Verbalising my thought process has helped

[flair1239]

Started reading "Psychology of Poker". It has really gotten me thinking.

One of the best things I have taken from the first couple chapters, is verbalising my thought processes. It has suprised me, how much of the time that I am on auotpilot without even thinking about things.

Stopping for an extra second and just quickly running through things in my mind (not talking outloud), has really helped me. It sounds basic, but I bet many of us are not doing this on every hand.

Interesting book so far.

[Argus]

I agree with you. Anything that helps make you more conscious of your decisions is a good thing for improving your poker. I used to keep a piece of paper where I would mark river calls as good or bad, just to make myself think about calling on the river. It helped a lot.

[Bob T.]

One thing that I found very useful, when I was starting to play. Everytime someone made a bet, raise, or call. I tried to translate their action into english.

So it might go something like this.

MP open raise. "I like my hand"

LP coldcall. " That's nice."

BB call. " Hmmmm."

Flop,

BB checks, "Hmmmm".

MP Bets, " I like my hand."

LP calls, " you said that before".

BB checkraises, " is top pair any good here?"

MP reraises, " maybe, how good is your kicker, I wish LP would quit call, call, calling here. "

LP folds. " ok, i didn't like my hand that much, and apparently you really like yours. "

BB calls. " maybe my kicker is Ok."

and so forth.

Anyway, sometimes try doing this during a hand. Sometimes try doing it while looking at a hand history. You might find that suddenly, your opponents are telling you a lot more than you previously thought.

You have to remember, some of them do lie or exaggerate some of the time [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img].

[HajiShirazu]

I never noticed myself doing this but come to think of it I tend to do something pretty similar sometimes, and I think it's really helpful.