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Server Time: 11/20/2009 9:16:07 PM PACIFIC |
 Thoughts on thinking..., MozMan, 20. May 2003 12:15 | ||
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| I'd like to hear what you guys think about this. I've played poker for some time, but only in the last five or six months have I started taking it seriously, reading books, talking strategy, learning about odds and plays, and really thinking about the game. Of course, I've learned so much in such a short period of time that I can hardly apply all that I am learning. I have kicked up my play time to about 20 hours a week... about all I can manage as I work full time, go to grad school full time and raise 2 kids alone. I know that I'm still up against the learning curve (as illustrated by the lack of knowledge in some of my previous postings) but here's my question: Sometimes, especially after I have just read or re-read a bunch of poker strategy, I get to feeling like I'm thinking TOO much while I am playing. Has anyone experienced this? Is it possible to think too much during play? I get the feeling that I think myself into bad play sometimes. | ||
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| Re: Thoughts on thinking..., shorn, 20. May 2003 12:31 | ||
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| Sometimes this has happened to me in the past. I compare it to trying to play golf after a golf lesson. I stand over the ball and think of all the things that I am supposed to do: keep your head still, tuck your right elbow, drag the club back, hold your hips so your shoulders go through with them, and roll your wrists at impact! How the F can I do all that!! What it comes down to is lots and lots of practice so that much of this happens by rote in golf. Same thing in poker. After playing seriosuly for a few years you will have seen a lot at the tables and will react more on instinct than on "I should only play a Group 5 hand with 4 callers from middle position or better." Trust me...it will get easier and you won't feel like you are thinking so much. Good luck. | ||
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| Re: Thoughts on thinking..., noiseboy, 20. May 2003 13:00 | ||
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| Reading poker books can only help you in the long run, but I know exactly what you are talking about in the short term. For instance, you read Sklansky, and fill your head with ideas of semi-bluffs, free card plays and the like, then you go drop a bunch of money at a 3-6 game you should beat easily most of the time. You have to watch out about getting FPS, fancy play syndrome, which is the overuse of these fancy plays. Remember that a little bit of trickiness goes a long way, as your unusual play tends to stick in people's brains more than your perfectly normal plays. Especially at the lower limits, don't worry to much about being predictable, most of your opponents won't even consider the cards you are playing, just play solid hands and make them pay when you have the best hand, or if you have the best draw in a multiway pot, and get out when you think you are beat. This is the style that gets the money until you play higher limits or tournaments. | ||
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| Re: Thoughts on thinking..., Jav, 20. May 2003 13:45 | ||
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| I agree with that completely. It is important to understand good starting hand strategy and how to apply it to your table. But the type of advanced plays you read about in books for post-flop play is intended for use in specific situations. Most of the time you need to be playing a normal game. I find myself wanting to apply things that I've read, but you can go hours and hours without finding yourself in the situation where something you have read would apply. I have tried to force these plays when the situations really don't demand it, and it ends up costing me money. (Especially at low limits, where you might make a great play that would thin the field or win you a pot at an advanced table, but noone at the low limit table reads anything into what you did at all). Another pitfall I've fallen into is using something I read in a book to justify a call or raise when I know I should fold. This has been a big problem for me while I try to become more disciplined about my play. Anyway to answer your question, yes I think you can think too much. But like anything else the more you do it the more it will come naturally, and you won't have to think as much about the right play is. Good luck! | ||
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| Re: Thoughts on thinking..., stdioh, 20. May 2003 16:05 | ||
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| How on earth do you do grad school, work, raise two kids, AND find 20 hours for poker? Back when I was training in Tae Kwon Do (and I used to be ranked in the top 5 in Ontario) I was training 20 hours a week and doing full time undergrad studies that used up about 80-100 hours a week. I did *nothing* but these two things and get small amounts of sleep and when it looked like a psychotic episode was around the corner, I retired from the former, got my degree, and became a little less fit than I would like to be - downright doughy. The prospect of working full time, doing full time school, raising 2 kids, and making time for poker makes my head spin. Now as for thinking too much, it isn't that you are thinking too much, but that you are not thinking efficiently. You just need experience. When you think through a situation you remember it and the next time something similar happens you think through it just as well but quicker. As you gain experience you won't need to go "into the tank" as often to make a decision. I found that the same was true back when I played blackjack. At first, counting down the deck and playing basic strategy took up all of my mental capacity and when you put me in a crowded casino with people talking to me, waitresses asking me if I wanted drinks, other players berating me for "screwing up the shoe" by splitting my 2's against a dealer's 7, etc, I would often lose count and figure that I must be doing something wrong and thinking too much. Then with experience, the counting and basic strategy became second nature and I could do them in the background, while in the foreground I chatted with tourists, cultivated pit bosses, and flirted with the coctail waitresses - all of which are important to a counter's camouflage. Then I began working on indices - deviations from basic strategy that take into account deck heat - so that money didn't just come from bet fluctuations, but also from a ductile set of rules in terms of what to do in a specific scenario - the incorporation of new data into a formula. That mean more thinking and more math, but experience had compacted the other thinking into routine, so I had room for it. Then came shuffle tracking and ace tracking. Memorizing 15 key cards around a packet of aces is hard enough on its own...doing it while playing 4 indices, counting a deck down, and playing every situation correctly, chatting with the other players, and ordering pepsi is impossible, unless you can do all the rest by rote. And so on. With each iteration of experience I gained the ability to think "less" in terms of making more and more things automatic. The more things that are automatic, the more things you can do. Poker is exactly the same. First you learn good starting hands. Then you learn how to play the flop, turn, and river. Then you learn how to checkraise, bluff, overcall, reraise for protection, and other tricks. Then you learn how to read your opponents. You learn advanced plays. You learn how to give off false information. You learn advanced tournament strategy. Doing it all at once is impossible, but as you gain experience the things that start out difficult become second nature and your concentration shifts to what you are currently learning. I can look at the expression on a fish's face and tell if he's just made his monster hand without having to think about it ... all the little things I learned (thanks here to Mike Caro and many others) about reading level 1 tells just work together without thought. Then I can concentrate on my cards and the guy who just checkraised the monster. So if you think that you are "thinking too much" it probably means that you need to play a lot of poker before you try to incorporate any new aspect to your game. Play the low limits until you have a good bead on what is going on and then when you can play with a clear head, chat with the other players, and flirt with the waitresses, you're ready to incorporate a new aspect to your game. For some players the transitions take days and for others they never get profitable at all...take things at your own pace. | ||
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| Re: Thoughts on thinking..., MozMan, 20. May 2003 16:31 | ||
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| > How on earth do you do grad school, work, raise two kids, AND find 20 hours for > poker? Poker is my sanity time! :) It's amazing how much online poker you can play while writing papers or programs for school late at night. I am also fortunate enogh that I can get a LOT of my school stuff done at work because I'm a software developer and can work all of my IT classes into work somehow... kinda kills two birds with one stone. > Back when I was training in Tae Kwon Do Cool! My 13 year old son is a red belt... he should be ready to earn his 1st degree black belt in about 4-6 months. Which brings me to another question just for you: His Tae Kwon Do school offers a month of free lessons to parents... I know that Tae Kwon Do improves focus and discipline; do you think a month is enough to have any appreciable effect? I don't want to get into it seriously until after I graduate next year... but if a month will be helpful, I will take that now... >(and I used to be ranked in the top 5 in > Ontario) I was training 20 hours a week and doing full time undergrad studies that > used up about 80-100 hours a week. I did *nothing* but these two things and get small > amounts of sleep and when it looked like a psychotic episode was around the corner, I > retired from the former, got my degree, and became a little less fit than I would > like to be - downright doughy. The prospect of working full time, doing full time > school, raising 2 kids, and making time for poker makes my head spin. > Yeah, sometimes my head spins! :) I think I'm starting to understand what you mean about thinking efficiently versus too much... It's like when I first started to learn to fly (I never finished that, another thing for after I graduate) cockpit management was a big issue. Between properly communicating with ATC, proper instrument scanning, proper scanning of the sky (VFR), charts, landmarks, times, etc... it was all very overwhelming especially when I was still not comfortable holding the yoke and moving the rudder pedals. When I became more comfortable with the way the airplane moved in response to my hands and feet, I stopped thinking about what I was doing with my hands and fett, and just allowed them to move intuitively... seems I need to do the same with poker, give the basics I have learned a chance to become more intuitive. | ||
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| Re: Thoughts on thinking..., stdioh, 20. May 2003 16:50 | ||
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| > Poker is my sanity time! :) It's amazing how much online poker you can play while writing > papers or programs for school late at night. I am also fortunate enogh that I can get a > LOT of my school stuff done at work because I'm a software developer and can work all of > my IT classes into work somehow... kinda kills two birds with one stone. Lucky. I too work in software, but all of my time at work is spent slagging through reams and reams of code - I barely have time for UPF :) > Cool! My 13 year old son is a red belt... he should be ready to earn his 1st degree black > belt in about 4-6 months. Which brings me to another question just for you: His Tae Kwon > Do school offers a month of free lessons to parents... I know that Tae Kwon Do improves > focus and discipline; do you think a month is enough to have any appreciable effect? I > don't want to get into it seriously until after I graduate next year... but if a month > will be helpful, I will take that now... I don't think a month will do much for you. If you're going to take up TKD I would suggest that you plan on staying in it for at least a full year or you won't get much from it. The vast majority of students quit after 4 months. Then another big chunk leave after 8 months, and another after a year. After the first year, most of the people who stay, stay longer. It took me at least 2 years before I really felt I had control of myself and that's not counting when I learned it as a kid and then took a very very long hiatus. But this is "not quite poker" > I think I'm starting to understand what you mean about thinking efficiently versus too > much... It's like when I first started to learn to fly (I never finished that, another > thing for after I graduate) cockpit management was a big issue. Between properly > communicating with ATC, proper instrument scanning, proper scanning of the sky (VFR), > charts, landmarks, times, etc... it was all very overwhelming especially when I was still > not comfortable holding the yoke and moving the rudder pedals. When I became more > comfortable with the way the airplane moved in response to my hands and feet, I stopped > thinking about what I was doing with my hands and fett, and just allowed them to move > intuitively... seems I need to do the same with poker, give the basics I have learned a > chance to become more intuitive. Exactly. Remember learning to drive a car? You had to think about stearing, accellerating, braking, watching your blindspot, this, that. Now I can eat McDonalds, talk on a phone, stear with my knee, and not even think about my left foot. Poker will do that in time too. You'll be stearing with one knee, doing speed stuff with your left foot, but you'll be thinking about your arms doing things that they wouldn't be doing at all if you were a beginner. | ||
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| Re: Thoughts on thinking..., Roy Cooke, 21. May 2003 07:48 | ||
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| Yeah, I know what you mean....Sometimes I think things through and my first impulse was the correct answer. That said, if you do not have good instincts (which come with experience) then a good thought process will have to get the job done. Roy Cooke | ||
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