what's your poker wisdom?

[Dov]

I love it. Great idea. This one should be added to the books.

[PDosterM]

"I'm not a strong enough player to play bad cards."

Truth: Pretty much nobody is.

Warik, I cannot recall that quote or how accurate your paraphrase is. But I'm posting my chip-and-a-chair experiences under Psychology to dispute that.

[Mike Haven]

Hot Decks.

If you are playing in a "normal" 0.50-1 you will find that all Ax and Kx will call pre-flop.

As you now "know" fourteen cards, and therefore that there are three Aces or three Kings in the unknown 38 cards, (instead of the usual unknown 50 cards), you have a "Hot Deck" situation where, if it's folded to you in the cut off, and you have A with an unsuited 7 or lower, or K with an unsuited 9 or lower, or K with a suited 4 or lower, you can come in with a confident raise.

[dana33]

Excellent. The sort of thing that makes one say, "Why didn't I think of that?" But I'm glad you did. Thanks for sharing this.

[deacsoft]

THIS IS JUST MY OPINION.

I think you guys are getting too excited over this and that to call it "brilliant is an overstatement. The concept has potential, but a tally on a chart saying I made a loose call on the turn is not going to help my game 3 months later. I think you need to be aware of the situation and what and who caused you to make a move worthy of marking on a chart of wrong plays. I look at that chart after an hour of playing... and what does it tell me? Pay more attention to the betting after the flop? Don't fold to bets on the river? These are things that are so basic everyone should already know them or be having a blast in the play money rooms untill they have enough bonus points to buy a clue. There is no background to make that kind of information useful. It's not a bad idea... it just needs to be expanded.

For now, I'll just keep sending hand histories to my coach and a few other respected opinions. They'll let me know the details.

As for my wisdom...
Everyone should randomly print out a couple 100 hand histories a day and review them personally, post questions (if you don't have a coach or someone to review them or if you just want some other opinions), absorb the replies, and correct the play.

The only way you get better is to plug the holes. [img]/images/graemlins/laugh.gif[/img]

[astroglide]

bullshit. it promotes good play when you've got it sitting in front of you, you have a pen, and you know you're going to be writing on it. if you use one for each session you can flip through them and see if you're reducing marks, changing where they are, etc. it can IN NO WAY harm, and is a very good idea.

[Dov]

You missed the point. The point is to be decision oriented, not results oriented.

If you keep score of good decisions vs. bad decisions, you can make better decisions at the table regarding your current ability to play than by constantly checking your stack size.

[Dov]

"If it weren't for bad beats, I'd never play poker."
-Blackaces13

Reprinted with permission from his post.

[bisonbison]

For me, a lot of maintaining good play boils down to: "It's just chips". Decisions are made for small bets or big bets or chips. They're not made for money.

Money's just the unit of exchange.