The psychology of poker. The importance of correct decisions

Making the right decisions before making money

Playing poker correctly in the long term gives you a big advantage because you can focus on the single most important thing: making the right decisions. Every poker hand has its own decisions, i.e. we can play well or badly in every hand. In a pot-limit or no-limit game, you have to decide how much to raise or fold, while in other variations such as lowball or 5-card draw, you have to decide how many cards and which ones to fold. "But in his excellent book The Theory of Poker, author David Sklansky explains it as "The Fundamental Theorem of Poker":

Every time you play your hand differently than you would if you saw all your opponents' cards, they win. If every time you played your hand the same way you would play your hand if you saw all your opponents' cards, they would lose. Conversely, every time your opponents play their hand differently if they see your cards, you win. And every time they would play their hand the same way as they would if they saw your cards, you would lose.

This theorem gives a wonderful and concise explanation of how money is won and lost in poker, but it shouldn't be used to determine whether a particular decision was a mistake or not. The problem is that Sklansky's theorem assumes that you have perfect information. In reality, we almost never have perfect information because our opponents' generations are hidden. In reality, if we had perfect information, poker would not be an interesting game at all.

When we talk about "fair play", we mean the best play we could reasonably expect to make on the basis of the information available. Our definition focuses on the practical side of the game rather than the theoretical. To illustrate the difference between the two sides, imagine this hand:

You are playing no-limit hold'em and hold AQ. A big pot is formed and the river is the river, leaving you one-on-one with your opponent on the table.

A J9 87

Your opponent raises. What do you do? You hold an ace-high suit when your opponent may have many hands that are inferior to yours, such as a set, a straight, a lower suit, or maybe even two pairs. The obvious play is to beat and against most opponents this is definitely a good play based on the information you have.

However, if your opponent holds T9? You lose against a one-colour queue, so the correct theoretical game by Sklansky's definition would be to fold. You probably have no possible way of knowing that he has a one-colour queue, so a beat is considered fair for all practical purposes, and a fold would be terrible. You would almost certainly have to at least call, even against an opponent you have never seen bet on the river without having the absolute best hand.

Why do we need to emphasise the right solutions rather than making money? After all, isn't the most important thing in poker to make money? The problem, again, stems from the dominance of luck in the short term. There is no way to guarantee making money in the short term. There are simply too many unknown and random variations. A good player can virtually guarantee to make money in the long run, but he can only do so by making the right choices. Making the right decision may result in the player losing money, but consistently making the right decision is the only way to ensure long term profitability. It is pointless to concentrate elsewhere.

For example, let's say you're playing no-limit hold'em and you get different suits of AT in late position. A solid player in the early position makes a standard raise. You understand that AT is a marginal hand that is difficult to play against an early position raise, so you make the right decision - you fold. The big bet calls and A-T-9 comes out on the table. After two more cards that mean nothing, the big bet wins the big pot with a single-flush T-9 against a player in early position with A-K. If you hadn't folded before the flop, you would have won a very large pot.

This type of hand is very frustrating for novice players, who see it as an isolated hand, rather than a small incident in their larger poker career. While it did cost money to fold this hand, it was a good decision and will save money in the long run. Any simulation programmes will show that against A-K and T-9 of the same suit, A-T will be the best hand in the river by only 15 percent. So your fold has effectively made you money, because realistically you don't expect to make money on 15 percent when you lose as much as 85 percent.

This principle is the same for any decision in poker. If you make good decisions, then the actual outcome of the hand becomes irrelevant. There will inevitably be events where you lose money by making good decisions and inevitably other players win money by making bad decisions. What you can do is to reassure yourself with the knowledge that after a while all those players will lose all their money, and if you continue to play well, you will be in the best position to win that money. Don't worry about the money, worry about making the right decisions and let the money take care of itself.

 

Source: The Poker Mindset: Essential Attitudes for Poker Success

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