making better decisions at the table
I have a propensity to making very poor choices in life and this trait of mine follows me to the table causing me to tilt of a couple of buyins, and im sick of it.
I just had a very bad session where i was doing all the wrong things. In one hand I had TT so I 3bet this chick who was playing a laggy game with 80% vpip. Of course she calls. Board came low and that was the extent to my thought process and i cbet, she calls, turn came low, i shoved.
It was so bad, I didnt even examine the board or thought about what she could have called with. She turned a wheel and rivered a flush.
Anyway I had just googled "how to make better decisions" and came across an interesting article.
Basically the rules are
1. Don’t make important decisions when you’re emotional, tired, hungry, distracted, or in a hurry.
2. Don’t let anyone define the problem for you.
3. Get your information as near to the source as you can.
4. Always ask, what do I know to be true? Filter out incomplete information.
5. Reflect on your decision to learn what worked and what didn’t.
So in order to make the right play, we must define a problem, gather as much information as possible, ask if those information are true, and most importantly, be emotionally calm.
But what are the problems that we should try to solve. What type of questions do we need to ask to better define these problems?
From watching a bunch of splitsuits videos i've learn of a very good question to ask is 'why am I betting? Will I get called by worst, or can I fold out better hands?' and if the answer is no, then dont bet.
When we have a draw we will normally ask, 'what pot odds is villain laying, do I have the correct odds to call, and if not how likely is it that implied odds will make up for it?
There should be more information to gather and better questions to ask, but im not sure where to start. So im here wondering whats everyones though process like when playing? What other types of information should we look for and what other questions can we ask so that we can make the better decisions when it is our turn to act?
7 Replies
From watching a bunch of splitsuits videos i've learn of a very good question to ask is 'why am I betting? Will I get called by worst, or can I fold out better hands?' and if the answer is no, then dont bet.
Horrible lesson. Often you bet not to fold out better or get called by worse but to fold out hands that are currently worse but have draws to better that you should not give them for free.
s/Often/Sometimes/
Horrible lesson. Often you bet not to fold out better or get called by worse but to fold out hands that are currently worse but have draws to better that you should not give them for free.
I've been seeing some success by calling with nothing on flop in very specific situations where if I hit; I either have the nuts; or I have a small hand already; and it can be made better.
Really is board and hand dependent. Some draws are super easy calls. Like you have an open ended straight straight draw; and a flush draw from flop. The bet sizing wouldn't be relevant in that situation because odds are so good you're not going to get me off that hand. If you bet 1/10th of my chip stack and all I have is a mid pair; I may call it. If it's 20-25% -> I'm not calling that without a strong hand. We could revert back to rule of 5 and 10 for speculative hands; but there are nuances that I'm not a good enough player to explain.
Mostly; 5 and 10 isn't applicable very often in tournaments because you're going to frequently be betting more than 10% of your chip stack if you're short stacked. If you're fat stacked; they do admittedly say to use the lowest stack in the hand for said rule of 5/10; and if you do that; they'll steal your chips when you're supposed to be the one applying pressure. So as a general rule; it works. In practice; nuances.
Most people try to fold out oesd and flush draws by betting big and that is a mistake. Like you said, no one is going anywhere especially on thw flop when bet is still cheap.
The draws that we usually attempt to fold out are pair draws, and pairs that can become sets.
Although pairs only have 2 outs, it still preferred to see villain fold, but because its such a long shot, you dont mind them calling a bet.
Most people try to fold out oesd and flush draws by betting big and that is a mistake. Like you said, no one is going anywhere especially on thw flop when bet is still cheap.
This is not correct (or I am misunderstanding what you mean). Making OESD and flush draws overpay to hit is most definitely not a mistake and is highly recommended.
When a OESD or flush draw is facing a flop bet, there is a calculation of what direct odds they are getting and they are also calculating what implied odds they can get on later streets. This can be further complicated by other circumstances (such as a suited AK having flush draw outs as well as overpair outs or weird bluffing opportunities), but thise are more advanced concepts.
In general though, making drawing hands overpay by betting large amounts is never a mistake.
If you wanna play safe and looks to fold then this is not your game so play along as long as your pair are good cards and the stake are still not too high
im not saying its a mistake to over charge draws. the mistake is thinking that a huge bet will fold out draws.
i see people making massive bets nearly shoving in and then saying they didnt want to see the draw come in or that they were looking for folds. maybe they are just bsing and pretending to have bad logic when what they really wanted was to get a call.
whatever though.
i sat down the other day and try to come up with questions for making better decisions while playing, and literlly found there to be endless amount of them. you can ask yourself close to a hundred questions preflop alone.
