Thinking at the Table (Part 1)

by Lou Krieger

If you're a serious poker player, you know it's impossible to win consistently without exercising your mental muscles. The job of a poker player, like other jobs, is comprised of a variety of factors. Most of these factors are found in every job, though in varying degrees. Whether that job is as simple as sorting the big eggs from the small ones on a production line, or as complex as nuclear physics, each job requires a specialized knowledge base, as well as some degree of critical thinking, problem solving, and accountability for the results achieved. In poker, you don't have the headaches that come from supervising others. Instead, you're an individual contributor. You, and you alone, are responsible for the results you achieve.

The job of a poker player is really one of gathering knowledge and being able to apply it in the heat of battle. Thinking on your feet, as it were, is where the proverbial rubber meets the road. Let's examine the job of poker playing from that perspective.

I'm a Poker Player. How Much Thinking Does My Job Require?

Some jobs, like police officers and firefighters, are characterized in part by danger and nasty working conditions. Other jobs require taking action and making decisions under a great deal of pressure. Some require a great deal of thinking. Research scientists, for example, spend much of their time thinking about very complex matters. And while they do make decisions, they are not usually made under severe time constraints. Perhaps the ultimate example of this kind of job was the position held by Albert Einstein. Employed by the Institute for Advanced Studies at Princeton University, his job was to think about the nature of the universe and express it in mathematical terms!

Compare that to a commercial airline pilot. Although flying a big jet requires a great deal of skill, along with a substantial base of technical knowledge, it is not a job requiring a lot of deep thinking. Why? In emergencies, there is simply not enough time to leisurely engage in thought. When a warning light comes on and you gaze out the cockpit window and notice flames streaming out of one of your engines, you simply don't have the luxury of siting back, crossing your legs, and leisurely saying to your co-pilot, "It looks like we're in big trouble. Now, let's chat a bit about how to handle that rather nasty fire over there."

No, that jet pilot has to react, and react now. In jobs where there's no time to think, successful practitioners of those crafts have to immediately draw on the correct solution from simulated situations they've faced in training. That's why pilots spend long hours in flight simulators and other training environments. When confronted with an emergency, they hope it's a situation they've encountered many times before in a simulated or controlled setting, which should enable them quickly implement the proper solution.

So what about poker? Is it a deep thinking game like chess, or does it demand quick decision-making? It's true that poker requires substantial thought. But it also requires quick decision making, since you do not have an unlimited amount of time at the table to decide whether to check or bet, or fold, call, raise, or re-raise.

Poker Requires a Reservoir of Know-How

In poker the successful player must be able to quickly tap into a vast reservoir of information. Since there's no time for leisurely thought, success demands that you gain all the knowledge you can while you are away from the table. Like that jet pilot, once you are able to deal with difficult situations in a controlled or simulated environment, you'll be better able to make the correct decision in the real world. By putting that theoretical knowledge into practice you will mold it into practical know-how. Do this in low limit games, or by practicing with poker software designed for this very purpose, before you ply those skills in big money contests.

Decision-Making At the Table

Still, poker requires that certain decisions be made at the table, in the heat of battle. It's quite clear that you can't subject each situation you encounter to lengthy analysis. You don't have the time or tools to take a situation and run a 100,000-hand simulation to determine the best strategy. You have to act now!

Since you have only a short amount of time to make decisions, what kind of thinking and analysis should you be doing at the table?

Categorizing Your Opponents

The first rule of thinking at the table is to gather as much information as you can when you're not involved in a hand. Observe each of your opponents at the table. Categorize their play: loose, tight, aggressive, weak-tight, calling station, prone to bluff, does most of his betting before the flop, likes to check-raise good hands on the turn, good player but currently on tilt, and so on. Get a line on your opponents. Since your playing strategy will be guided by the nature of your opponents, you need to categorize their play before you are faced with a decision where an opponent's playing style is a critical factor.

For example, suppose you raised before the flop with A-Q and by the turn the board shows Q-6-5-2 of mixed suits. You're up against one opponent who called your raise from the small blind. When you bet the turn he raises! If you know your opponent to be a very loose, habitually bluffing, ram-and-jam player who is currently loosing and on tilt, you'd certainly call. You might even re-raise. On the other hand, if the player who raised is a real rock, you'd probably put him on an overpair or a set, and throw your hand away!

None of this is very exotic from a strategic viewpoint. What's important is this: unless you invested the time in categorizing the play of your opponents before you were confronted with this situation, you'd have no other option than guessing about their play.

Not only is it important to categorize the play of your opponents, you have to keep doing this as long as you're in the game. Most of your opponents won't play the same way all the time. Many loose players play quite well for the first thirty minutes they're at the table. Then they get caught up in gambling, and start to fly open. At some point, they'll notice they're almost broke. Then they'll either tighten up dramatically, or go to the other extreme. In a desperate attempt to recoup, they'll bet their last dollars on anything in a frenzy to get even. If that miracle occurs and they do get even, watch out. That hitherto loose opponent now tightens up considerably -- playing well, in an attempt to hold on to the money he miraculously snatched from the lion's mouth.

During the play of a hand, you simply don't have time for much complex analysis. If you've got a lot of game experience, you should not be running into many entirely new situations. Most will be analogous to others you've faced before. That's why there is no substitute for real game experience coupled with theoretical knowledge that you've molded into practical know-how. Expertise at poker comes from an iterative cycle of reading and studying the game, playing the game and thinking about the game. When you do that over and over, in seemingly endless cycles of repetition, you'll discover at some point that you are a much better player than your opponents.

No matter how much specialized knowledge you have stored up in your poker toolbox, you're often forced to make quick decisions on incomplete data. Next time we'll examine some of the kinds of thinking you have to do at the table, and help you avoid a few common traps you can fall into. Until then, keep flopping aces.