“It all makes sense when I’m reading a poker book or watching a video tutorial, but I always end up making the same mistakes at the tables. How do I stay away from bad habits when I’m actually playing poker?”
I get asked something like this almost every week, and it’s a pertinent question. As a student of poker, you need to find a way to avoid going into autopilot mode when you’re at the felt, whether real or virtual. You need to find a way to interrupt those familiar behaviors, as well as those thought patterns that lead to the same mistakes over and over again. You need to force yourself to think, and at least occasionally, to act, in new ways.
My advice is, whenever the action is in your hands (with one or two exceptions that I will address later in the article), force yourself to consider at least two options before you act. If you can consider more, great, but a minimum of two will ensure that at least some thought goes into any action you take.
You should do this even when your decisions seem trivial. In fact, it is in these cases that thinking becomes important. After all, the goal is to re-examine plays that previously seemed obvious. For example, suppose your opponent bets and you have a very weak hand. Of course, folding is the obvious play, and in fact it is what you should do most of the time.
However, in some situations it is also correct to raise with some weak hands, such as a bluff, and choosing which hands to do so with is not so obvious. Even if you end up folding, if you never consider raising, you will probably never realize the odds where raising is better than folding.
Discussing what makes a hand good for a bluff-raise is beyond the scope of this article; the goal here is to confirm that your default play is the correct one by consciously comparing it to other options. In this case, you might be asking yourself something like, “How often will I have a hand worth raising for value in these situations? If I don’t bluff with this hand, what hand would I bluff with?”
Taking your time with questions like this not only helps you make better decisions, but it also helps you avoid giving time tells. For example, when facing a bet on a :Td :8d :5h flop, a common pattern is for players to call quickly with draws and marginal hands like 98, but think before deciding to slowplay with a monster hand like TT or T8. This is because the former decision is trivial, whereas in the latter case they need to consider the benefits and risks of slowplaying. If you give a time tell, you leave yourself vulnerable to bluffs and value bets on a blank turn, since your opponent can almost be certain that you don't hold a monster hand if you called too quickly on the flop.
I would argue that in the example above, considering the merits of slowplaying versus raising immediately is a pattern of behavior and thought that you should incorporate into other parts of your hand range. You may find that some of your draws would be more profitable if played with raises. Furthermore, while I can't think of a situation where you should do anything other than call with 98 in this case, forcing yourself to consider other options helps you avoid giving away the nature of your hand.
Considering your options, even if you end up playing the way you were going to play anyway, also helps you become a better player. In addition to the “normal” poker skills of patience and calmness, the ability to consider other alternatives and choose the best one, even when it’s not obvious, is the mark of a skilled poker player. Doing this more or less well is what makes one player better or worse than another. Practicing, even in cases where such practice doesn’t have an immediate payoff, is honing one of the most important skills in poker.
As mentioned, there are a few exceptions. The first, which I hope is obvious, is in cases where your decision is literally trivial. If you are facing an all-in with the nuts, don't waste everyone's time thinking just for the sake of it, unless there are still other players at the table to play, in which case it becomes worthwhile, again, to avoid giving time tells.
The second exception is in common, almost trivial situations, most of which occur before the flop. You should know your range of hands well in preflop situations so that you don't have to think about your folding range. If you're first to act at a nine-handed table and you're holding Q5o, don't waste anyone's time by pretending you have a different decision to make.
This isn't to say that you should never apply the rule of considering two options before the flop. Some hands will be legitimately on the fringe and deserve some consideration. For example, whether or not I raise with AJo depends on factors such as who the big blind is, how tight the game is, and stack sizes. There are also circumstances where I would call with AA rather than raise. I take a few seconds to consider my options with any hand I play, but that doesn't mean I need to do so with a hand I know I'm going to fold.
Beyond these situations, you shouldn’t face many trivial decisions, at least not in big games. Even when you’re certain that you’re going to bet, for example, you still need to consider whether to make a big bet (be sure to consider a bet larger than the pot), a “normal” bet, or a very small bet.
Forcing yourself to consider at least two options and make an informed choice is an excellent mental habit for all poker players. It has both immediate benefits for the hand you are playing and long-term benefits for your overall game. Once you get used to considering two options, you can start considering more, and you will be on your way to poker excellence.
Author: Andrew Brokos
Translated and adapted from: Weighing Your Options
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