How do you know that you've made the right decision?

[Fade]

If sometimes, you make a bad decision, but get lucky and gets paid off, while other times, you play perfect but someone pulled off a miracle on the river, how would you distinguish the good decisions to the bad?

[biondino]

POT ODDS

(plus reads, stack sizes, position and a whole host of other things)

If you have a gutshot draw and pay way beyond the odds to see the river, hit your draw and clean up, are you able to recognise it was a bloody awful decision? If you call an all in with the nut flush on an unpaired board and some dude makes a runner runner full house, can you tell that you made the right decision despite losing your whole stack? If the answer to these two questions are yes, then you are making the right decisions.

Answer part 2: the RESULT of your decision should never alter the reasons for making that decision. Stop judging your play based on the result and start judging it on the decisions you make with imperfect information during the hand.

[Irisheyes]

Poker is all about getting your money in the middle when you have the best of it. As long as you do this then your making good decisions.

Try to always come up with legitimate reasons for the decisions you make. If you can look through your hand histories and give good reasons for all your decisions then your doing ok me thinks.

[biondino]

You are also allowed to be wrong AS LONG AS YOU REALISE WHAT YOU DID WRONG AND LEARN FROM IT. This is particularly the case with such vague things as reads, but also with marginal decisions during hands. You should gain knowledge and information from your mistakes even more than you do from your good plays - because it's so much harder to question your wins as opposed to your losses.

[Laeelin]

Answer part 2: the RESULT of your decision should never alter the reasons for making that decision. Stop judging your play based on the result and start judging it on the decisions you make with imperfect information during the hand.

Exactly

With that same hand, same betting patters, same players, would you make the same move again?

[Miffed22001]

making the right decision is based on the odds, or occasionally on reads.
You might have an oesd and a flush draw going to the river but if you dont have odds you cant really call.
Reads alter this slightly as sometimes you're hand may be good when it appears not to be, eg callin g with bottom pair HU after big bets from opp on low board etc.
Basically, if in your thinking and taking into consideration odds you can justify your play then it is the right decision play, if you cant then you learn why and dont do it again, or try not to.

[Laeelin]

Basically, if in your thinking and taking into consideration odds you can justify your play then it is the right decision play

Just an extra point to add in here, you should be looking for reasons to fold after the flop, not for an excuse to play in the hand.

One thing that used to be a huge leak in my game was overvalueing implied odds... Sure you can count them as well, but dont use them to call a pot sized bet or something without a REALLY good read.