Paying Attention at the Tables: Learn How to Improve Your Focus After Folding

A poker friend was recently telling me about a mutual acquaintance of ours who also plays. This guy was talking to my friend about the importance of paying attention to the table even after you've folded your hand.

“People are always on their phones, distracting themselves,” the young man said. “They lose a lot by doing so.”

The subject matter, generally speaking, was good. I think we can all agree that there are a lot of important details that can be useful to you later if you put your phone down and watch the action after you fold the hand.

However, as this guy talked about being focused and attentive at the tables, it became clear that he was talking about something a little different than what my friend and I were thinking about when we said we should be more observant at the tables.

He described a hand in which he had folded T4 to a raise and witnessed action involving two other players. The flop came K44, he explained, noting how he would have made trips and perhaps won a big pot if he had not folded.

“If I hadn’t been paying attention,” he explained, “I never would have known about this!”

We laughed at the story, which in a way made some important points about where we should be focusing our attention when we're at the table (and where we shouldn't).

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Don't pay attention to what doesn't matter

One of those points, of course, has to do with the complete uselessness of the information our acquaintance was focusing on.

I don't know the precise details of the hand or the players involved, but I'm going to assume that folding T4 to a raise was probably the correct play for him to make. The fact that two 4s came on the flop hardly changes that.

Among novice players, this is not an uncommon mistake to see – emphasizing irrelevant factors, future events when judging past decisions. Sure, if we knew we were going to make a set with our starting hand, we would happily call the pre-flop raise. However, this is impossible and has no bearing on the decision we are making.

Even experienced players sometimes waste a lot of mental energy in “woulda, shoulda, coulda” thinking – when they fold in marginal situations and realize that if they hadn’t folded, good things would have happened. In these situations, it sometimes becomes a little harder to resist thinking about the big pots we could have won if we hadn’t folded.

But then again, the next community card that came after the fold was not part of the information available to us at the time the decision had to be made. Sure, it's hard to avoid thinking about it, but it's not relevant.

Focus on the actions of others

This points to the second and most important factor in paying attention to the tables. We put our phones away and are watching the action intently. But what exactly should we be focusing on?

There are many answers we could list for this question, but most of them can be summed up in one simple idea. After you’ve folded, instead of beating yourself up over your own decisions, focus as much as you can on the decisions everyone else is making behind you. Also, as you watch players fold, call, bet, or raise, think about how these actions fit into the patterns they’ve been demonstrating since you started playing with them.

This kind of observation about others can help you classify opponents as strong or weak, aggressive or passive, tight or loose… all of which will come in handy when you later find yourself playing hands against them.

If you notice a player making a lot of pointless plays, this obviously helps reveal a pattern that helps you classify that player. Someone who folds a lot of hands is probably tight. Someone who calls a lot is probably passive. Someone who plays a lot of hands from early position is probably weaker than the average player. And so on.

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Make special notes about “unexpected” actions

I also like to pay attention to situations at hand where the circumstances suggest one likely action, but the player does something else. These types of “unexpected” plays can sometimes be more revealing than others. In other words, I ask all my opponents questions like…

• Who is giving up when they could have bet?
• Who is paying when they could have walked away?
• Who is betting when they could have checked?
• Who is raising when they could have called?

Who is giving up when they could have bet? Before the flop the action is folded to the player on the button who decides to fold rather than take the opportunity to raise and perhaps steal the blinds. Would this player be tight?

Who is paying when they could have walked away? A player raises from middle position, the player in the next seat raises, and the action folds to the player in the big blind who calls the 3-bet. Is he a passive/loose player as the cold call seems to suggest?

Who is betting when they could have checked? A player defends his big blind by calling, then donkbets on the flop. Is he a weak player or a player making a well-planned donkbet?

Who is raising when they could have called? A hand reaches the river and the action is checked to the aggressor who decides to bet 1/4 of the pot, gets called and shows a second pair – a hand that the player could have checked with. Is he a strong or creatively aggressive player looking for a value bet?

Conclusion

Notice how general questions lead to more specific ones, which can be answered by watching the same player play more hands. This is the internal dialogue I found myself having as I began to focus and pay attention to the tables – a sort of extroverted “Q&A” game about everyone.

I’m also reviewing my own actions, analyzing as thoroughly as I can whether I made a good decision while also thinking about what my pattern might be suggesting to others about my style or ability. Even then, I’m saving the more thorough self-analysis or judgments about my play for later – that is, when I’m not trying to focus on new hands being played in front of me.

In other words, I'm trying not to spend too much energy at the tables worrying about decisions I've made. And definitely not focusing on the flops I could have hit if I had played T4!

Article translated and adapted from the original: Paying Attention at the Tables: Learn to Sharpen Your Post-Fold Focus