Posted by Johnnymac 12:10 PM
It Comes Naturally

It's amazing to me how "automatic" some things have become. I say this because Fro and I are into big discussion about one particular hand we played on Monday night, some of which is detailed in the posts and comments below and some of which is continued in email. (We can't share everything with you people!) Looking back at all of this is quite interesting to me because it all happened so fast and yet the thought process was still quite intense and complicated.

When I first started playing "real" poker about 4 years ago, I would read books and magazine articles and simply be astounded at the way serious players could sit down and describe a specific hand and the complicated thought processes that they went through to arrive at their decisions. It all made sense after rereading a few times but it seemed that I was missing so much information that was right in front of me, too, not to mention that I was reading at my own pace not even close to the rapid fire timing of a poker game.

So I go play and try to pay attention and do these things and I would find that I either couldn't keep up with the speed of the game or would grow tired and bored from the effort after only a very short while. I was quite overwhelmed with the decision process and eventually I would give up and "just play". But I kept trying and kept playing and eventually my results started to improve and I started to expect to win money every time I played rather than budgeting a set amount to lose.

Nowadays I still find it difficult to consciously make decisions and follow the game so closely, so I don't. I will usually be quite attentive for the first half-hour or so of any session but just until I get a feel for the other players, especially the new ones. I still get tired of the effort and again I just play after a while, but what I have found is that I am analyzing the game and making complicated decisions without knowing it. Then, when Fro and I start discussing hands - and we've been doing it for years - all of the decisions start to come back to me and I see how much was just "automatic". It's amazing. I am currently learning to mountain bike and one of the big pieces of advice for beginners is not to overanalyze and just "go with the flow." Once you do something often enough you subconciously learn and reinforce each success until it becomes something natural that you don't even think about. Poker is much the same way, I think.

If there is a point to all of this, it's this: going back and reanalyzing hands isn't just good (or bad) for the ego. Mapping out one's decision process in hindsight is helpful because seeing where things went wrong or right and where you screwed up or did well can improve your chances of success the next time the same situation comes along. And if you are lucky enough to have a quality opponent who is willing to be honest with you in return that's also good, because that's twice the information and twice the chance to improve. Once you think about it enough it becomes second nature and you can start to focus on even more obscure and important things. This is a big part of being successful at No Limit Holdem - it's the little things that count but it's hard to pay attention to the little things if the big things are getting in the way. Going back and thinking about it and eventually learning enough to "tune out" the big things can go a long way towards finding all of the important little things.

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