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What's your thought process??

mikec420m
mikec420
in General Poker Questions

I'm about a year and a half into my journey to learn this game. What I'm struggling with is how to establish an effective thought process for making good decisions and getting solid results. What I seem to lean toward is a thought process like:

  1. Notice what others are doing/ID weak, strong, passive, aggressive, responses, betting trends
  2. Is my hand a garbage hand? Fold if yes
  3. Evaluate my hand based on my position - am I in range for my position?
  4. Has preflop action folded to me so I can raise first in? If so, bet based on hand and position
  5. Am I in position to steal the blinds - do I have that opportunity?
  6. Am I giving up my blinds easily, am I an easy target?
  7. After initial betting for hand, try to put remaining opponents on ranges based on their position/betting/behavior
  8. Am I ahead or behind going into next street?

I can accept running hot and cold, which is my experience so far. I understand the concept of variance and can accept it provided I know I'm thinking properly and understand where I am in terms of being a good decision maker.

Does anyone else have a similar internal dialog? For those of you who are way more experienced, does this make sense? I have not yet incorporated thinking in terms of counting outs, EV, pot odds, implied odds, or any math oriented evaluation. Any advice?

Thanks!

Comments

  • mrfleming
    mrfleming

    I think your list is very good, especially your questions on range (3, 7). You could keep adding and adding so some of the work is about prioritization.

    I'm not implying that I am doing all this, but that I think this process work is important.

    1. what is the pot size compared to the amount to call (an obvious mention)?
    2. what will the players behind me do and what is their stack size?
    3. what is my M ratio (what zone am I in)?
    4. what is my stack size in BB's and how many hands will this allow me to see?
    5. what stage of the tournament am I in?
    6. is my betting polarized (variation)?
    7. Am I three betting at all?
  • mikec420m
    mikec420

    Thanks, and I think you bring up good questions that I don't think about much - especially your questions on stack size. Do you ever make decisions based on SPR or pot odds? I think your question on stack size in BB is important for tournament play, but what about cash games, which is what I focus on?
    Usually I become more aware of stack size when I have isolated a weak player with a smaller stack. That is where I would typically try a semi bluff. Aside from that I don't think of stack size so much.

    I also can not say that I run through this entire list every time it's my turn to act, but they are the things that I work to keep an awareness of. I find myself more oriented to this kind of a decision process versus a math driven process.

    What I'm trying to determine is whether it will be more effective for me to develop this way of thinking, or if I should make the effort to augment it with some key math indicators such as SPR, pot odds, implied odds, etc?

    What do you think?

  • mrfleming
    mrfleming
  • mikec420m
    mikec420

    Your concept of developing intuition I have been thinking of as developing "instinctive" play. Different word but same idea. Drill away from the table, study, and play through specific scenarios on APT, then play "regular" cash games on APT to apply what I learned off the felt. I discovered APT a few months ago, and just recently renewed my subscription. I'm finding it a good way for me to work on each aspect of my play and become stronger in general.

    I started playing online micro stakes cash games about a year and a half ago, but at the lowest levels most players are ridiculously bad and I was finding it difficult to apply what I was learning. I decided to focus on working here, with the idea of going to play live in a casino - I live near two awesome casinos, each having a very good poker room - and leaving the online play for a future time. I am less experienced than you, but one thing you've helped to confirm for me is that my concepts and how I'm developing my thought process seems sound, so I will continue the way I've been going.

    I am just starting to absorb about the real importance of poker math and learning how to calculate pot odds, count outs, and so forth. That is the next aspect of my play that I will develop - using pot odds and outs calcs part of my thought process. Right now it seems difficult and intimidating, but I'll spend the time to get it down. I had bought and read some books on poker math moths ago, but I don't take to it naturally and I really struggled. Maybe it's because I was only just trying to learn the basics of the game - I may have tried to absorb too much too soon.

    Anyway, I appreciate the exchange of ideas and thank you for replying to me. Your idea of blogging is interesting to me. It's making me consider the idea of creating a blog to chronicle my learning of NLHE, my thought process and experiences as I learn and grow in the game. Writing things down is a great way to stimulate thinking and creating insights you don't get otherwise. Maybe I'll pursue that. If you have a blog I'd be interested in reading it. Would you share the link?

  • mrfleming
    mrfleming

    greets Mike: By blogging I meant writing right here on the APT Community section. Maybe I'm calling it by the wrong name.

    BTW, I listen to the Rec Poker podcast on the way to and from work. Episode 131 has an interview with "psychologist" Jared Tendler who has a chapter in one of Jonathan Little's books. Along about minute 51 there is a discussion center around "unconscious incompetence" "conscience incompetence" "Conscience competence" and last but not least, our subject here, "unconsciousness competence"
    ." Its worth a listen

    M

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