Making Good Decisions.

My favorite poker story is a story I read somewhere, but I don’t remember where or who. I believe it was a top pro and a beginning player sitting together at a tourney where this came up. Something in the back of my mind makes me think the pro was Jonny Chan……….anyway……

Beginning Player: “How do you consistently win at poker?”
Top Pro: “Making good decisions”
BP: “How do you know which are good decisions”
TP: “Experience”
BP: “How do you get proper experience”
TP “Making bad decisions”

Funny, simple, but so true. We don’t win by making bad decisions, we don’t win by making robotic decisions, (Phil Laak and Anontio both beat a computer programmed to play perfect Holdem), we don’t win by guessing. We win by making good decisions.

Poker is a game of math that will see the player with the mathematical edge win in the long run. But there are also a few things non-mathematical that come into play, and these things all must go into our decision making process. I’m not going to tell you that playing strictly by math will not allow you to win, or that listening to your instincts will be better than worrying about +/-EV. I am going to say that you win by making “Good Decisions”.

Example: Everyone has 100 BB at the table. You hold AK of hearts, it’s folded to the CO who pot raises, you 3 bet it pot from the BTN, the blinds fold and the CO calls. Flop is 2h 3h 8d, CO checks you bet 2/3 pot and CO shoves…….what do you do? If you said fold, that’s a bad decisions. If you said call, that’s a bad decision. Okay that was a set up. Of course you should call, even if your opponent only plays AA or KK that way, you still are a 42% favorite in this hand, and if you add in JJ and QQ to his range you are 50/50. So the correct decision would be………Call “because” of pot odds. Make sense? A correct decision is not a good decision unless you know why it’s the correct decision. If you make the correct play but don’t know why, then that’s just luck. Not luck that you win the hand when you do, but luck that you made the correct play.

The point I’m stressing here, is that every decision you make at the poker table should have a reason to back it up. Many times it’s simple, “Call an all in because I have the nuts”…….that’s always fun, or “Fold to a tight player when I have air and no draws”……seems simple. What about the times when it’s not so simple, or as we call them……..the tough spots. Regardless of what decision you make, do you have a why when you make it, or do you have a hope? Is it likely that your opponent would bet a missed flush draw, or do you hope he bet a missed flush draw when you get ready to call with that mid pocket pair.

Try this exercise. Open just 2 tables of your normal game, and talk through every hand as if you were explaining the game to someone that is new. Explain out loud every thought you have that went into deciding what to do every time you act. Don’t be afraid to be wrong, no one is actually there. Then go back afterwards and run the hands in the replayer. Check the odds vs your why and see if you were correct. Check the opponents cards vs the range you had them on and see if you were correct. Adjust your “why” until you are correct more………then you will win more.

I’m not writing this because I think this is an area of my game that I excel in and want to teach. I’m writing this because this is an area I’m terrible at and want to improve on. I feel I can review a hand well when not playing, but I need to learn to make my why decisions during a hand. I think I make a lot of correct decisions, now I’m looking to make good ones.

LuckySOB