"Playing Poker": Theory and Practice

[RatFink]

I'm glad you post better than you play. I enjoy reading every one of your posts.

As for getting theory into practice, it really is time invested. While you can't run your poker-stove analysis at the table in the Bellagio for every decision, the more often you do so post-game the easier it is to feel very comfortable with the estimates that you must rely on in-game.

Basically keep doing what you are doing, and soon the in-game decisions come faster and without as much thought or analysis. Play hands. Play them at a slower rate so you can consider all of the variables in your decision. If you logged 100,000 hands in a month and never really considered much in your turn play other than "pots too big to fold now" then those 100,000 hands aren't developing you as a player anyway.

It isn't that much different than learning a new language. It's a struggle and a lot of learning and time invested early on. You learn how to conjugate all the verbs and proper spelling and can pass tests and write basic compositions. You can even correct other peoples assignments. Then you speak to a native speaker and they can't really understand a word you are saying. But you press on, and soon you can pick up the meanings of new words you've never heard because of the context they are used in. You don't have to refer to the theory of the language, because you live it. Wow, what a long drawn out analogy. Hope it helps make some point somewhere.

[JojoDiego]

Great post. I've been searching the archives for help with this, and even thought about making a similar post. I struggle greatly with applying theory to real hands. I only single-table because of it.

I once read a post or article that discussed pattern recognition. I think it said that in a real hand, unless you are Big Blue, you can't use a logical, conscious thought-process to crunch all the available info and make the correct decision in a timely manner. What we all do instead is look for patterns--e.g., "ooh, I've flopped a flush draw w/undercards between players with a 6-SB pot"--and compare that pattern to similar situations we have archived in our head. So theoretically, if we've studied, read and played a lot, we have a big archive and we get better and better at recognizing patterns and making appropriate decisions.

In my desperation to improve, I recently started talking the flop through out loud like a weirdo: What's the pot, is it big or small, what do I have and how coordinated is the flop? Then I try to work what I know about my opponents into the mix. I felt like I needed a structured system to help me process all the info, and I'm hoping repetition will burn it into my brain so I'll do it more subconsciously. I think it's helping; at the least, it takes me off autopilot.

Thanks for taking the time to write this post. I was tabling between 4-8 tables on Party 2/4 last night and lost $400 making a bunch of bad choices. (Including folding AKs in LP preflop accidently as a table popped up on me)
I told my wife this morning what an ididot I am and how I was going through the motions and being to impatient.
I hear the rags to riches stories, love the game, love the lifestyle and would just like to not have a day job. I want all of this to happen overnight.
This post has two important messages for me.
1)Put the time in going over your results and planning what you will do in various senarios.
2)Play less tables.
Sometimes the longest way home is the shortest.

[callmedonnie]

If it makes you feel any better, I post bad and play worse. Look where that has gotten me.

But in all seriousness, I wish I had more time often. Especially at live games, where whenever I need a second to double check the odds the dealer is sitting forcing me to decide. I hate that.

Multi-tabling I think makes things difficult on occasion, but in the long run I think makes more $. And usually I think I can make decent decisions. But I play 2/4, so what do I know. Maybe you should try playing a single table as an exercise to improve this. I am about to do that w/ 3/6, to get acclimated and be focused. Another thing about online play, is that from my experience there are usually better players online than live.

[Mike]

Ditto

I quit responding to how I would play a hand a few years ago because of the great differences between the book and the table. If I were to write a book, I have a certain group of players in mind. I use the common terms we all accept as correct, and then go on a long drawn out discourse of how to play correctly.

Then you read my book, don't know any better and assume what I talk about applies to your table(s). It doesn't work so well, and "What the hey, isn't this the way to do it?"

When I wrote about it, I envisioned a mix of three, three, three (player styles). The tables you sit at are a mix of six, two, one (player styles), or any combination in between depending on what your time slice is of the check in on player types.

I think the leap from the book, and this forum, to the table is absolutely huge. Everything we do is or should be player dependant for that single hand, ie, who is in the hand, and how do they play. Not, this is the way we do it, period.

I think online multitabling helps balance things out and hides this fault because you are looking at overall results more than single player results. On a single table, live at least, if you do not tailor your play to players in the hand, you tend to not do your best, because an average approach only brings average results. Or at least this is the way I see it.

[droolie]

I sincerely hope we all post better than we play.

You have the hard part down. You understand not only the very difficult theory behind perfect ABC poker but also the tendencies of flawed players and how to exploit their weaknesses and tendencies. This takes a very long time to absorb and the sheer volume of this knowledge cannot be underestimated. Putting it all into practice without error is incredibly difficult because there is so much to remember and you have so little time to make a decision.

Putting what you know into practice is a gradual thing. You get better and better at it the more you play. It's just a matter of speeding up the information analysis process. This requires practice and repitition. As a part-time player (and admitted multi-tabler) you do not play enough to expect to be able process all these extremely contextualized decisions so quickly that you will never make a mistake. Keep heart though, no one plays perfectly, we all make mistakes. The key is just making less mistakes than the competition you are playing against and making less mistakes as you develop as a player and move up in your competition level. I suspect no matter how many mistakes you are currently making you are making far less than your average opponent already.

You will make plenty of mistakes but the important thing to do is to try to recognize those mistakes as soon as possible after they happen. Ask yourself after every hand, "Could I have played that better?" If the answer is "yes" write a quick note down as to what you felt you did wrong. For me I frequently miss river value bets. I know this is a major leak in my game and I am constantly trying to work on recognizing situations in which I have value bets and forcing myself to have the courage to click the "BET" button.

If mutlitabling does not allow you to analyze your play in real time drop tables until you find the right balance. I usually play 4 tables because I know I will make more money for that session, mistakes and all, over just playing one or two tables. I realize that this short-term greed comes at the expense of development of my poker skills but I like to strike a balance. I play the large part of my sessions on multitable auto-pilot and a part of them on one or two tables to work on my game, usually at a higher limit than my home limit.

When I work on my game a go into hyper-paying-attention mode. I'm looking for patterns to develop in the game. I'm looking for unusual moves players make and putting them into context. That 35/12/4 guy in seat 2 C/R the flop with air on a AKT board into a pfr. Later he donks the turn when an A hits and it turns out he has the A. These are things that in time start to say something not only about that specific player but that specific player type. In the future I will be able to exploit these types of tendencies and feel more comfortable in uncomfortable situations when players put me to the test.

I wrote a pretty long post on this in micros a while back that might explain process of finding these patterns better than I could in this post... Paying attention

[Mister Z]

This concept reminds me a lot of playing music. In practice and in theory you can sit around and analyze why this phrase works over these chords and how these concepts relate and so on. But when you sit down with other musicians or get up on stage all that [censored] has to go out the window. You really do have to forget all that theory and just play and interact and keep your eyes and ears open. If you're up there on stage thinking about what scale you should be playing in over this type of chord and the theory behind what you're doing... you're really screwed. Now, poker is not music, but there are a lot of parallels. Who here hasn't made a decision based on a line or concept you might have been reading about recently only to find out that you were ignoring some pretty important factors? Playing poker is really improvisational and largely abstract - too much analytical thinking can get in the way.

That being said, all that time you spend AWAY from the poker table (or away from your instrument) is so that some of the theory behind the theory can creep into the parts of your brain that make those instant decisions.

[jason_t]

In theory there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice there is.---Yogi Berra

[WillMagic]

[ QUOTE ]
Ditto

[/ QUOTE ]

Hedley Lamarr: My mind is aglow with whirling, transient nodes of thought careening through a cosmic vapor of invention.

Taggart: Ditto.

Hedley Lamarr: DITTO? Ditto, you provincial putz?

Will

[W. Deranged]

Fantastic discussion, guys. Thanks.