Making your decisions simpler (3rd level thinking)

Ok first of all I will just start out saying I apologize to cc for not contributing lately, I have my personal reasons why I didn't, but I'm not here to talk about my personal life.

Ok let me start out by introducing myself to some of you that don't know me, I like to go by bob_tiger, and you can just call me bob, I'm a poker player and I absolutely love poker and I will play this game for many years. Poker is very complicated and takes a lot of practice to get good at, and the great thing about poker is you always get better, there is no perfect, there is no right or wrong style. I have spend many hours playing poker and I still got more to learn. Alright now that I wasted your time talking about myself, let's get to the point, I'm making this thread basically because I want to contribute and help people get better at the game we all love, and hate sometimes.

I was helping one of my friends through tv (team viewer) earlier and I realized that I need to open up his eyes to 3rd level thinking, I mean I know he does it sometimes but sometimes he makes his decision so much more difficult than it is. I mean of course I'm a little rusty because I haven't played in a while but I think its all coming back to me.

3rd level thinking is crucial to be a good player and of course it takes time. 3rd level is trying to figure out what your opponent is thinking and making your move based on that to help you figure out what your opponent is holding. I'm going to bring up the hand from earlier today. My friend was holding 10s in bb I believe and a guy raised from ep to 150, 25/50 blinds, they each had about 1600ish, 33$ 9 man turbo sit n go, sorry my memory is a little out of practice. Ok so my friend smooth calls preflop which I believe was good, we both knew the range of the villain, AJ-AK, Js and up, villain was pretty tight. FLop comes 9 7 2, we are first to act, well what do we do here? now this is where I use 3rd level thinking and try to figure out what villain has, so what can I do to make my decision more simple? Many people rush their decisions and don't analzy the situation very well, So here we know that if we don't bet, the villain is betting with AJ-AK and any pp, villain is basically betting there 9/10 times unless villain hit a set and is trying to let us catch up. So I tell my friend to bet and villain goes all in, now what? I really wanted to tell him to fold but my friend rushed his decision a little, we talked about it and he said I knew I was beat, I was just trying to get lucky. Sometimes all of us get like that, but definitely work on not doing that, bad players try to rely on luck. My friend is a good player and still has ways to learn about poker but I'm not going to mention names. That hand was just a small example of how to make your decision easier, basically I suggest think what villain thinks you have based on the way you have been playing and how good of a player villain is, then make a move to narrow down villains range, and it will make your decisions simpler. Takes practice but once you get the hang of it, you will be dominating most small to mid-range mtts and sngs. Of course once you start playing against good players, you have to start thinking on the 4th level and I'm not going to try to explain that because its just very complicated and it just takes lots of practice to get hang of.

I'm sorry if that wasn't clear since I'm not very good at explaining myself but basically I will be here pretty much all day, just having a lazy day and a bit hung over from last night. So if anyone needs help, wants me to go through few hand histories, ask me some questions, strategies or whatever, I'm here and I will do my best to explain. Like I said, I'm calling today " contributing to cc day" .

Hi.. I think I get what you are saying.

I play at very low limits though. Most players at this level dont seem to have much of a clue.. how would I spot one that is thinking enough for this kind of stuff to work?

Thanks

Just so you know I'm not trying to make fun of you for playing low limits, I'm not here for that as I used to play there too, we all have to learn and build somehow.

What I'm saying is, make the other player confused and make your decision simple as possible, this especially goes for online poker since you can't see your opponent. As the hand I discussed, We bet on the flop, we want to see what villain will do, now since it was a sng, most people don't try to get tricky so after he shoved we knew we were most likely behind. My suggestion is, try to stick to 1 table until your head is used to analyzing quick and has experience with it.

Pay attention to how fast people act, I mean sometimes this doesn't matter because of connection, but sometimes I have got an easy read of people by paying attention to their speed, for example, player raises in mid early position, I have a decent hand in mid late position say AQ, I smooth call, flop is rainbow 10 5 2, Now after villain checks any player with AQ including me will take a stab at that pot to take it down, now villain knowing that will check but here is the mistake newer players make, they check immediatly and then immediatly call, now what am I thinking, he is either on a draw, I know he wont play 34 from EP, and since the flop is rainbow after he immediatly calls I know he is either really strong or just trying to out play me, which brings us to the turn and thats where I find out exactly what he has based on what comes up and his action, say the turn is a 8, and villain all of sudden bets, I know villain is not trying to represent an 8 and probably has a strong hand and I let go off my AQ. Now lets say villain checks on that 8, here I have to options, either bet and try to take it down or check and try to go for pot control with position and make my decision on the river. I would personally check, why?

well because if I bet and villain shoves, my decision is just going to be so hard and I won't know where he stands, if he is trying to outplay me or has a hand. A lot of good players go for pot control if they are having hard time figuring out their opponent, so then I make my decision based on the river and what villain does. Stu, this is just an example and I can do this for any hand and I mean any hand, and you can do it yourself, its not a hard process, its what i call "using your resources", use every info you got about your opponents, I mean every little detail you can to help you. I hope this helped and gl at the tables sir.

Edit:sry decided to break it down a little since it was so hard to read

I'm here to try to make poker more simple and try to help you get better, and if you have any questions and if something I say is confusing, just let me know and I will try to break it down best possible.

Thanks for that.

Yes it has been a usefull read.

Sorry to pick atwhat you say but Im trying to get my head around everything.

When you say make your opponent confused.. do you really mean that?

To me that means to make act in a way which your opponent has no way of interperating.

Whereas the play looked more like c bet the flop and use his actions to aid in your own decisions.

Now to me this implies that you dont overuse the c-bet because if your opponent sees it used too much then he will not see it as any real sign of strength. This means that he will be more likely to bluff it than usual.

This in turn brings me to my origional point of 'confused'.

I think that a good stratagy will be balanced, i.e. any play could mean something else... yet at the same time honest. By that I mean deceptive enough to create doubt, yet honest enough that a player can adapt against you.

If it becomes irratic.. then a player cannot see any trend to what you do, therefore he is faced with an opponent whom he cannot form a stratagy against.. now people might think thats a good thing.. but if he cant interpret what you do most of the time, he cannot play a stratagy against you.. which means you cannot easily interperate his actions against you.. as they become irratic also.

So whilst occasionally confusing him is great.. because he is likely to make mistakes.. to continually confuse him causes him to play in a way which also causes you to make more mistakes.

Does this make sense???

Ok I see what you are saying now, and I really like how you are thinking and with this type of brain I'm sure you are or have a very good potential to be a good player. Now you have an excellent point and this is ecpecially for mtts, Now this is where we get into 4th level thinking, you are right your opponent will be so confused that now he will try to confuse you, which brings us to 4th level thinking, you always want to be one step ahead of your opponent, 4th level thinking is very hard and the more you use it the better you get at it ( strongly suggested for mtts). Ok this is hard to explain, but your opponent will basically now try to do opposite of what he/she was doing and its just matter of time that you catch on, key word "experience".

Like you said don't overuse any move and try to switch it up. its hard to explain all of this since it just comes to you over time and the way you are thinking I think you can catch on to this very fast, but does what I'm trying to say make sense?

Edit: I left out a part about cash games since I don't play them very often, in cash games if you play at a table for a long time, you and some guy can go back and forth at it, I don't remember who said this but don't over adjust to other player, stick to your style and try to always be a step ahead of your opponent.

thats part of poker, sometimes its hard to explain things and thoughts as there is no right and wrong, but my main point was try to get people to analyze more and think about their decisions instead of just clicking buttons.

This goes to other experienced players, if you have anything to contribute, a questions or answer, please do.

Thanks. I think I understand.. but as you say I need to get a hell of a lot more experience before Ill actually be able to do this in practice.

Ok so you have a basic understanding of what I mean by "confuse" and be a step ahead aka 4th level thinking? Yup best way to get better is to play and try to do it, of course low limits players don't play as good but thats why you want to practice it there where you absolutely crush those bad players and then you slowly move up and outthink the better players. And by the way, thanks for taking your time to read and your welcome.

Just re-read what you wrote.

I didnt quite mean this. What I was talking about was not that your opponent would try and confuse you (whole different aspect) rather that if your opponent could not interperate your actions with a certain level of certainty, then you would be unable to interperate his reactions with any level of certainty.

Its not that he is trying to outplay you its more that he hasnt got a clue what you are doing and thus cannot react in a predictable fasion.

Therfore to effectively confuse an opponent you must be playing in a way which is predicatble a good portion of the time. The times when you stray from this (and it pays off.. and is obvious that you strayed...i.e. if you dont show.. he wont know!!) will be very profitable. Because you effectively led him into the error with consistant play before hand.

Obviously at that point he will try and adapt for that play.. but you will already know this and alter your play accordingly.

Yup you are right, and you understand 4th level thinking, the way you said it couldn't be better, you want to make your plays somewhat obvious but but then change it up occasionally, ( key word is occasionally not overusing it) so therefore causes the opponent to make a mistake and leading it for you to make profit.

i wish more people would get into the discussion but whatever, they are missing out.

Do you feel that its easier to make plays like this as a TAG or a LAG (assuming that the TAG will occasionally play unusual cards cheaply because of the possibility of a play)?

There is no right and wrong for this but this is just my opinion, of course there are +s and -s for both play styles. I find it easier with TAG since most people think tags are so obvious that I have made a lot of chips off reads and off my table image. I personally think LAG is very hard to master and sometimes when I play LAG I face a lot harder decisions rather than TAG.

Some will say TAG is more profitable some will say LAG is but it would be an argument that would never end. Its all about how you use style, how comfortable you are with it, as you understand people will play differently against LAGs than TAGs, so you have to take into account what they are thinking and sometimes its a little harder when you are LAG.

Thanks for the advice so far.. this is an interesting thread

You are very welcome, thanks, like I said i wish more would get into the discussion since I find that topic a good topic for discussion as it is very useful in my personal opinion.

I have always like chess, and thats where I get the be one step ahead of your opponent . I personally think chess players have potential to be good poker players.

Thanks for the info. I have been playing small ball in tournaments and trying to develope what I feel is one of, if not the most important part of the game, putting players on ranges and how to narrow it down by betting.

Your welcome...in live poker sometimes you can get read off movements, emotions etc, in online poker we don't have the opportunity to see the people we play so we have to make reads on what we got. When I'm playing my best game, and thats usually if I'm playing one or two tables, I like to look at the hand from every angle possible and try to narrow it down, of course I'm not write everytime and I don't know a single player who never makes mistakes, but it definitely helps to break the hands down into pieces and narrow down the other players range by making such actions wheter its betting or checking that you can figure them out. Also don't forget to think about their table image, your table image, their position, your position (this makes a difference of what you can represent), previous history between you two, speed of the action, betting patterns and everything you can catch on to.