The most important poker skill

[Erpel]

Ok, I'm playing poker online and I'm faced with this situation:

My cards: K A
Remaining effective stacks $9
Board: 4 7 K 5 6
Pot: $2
Hero bets $1.5, Villain raises to $4.5

What do I do?

This is an extreme example, but milder examples of this happen to me way too often. I play on autopilot on multiple tables and suddenly I'm faced with a decision and I'm not sure exactly how I ended up there.

It's easy when given a hand history to analyse to rationalise your decisions on every street, but the bottom line here is that too often I sit at a poker table and need to make a decision and cannot even remember exactly how the hand I'm in played out. If you think that this is preposterous I have this challenge to you - next time you have a river decision to make, take five seconds out to spell out in your mind the following:

Who bet/raised/called on every street up to this point? Remember to include the ones that subsequently folded, do you still remember who they were and what their positions of the table might do to modify the ranges of the people still in the hand? Do you have an idea what their hand ranges were on every street? Were there any timing tells? Exactly what amount was bet into what pot size on every street?

If you're honest with yourself I am convinced that the vast majority of beginners are no better than me and will have trouble recollecting at least a couple of details. I found that if I play two tables I cannot keep track of everything on both tables (including hands I'm not in)

We talk a lot about forming hand ranges for people, but the very idea of forming a hand range relies heavily on us paying attention to and remembering what the actions in a hand were.

I won't be so crass as to assert that memory or recall is the most important poker skill. What I'll say that it is arguably the most overlooked of the important poker skills in beginners especially.

As with so many things in poker this applies 'on every level'. Poker databases gives us a proxy to long term memory, in that it gives us statistics to go by where memory fails. If we have a guy on a high agression factor and all his stats indicate that he raises way way too often, he raises us we think he's full of shit and we shove - statistics fall short when he min-raises with rubbish and gets folds from terribad players all the time, making his bad play super profitable for him - but he basically never raises a proper bet size and he did this time. Statistics told us - frequent better, he's full of shit. Memory tells us - he always min-bets trash - he never bets a decent amount. He must have the absolute nuts.

It's probably worth working on the old memory.

[d0zer]

too often I sit at a poker table and need to make a decision and cannot even remember exactly how the hand I'm in played out.

This is a massive problem. Either reduce the number of tables you're playing or don't play stoned anymore I 18-table and can keep track of the action of multiple postflop situations simultaneously, but it took me a lot of hands of 4, then 6, then 9, then 12, then 15 tabling before building up to that point. When you're thinking hard about why you're making an action on every street it tends to stick better than if you're just pushing buttons on auto-pilot.


Re: yer AK hand, it's pretty much always a fold. with a 4-straight & flush completing your villain has to have a lot of bluffs in his range for you to call profitably, and you can't even put him on a busted draw buff -- even a busted OESD has 2pr now. It takes a special kinda maniac to raise that river with a worse K or 99-QQ.

But if this is 10NL the pot should probably be bigger than $2 by the river.

[jyms]

You are playing far too many tables if you have so many decisions on the go and can't remember the action. If all else fails read the chat log when you miss something, but this should be a rare (once a session) thing to happen.

How do you form a range of what he has and what he is betting/calling/folding if you have no idea what happened on previous streets?

[daven]

Ok, I'm playing poker online and I'm faced with this situation:

My cards: K A
Remaining effective stacks $9
Board: 4 7 K 5 6
Pot: $2
Hero bets $1.5, Villain raises to $4.5

What do I do?

silly hand example, and check the river...

[quote="Erpel"]

We talk a lot about forming hand ranges for people, but the very idea of forming a hand range relies heavily on us paying attention to and remembering what the actions in a hand were.

you form a range based on pre-flop action. On later streets you're not forming another range, you're narrowing the range you've already put them on.

It's probably worth working on the old memory.

nope, work on how you use ranges...

[Erpel]

Ok, it seems my post was misinterpreted as a cry for help. All I wanted to accomplish here is emphasise to beginners (such as myself) that we need to pay attention and think things through as they unfold, and not let pieces of information leave our conscious mind until we no longer have use for them. Information is the weapon with which this battlefield is won, so we need to make sure that we retain, process and use this information effectively.

Maybe I should have stressed that the hand is a complete fabrication and parody of a hand history meant to underline that when we go to our forum and post a hand history we have all the data in front of us to relate to and analyse, and we can go back and review actions on earlier streets and decide whether we are thinking clearly on our later street decisions or whether we've forgotten things from earlier streets that that should influence our decisions.

At the table when we need to make that decision we only have that option if we actually remember what happened in the hand and did some range based analyses on the earlier streets as the actions were taking place.

When I initially conceived of this post I wanted to include exactly some of the advice that's been graciously put forward - if you find that you don't know everything that's happened you are playing too many tables etc.

Recall is absolutely critical, absolutely basic, and the foundation for any meaningful analysis and decision-making. Hand histories and databases upon which we can do statistical analysis help with recall after the fact - but no HUD can effectively give us clues on how to best play a hand anywhere near as well as our memory.

That's why we're always talking about how you as a player need to routinely know and understand the hand ranges of the people you are playing against and know how you would exploit them.

On every action taken by a villain we have to
1) consider his general tendencies (HUD can help)
2) put him on a specific range of hands that would take that action (memory only can tell us if he prefers playing broadways or suited connectors)
3) decide if our current holding is an A, B, C or D range hand against that specific range of hands and decide to play accordingly. This too will be influenced by our knowledge (more memory than HUD, hopefully) of how he will play parts of his range.

Everything is opponent dependent

Against some opponents it's correct to fold, against others to call and against yet others to raise. In almost every situation. The first step is said to be know your opponents - but to know your opponents you need to be in the habit of actually remembering important signature traits or hands. It's no value seeing one opponent stacking off with TPWK and then play him as if he was an unknown a week later because we didn't take a note of or just remember that particular leak.

Everything you do not remember about every hand you have ever played or observed is right now costing you money and will continue to cost you money. It may only be a little, so very little - but small edges is what makes poker profitable. Lots and lots of small edges.

We all need to get better and better at these basic things. If it takes me half a second now, I need to do it tens of thousands of times so my mind becomes more effective at it and I can do it in tenths or hundredths of seconds - this will free up more of my mental capacity to do more complicated analyses in a hand, or play more tables.

I saw a quib somewhere (probably 2+2) by a clever fellow known alternately as Jman and Phil Galfond which I'll paraphrase here because I can't be bothered to look it up so I can accurately quote it.

Every time the action is on you, you are granted the opportunity to make the correct decision.

To make the correct decision you need the maximum amount of information about your opponents current holding and tendencies at the forefront of your mind. Only if you have that, do you have a hope in hell of making the correct decision.

And if you don't make the correct decision, you're losing money.

[Erpel]

Of course this ties directly in with hand ranges, and in many ways hand ranges is the answer as in - you practice your memory by thinking long and hard about what hand range an opponent starts with preflop - uses the additional information as it flows in to narrow that range down. This process involves thinking about and continually recalling actions in the current hand and any other information that we have about this opponent, so it is a recall exercise at the same time as it is the end goal in itself.

I guess my basic point is - how well your recall is working for you is a quick sanity check on if you are looking at and thinking about poker in the right way. If recall is a problem and you're serious about poker it should be a very high priority.

I know I have work to do (and not just because of the exaggerated fictitious examples in my OP) and it is my current focus when studying poker, and I expect it to remain so for a good long while. Even when I play I now ignore that I can coast on multiple tables and try to play one table really really well, getting the maximum out of it in terms of reads and learning about the hand ranges of the people I play against.

[Sir Pawnalot]

Awesome post Erpel!

Knowing what opponents are remembering is the hard part for me. Sometimes my opponents forget the action and my representation of a hand fails.

Memory does not only go back in time- but also into the future. I visualize different scenarios and think about all possibilities before I bet. What do I do if he raises, what if he flat calls-what if i miss flop etc.

In other words I play the hand through to the river (many different scenarios) before I put in my first bet preflop. That way I am prepared for whatever is coming.

[bjsaust]

You do touch on some good points, and one thing people should be doing is making notes. For instance if someone min-raises as a bluff and raises 2/3 pot for value, as you say all you're HUD tells you is how often he raises. Knowing what size raise means what is important v's that guy. Likewise you play some tools who often min-bet every street if checked to them. They may show 80% bet on each street in their HUD, but you need to know that a min-bet is weak and a real bet is the nuts or it could get expensive when he pots river and all you see is that he bets river 80% of the time so "he must be bluffing almost always!".

[Jason]

Ok, I'm playing poker online and I'm faced with this situation:

My cards: K A
Remaining effective stacks $9
Board: 4 7 K 5 6
Pot: $2
Hero bets $1.5, Villain raises to $4.5

What do I do?

Fold

[kmind]

Ok, I'm playing poker online and I'm faced with this situation:

My cards: K A
Remaining effective stacks $9
Board: 4 7 K 5 6
Pot: $2
Hero bets $1.5, Villain raises to $4.5

What do I do?

Fold

lol

[kfaess]

When I first started to learn about hand ranges I too noticed that sometimes I forgo the action that happened earlier in the hand. As you said, this is an absolutely essential part of playing poker and so no one should have problems with this.

What I've started doing lately is playing a session with a specific goal in mind. For example, one goal is to maximize earnings/increase bankroll and this can be accomplished by playing 8 tables.

But another goal is to maximize your growth as a poker player and to accomplish that goal I've tried this:

to play one table really really well, getting the maximum out of it in terms of reads and learning about the hand ranges of the people I play against.

I've only been doing this for about a week and a half but it already seems to be helping. Right now I play about 2/3 of my sessions multitabling and 1/3 with just one table.

[Jack Sawyer]

The most important poker skill is folding, and its not even close.

[PlayToWin]

It's easy when given a hand history to analyse to rationalise your decisions on every street, but the bottom line here is that too often I sit at a poker table and need to make a decision and cannot even remember exactly how the hand I'm in played out.

I feel ya brother. I use PokerOffice and it used to display each action taken by villian throughout the hand. But a recent PokerStars update has rendered PokerOffice all but useless. I don't know why their programmers can't get their shit together. I don't know if there's any reason to stick with them.

[PlayToWin]

suddenly I'm faced with a decision and I'm not sure exactly how I ended up there.

This is one reason I used to love PokerOffice, because they used to display each action throughout the hand. But, a recent update to PokerStars has rendered the program fairly useless.

[Erpel]

I'm overstating the point of course. Normally I have a very good idea why I ended up where I am, but I would sometimes be pressed to remember when on the river what the size of the flop bet was relative to the pot if I wasn't the one making it.

The point I'm making here is that there's a difference between remembering in rough terms how a hand has played out and remembering exactly how a hand has played out - and it can make the difference between whether a tell applies or not.

[tunah]

Really appreciate this post... I've been playing on four tables and convincing myself that I'm doing okay because I'm winning. Recently I've had trouble in big pots and not been able to remember the action. (even who raised preflop, if it wasn't me)

So just one table for me until I've trained myself to think about the action and not forget it as soon as I click the button. Yeah, this *should* be obvious, but some of us need a reminder or we're going to run into a brick wall when we grow out of level-0 thinking opponents.

[Sir Pawnalot]

The most important poker skill is folding, and its not even close.

Folding is an action, memory is an ability and assigning ranges is an example of a skill.

Semantics aside- I think we all agree that memory is one the most important mental abilities of a poker player. Ability to keep calm, intuition, adaptability and creativity are other vital abilities.