does not always read each of the five dealt cards individually, and I know that I have (like most of us) good skills at common or "easy" patterns, but that I may need to slow down when I have three to a straight flush to assure how many ways it will complete in order to decide some correct plays. I'm sure most of us (excluding the top pro's) have seen those hands where it looks like there should be "more" there than there actually is, and we have to look at it for a second or two to make sure we're not missing something - and I'm sure the more skilled players don't encounter that delay anymore.
Also, I do very rapidly speak to myself the cards I'm discarding, in most cases, which helps me avoid errors (if I hear myself saying to myself 5-9-5 as I hold an AK, I rapidly realize I almost missed a pair). Even with this error catching mechanism and the actual catching of an occasional almost-error and the associated un-holding and re-holding of the appropriate cards, I still can easily do 600-800 hands per hour, and have done nearly twice that on brief stretches on fast machines, so I have no doubt that those with better pattern recognition, who will also have fewer almost-errors to catch (if any), and who probably don't even need to go thru that slightly delaying exercise of double-checking before hitting draw, can easily exceed 2000 hands per hour. It's a simple matter of skill level and machine response time, visual processing, reflexes, all combined into a very high rate for the best / most practiced / most skilled players.
--BG
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> 2.5. Re: Hands per hour
> Date: Sun Feb 6, 2011 12:22 pm ((PST))
>
>
> It's actually a skill you can hone. Many years ago I
> saw a special on ESPN about skilled athletes and their
> ability to process information the eyes see and act upon
> it. Elite hitters in baseball, for example, have an
> ability to see and process things that the average person
> can't. It's not the "seeing" part or even "hand-eye
> coordination" that is the key, it's the "processing"
> part that makes them stand-out. The special
> showed the exercises athletes would do to help develop that
> skill set. Tony Gwynn (I think) would look at a white
> screen and a circle of light the size of a baseball would be
> flashed on it which contained 4 random numbers. He
> would work the speed faster and faster to hone his ability
> to process what his eyes saw. He could pull 4 numbers
> out of a flash and call them out before my mind even
> processed that there had been a flash. He would do the
> same thing with a circle of light that moved in a circle on
> the screen. I couldn't following the light, let alone
> even see the numbers inside of it. His eyes could
> follow the light and process what they saw at speeds that
> were unbelievable. Some NFL WR would stare at a board
> of lights which would illuminate in a random manner.
> He would touch each light as it illuminated. He could
> go so fast it defied explanation. There were other
> similar exercises that they would do to help.
>
> In short, I believe Frank's speed as I have seen first-hand
> people who can see, process, and react more quickly than I
> would ever believe possible.
>
