Another char tip - announce your situation

My biggest leak still remains to be my inability to take my hand of the mouse and think things through. So a new semi-rule that I have just begun to institute is to actually announce my hand before I play it.

By announce, I don't mean just say I have AK here. I mean I announce the situation I am in to myself. I try and state everything that I think would be pertinent when I write a post describing my hand. E.g. instead of saying I have AK here, I would include my table position, my chip stack compared to the remaining players left to act, my M, what stage of the tourney we are in, any reads I have, any impressions I think the table has of me, and any other pertinent info. After stating that to myself and then making what I think is the best bet, I will take my hand off the damn mouse, wait to see what happens, and then go through the whole damn process if the action comes back to me.

I still think making rapid fire decisions is my biggest leak (and I would imagine others have the same problem), and I am hoping that this will help patch that leak.

nice advice, I play mainly cash games, my rule is -- Hear the "timer" warning before calling a big bet. (unless I have the nuts). Those quick calls are a killer.

It's a lot easier to do this live since you don't look at your cards until the action is to you. Soupie always reccomended counting to 5 or 10 before making each decision.

GL

The other day at my home game my friend raised from utg and I moved allin with AKs. He took your advice, thought about the situation, and after 45 seconds he called and flipped over AA. So I guess your advice is good.

But seriously it makes sense... I look back to the few MTTs I've gone deep in (don't play many) and I busted with ~15 a few times because I didn't think things through....

...

Like Ive mentioned in another post, I play every hand like if I was posting and explaining the hand history here on the forum.
This has helped me alot because I have to explain every action I take to someone (even if that someone is not real), and I think when playing poker, people who read/play a lot, actually know what is the right thing to do in most situations. They just decide not to believe or trust themselves.

If I dont explain the hand, sometimes I'm fooling myself, calling a raise I know I shouldnt call, just because...well I wanna stay in the hand and see what happens, or I want to get lucky, or whatever. It doesnt matter, I dont have to explain my actions to myself.

ihave a permanent little post-it note that says 'You dont have to call'

still helps after all this time, well normally.