The thought processes of poker

cooker3

I am not a regular poster to these forums but I do read them all and what I find interesting is when people post hands which subsequant posters analyse. The depth of thought that can go into some hands is what interests me most. I never really or can't seem to do that. I can see how someone could do this in live game when you have time to analyse but my main question is how do people when playing online manage to do this in the short space of time allocated to them. For pretty much of the decisions I make, a lot of ithem are almost instinctive and when I do think about it, will go as far as what I think he has and what I think he thinks I have but I find it near impossible to think through each street, plan on what I am going to do depending on what cards hit etc etc.

So to Fuzz, HJ and all you regulars out there, how do you do it. I play pretty low levels and this is 1 of the reasons why I suspect so how do I go about improving this aspect of my game?

ntlbell

cooker3 wrote:

I am not a regular poster to these forums but I do read them all and what I find interesting is when people post hands which subsequant posters analyse. The depth of thought that can go into some hands is what interests me most. I never really or can't seem to do that. I can see how someone could do this in live game when you have time to analyse but my main question is how do people when playing online manage to do this in the short space of time allocated to them. For pretty much of the decisions I make, a lot of ithem are almost instinctive and when I do think about it, will go as far as what I think he has and what I think he thinks I have but I find it near impossible to think through each street, plan on what I am going to do depending on what cards hit etc etc.

So to Fuzz, HJ and all you regulars out there, how do you do it. I play pretty low levels and this is 1 of the reasons why I suspect so how do I go about improving this aspect of my game?

Normally when a HH is posted here it's an intresting or complex hand not just your average run of the mill hand.

Depending on what you play e.g. STT's after awhile 90% of your descions are automatic it's rare I find that a hand needs alot of thought same goes for the low level cash games alot of descions are automatic.

I play on pokerstars so if a hand that does need a bit of time you can click time and get 60 seconds I think most expirienced players will be able to quickly run through the hand make a descion in this time.

I suppose it's like anything else, you get better at it over time.

fuzzbox

Think about it offline (and post hand, and also respond to others posts, with what you think), and then when you are in the hand, its much easier, as you have already thought about it a lot.

Its not always easy though ... poker is hard.

Hectorjelly

For me anyway most of the thinking that goes into complicated hands is done afterwards to help prepare for the next time the situation occurrs. For example I was thinking recently about hands where I bluff (or semi bluff) on a draw heavy flop, get called and we both check the turn. No draws hit and he checks the river - theres a really good chance he was on a draw too but its likely that his missed draw contains higher cards than mine. A 1/2 pot bet or less just with the intention of folding J hi is probably profitable, so ive started betting there; whereas in the past if I checked the flop I gave up on the hand. I made that decision not during any paticular hand.

Hectorjelly

fuzzbox wrote:

poker is hard.

poker is easy - managing your BR, staying off tilt and not taking shots at bigger games is hard (in my experience anyway)