"A Ha" Moment - The Decision Making Process

I listened to the PocketFives.com podcast today with Barry Greenstien and after processing some of the things he was saying, I had one of those "a ha" moments where something clicked.

I won't go into too much detail, but one of the things he was talking about was the difference between online and live play and how online poker trains you to pay attention to your cards more. This is somewhat obvious, in that you don't have the benefit of table feel and live reads, and the fact that you see your cards first. But what this means is that online poker can create bad habits that are counterintuitive to successful play. Online poker, more so than live poker, gives the cards you hold a higher weight in your decision making process than they should since you don't have some of the other information you might otherwise have.

Most everyone has read somewhere that the actual cards you hold should only be one small factor to consider. And while I think people fundamentally agree with this concept, hearing him say it in this way made me realize that most people are not implementing this correctly in the process they take when deciding their actions at the table. I know that I try to a certain extent, but repetition through playing online has caused me to think backwards at times.

By the decision making process, I specifically mean the steps you go through in your mind before deciding how to act on every hand. Here is a typical order of events (assuming you are looking at your cards last):

1. Observe the action thus far
2. Think about situational factors and the past play and tendencies of other players
3. Put each person on a range of hands based on #2
4. Hope you pick up a hand that is conducive to the action and the factors
5. Look at hand and then decide if it is the right hand to play
6. Narrow down possible actions to take and how the players would react
7. Act

This is faulty thinking and isn't the right process in order to capitalize on each situation. I've felt like I've done a much better job at playing the players lately and when I think about the thought process I've used, and how to continue to improve it, this is what I think is closer to optimal.

1. Observe the action thus far
2. Think about situational factors and the past play and tendencies of other players
3. Put each person on a range of hands based on #2
4. Narrow down possible actions to take and how the players would react
5. Think about what they think I would have based on those actions
6. If my actual hand has to be a factor, consider the results based on a show down
7. Act

The key here is simply moving #6 from the first list up to #4. I also think that #5 in the second list is something that most good players usually do, but it is harder to perform this 3rd level thinking AFTER you've already decided to play a particular hand. Keep in mind that EV is always part of this decision making process and comes into play when narrowing down all the alternative choices of how to act. But the essence of this line of thinking is that we should be thinking about our cards AFTER we have considered possible courses of action. For pre-flop play, this means not even looking at our cards until we've done this. But this decision making process isn't just about pre-flop hold'em. It's all poker on all streets.

Now with this line of thinking, it doesn't mean that the action itself is a bluff or a "move", it just means that we are considering our actual hand last in the process and not somewhere in the middle.

This type of decision making process is something that I think separates the great players from the good ones. They key now is to get into a new habit of performing these steps on a subconscious level.

And while I had felt like I'd understood "playing the player" for a while now, I realize it was more on the conceptual level than anything else with glimpses of applying it at certain times of focus. Unfortunately, it is easy to drift back into just playing cards (maybe this is safer and requires less effort?).

The difference now is that I can see how to "operationalize" my thought process accordingly in order to make it habitual. Any good skill development involves understanding the basics steps and then practicing them over and over until they are second nature. The difference with this is that the decision making process is a mental skill that most would not recognize as something you would need to practice.