Effective decision-making is key to winning in poker. Here are seven powerful strategies to help you make better poker decisions and improve your game.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
You can never be 100% certain of anything in this game. To be more accurate, try to assign percentages to items you are attempting to estimate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Let\u2019s say on the river your opponent could be bluffing a missed flush draw, but you\u2019re only 40% sure they would fire with that hand. That isn\u2019t much to go on. You should probably fold.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Compare that to another situation I once faced in a large tournament. A hyper aggressive big stacked player moved all-in on me on the river. There were six missed draws on the board. I estimated that he was 95% likely to be firing with all of those missed draws, and had never been that sure before.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I called him with K-J high, and was correct. He had a busted straight draw. Those probability estimates helped me make better poker decisions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
When someone threebets us three times, we almost always assume we can read their mind.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThey think they can run over us! They think we are weak!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Relax. I can\u2019t read anyone\u2019s mind and neither can you. It\u2019s possible this person feels they can outplay you, sure, but you don\u2019t know that. It\u2019s also possible this person has picked up three strong hands. This person may also be excited to play their favorite hands.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The point is that you have no idea why most people do the things they do. Don\u2019t change your strategy wildly based on assumptions you don\u2019t have a shred of proof of. You will make better poker decisions based on facts, not fantasy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
You can\u2019t think through anything if you don\u2019t even give yourself time to think. Bet sizes on the river are galactically larger than earlier bet sizes. Take as much time as you need to think through river decisions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I lost count of how many times during the Main Event I saw someone rush a river decision and light $10,000 on fire. It\u2019s your tournament. Make them call the clock on you if they have a problem with how much time you need. That\u2019s what the clock is there for.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
You\u2019ll be surprised by how blatantly easy some river decisions become if you take your time. I had one instance recently where I was thinking through a river decision. I was pretty close to a fold, but I took some time to make sure of my decision. My opponent seemed to realize he was likely to not get any action, so he started trying to do anything he could to look nervous. It was comical.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It always stuns me how poker players can have an opinion on seemingly every hand. \u201cI would have done this because\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It is totally acceptable to not have an opinion. It\u2019s a great starting point to say, \u201cI don\u2019t know,\u201d or \u201cI\u2019ve traditionally done this for these reasons, but I\u2019m open to being wrong.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Being absolutely certain of every single little thing in a game this complicated is a coping mechanism. People love to grasp at false certainty instead of sitting with the uncomfortable feeling of unknowing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Almost all information offered in the real world is motivated, and the poker table is no different. If you see a hand at showdown, that is pure, that is a truth. That is a strong data point.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
If you\u2019re listening to poker players discuss hands they didn\u2019t show down, then you\u2019re just going to be wasting your time. They lie in order to puff themselves up or hide their true strategies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
When someone asks you what your hand was, don\u2019t give them anything, and don\u2019t listen to what they supposedly had. I always use the line, \u201cI\u2019m not good enough to discuss my hands.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Many of us have a selective memory, and I\u2019m no different. I can remember a couple of hands in my life where I got insanely lucky, but I can only remember those hands because they were huge for my career at the time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
However, I remember bad beats vividly. I can tell you every detail about the largest bad beats I\u2019ve taken or flips that didn\u2019t go my way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I\u2019m not special. Many of us have memories like this. Our brains prize certain data and discard everything else. We can\u2019t trust that. If you believe you constantly run bad, start tracking every single hand you play. Read everything back to yourself at a later date. Have a pro analyze your hands. You might be surprised at what you find. Never make important poker decisions based on your faulty memory of past hands.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Some incredible poker players can trust their gut in every situation, but I\u2019m not one of them. I love to play the game. I love to mix it up. My gut always tells me, \u201cgamble up. He\u2019s bluffing.\u201d My gut is an idiot.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
If I listened to my gut all the time when trying to make big poker decisions, I\u2019d be broke. I only listen to my gut in rare instances when he\u2019s overwhelmingly positive of something. These instances come up rarely.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Keep track of all the hands you played where you listened to your gut. How did those hands go? How out of line were you getting?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Improving your poker decisions involves thinking in terms of probabilities and accepting that mind reading is impossible. Take more time on the river, recognize that having no opinion is sometimes the best option, and learn what to ignore. By not trusting your memory or gut instincts, you’ll make more rational and effective choices at the table.<\/p>\n\n\n\n