What is important? 2nd attempt
Posted by OttoPilot
Posted by
OttoPilot
posted in
Gen. Poker
What is important? 2nd attempt
I came across the following quote reading Mersenneary's guide to
HUSNGs. I don't even play HUNSNGs, but there is some good general poker
thought in here. Here's a quote that stood out for me particularly:
"In
academia, you often get scrutinized on the following question when
requesting funding for your research: How could your potential findings
lead to meaningful changes in your field? Similarly, when thinking about
the game from a professional mindset, if the question you are asking
does not imply a way to make money from the answer, be careful about
whether to use your time asking it."
When we are studying poker,
posting hands, etc, how do we know that the hands we are posting and the
questions we are asking are actually important? Generally speaking,
thinking about any poker situation should benefit our game, but our time
is a limited resource. So how do we ensure that those things that we
are working on are actually the things that will benefit us the most in
terms of cold hard profit?
I remember a few years ago being OOP
and getting 3-bet was a really big deal. We had picked up a hand we
really wanted to play, made our raise, and then the dreaded 3-bet
arrived. All options seemed pretty terrible, we liked our hand too much
to fold it, calling had us check/folding a lot of flops, 4-betting
turned our pretty hand into a bluff, etc. These spots were discussed
over and over because they felt important. In reality, perhaps they
didn't really occur quite as often as we imagined and their effect on
our winrate was fairly negligible. We may have given it too much
attention because of its emotional impact, as opposed to its actual
monetary importance (I could also be wrong about this example and it
could actually be more important than I suspect, but bear with me).
So
my question to you is, how do you determine what spots are actually
important in your progress as a poker player? How do you know what will
impact your winrate the most? How do you make sure you are asking the right questions, the ones that will actually lead to meaningful changes in your game?
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These are very good questions. In my experience, it's difficult to make changes that conflict with your personality. We always find excuses not to look at those problems, because it makes us uncomfortable, and we protect our egos by avoiding them. This is why people continue to tilt, even if they are fully aware of what they are doing.
And as you point out, situations where we get "hurt" tend to stick out as extra important. But they might not be.
Experience is the key. Looking at results and correlating them with our actions usually makes it clear what to do. When something is not working, and you see it explicitly, you know what to work on. Then it's a matter of motivating yourself to do it.
For example, look at your profit after calling 3-bets OOP. Maybe you don't like to make those calls, and think you could save yourself some trouble by folding more. But if your expectation after calling is significantly better than that of folding, you are probably doing fine.
LHE is a fun game for that sort of analysis, because making correct 7 : 1 river calls and winning, say 1 times in 6 on average, can certainly be discouraging. But you know it's the right play by looking at the numbers. So you call and lose, lose, lose, win, lose, win, lose, lose, lose, lose, lose, lose, and you're doing fine.
Absolutely, i've made some drastic changes regarding my learning habits for the very reason i didn't feel it was worth my time. A good example is mindlessly watching videos without doing proper analysis and exploring the hand examples further.
One of the latest videos on here is about defending the BB versus a SB open. That's an interesting spot one that deserves investigating, but how do we determine how valuable that is versus analyzing spots where we, for example, open in late position and get 3-bet by the blinds? The latter situation is likely more common AND results in a bigger pot size.
Another random but somewhat connected thought: A high boards are the most common boards, followed by K high and Q high. Therefore, should we prioritize analyzing these board textures over say 8 high? Learn how to play those perfectly before we move on to other things?
These are the kinds of things running through my mind right now, perhaps others can share their thoughts on how they chose which spots to prioritize in their off the felt work.
I think this directly relates to the process of mastering a skill. As most of us probably know by now, it takes a long time to "master" something, some even say 10000 hours. But this doesn't mean that after spending 10000 hours you're automatically a master. It has to be dedicated quality studying/practice time. You need to know what to study, and test yourself.
I read an article about a week ago about learning, and according to a study, the most effective way to learn something properly, is by studying 33% of the time, and testing yourself critically 66% of the time.
They concluded this based on a study of students preparing for the exams. One group spent most of the time studying the material, where the second group also studied, but were given several tests. The second group outperformed the first group quite significantly. This is definitely relevant to studying poker.
Also, human beings have a tendency to do what we are good at, what comes easy or natural to us. Whether it's playing an instrument, doing excercise or playing poker. The skill to learning, is learning to learn properly. Dedicated, critical, quality time focusing on weaknesses and trouble areas while repeatedly testing yourself, preferably outside your comfort zone.
TL:DR - Quality studying with 33% studying/66% testing, focus on weaknesses, jump into the deep water to maximize experience.
That is indeed a hard question. This is where self-analysis comes in. Some find coaches to help point out these areas while others are able to discover them on their own. However, I see many attribute their success to healthy study groups. However, one way to do it is to do as ZenFish suggests to look up specific situations in your database and see how well or how bad you are doing. Then critically analyse these areas and make sure to get feedback from others who's opinion you trust. Sometimes a simple hint at a way to view a hand can have a massive effect.
But all in all, there are no 'masters' of poker, there are too many variables and opinions to truly find a right answer in all situations. But a good start is definitely to look at hands where you lost and see why you lost, what could you have done differently? What do you think would have happened if you chose path C instead of path A, B or D? Maybe even set specific criteria as a topic for the day. An example could be low-medium wraps you 3b.
Please keep in mind that I am not a poker expert, I'm simply trying to apply basic academic theory and thought process to poker. There are probably others who are much more qualified than me to give you concrete suggestions.
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