Ten Things To Do When You’re Not In A Poker Hand

If you’re a selective player like I am, you’ll find that you fold more hands than you play. In one sense, this is a shame because you love to play. But on the other hand, it’s an opportunity not just to save money by avoiding hands with little future; you’ll also have some free time in which you can be productive.

What can you do to make use out of this “free time” when you’re not thinking about your bets and your hand? If you’re eager to stay engaged in the process of poker learning, I have a list of ten things you can do to productively make use of your time in between hands.

#1 Count down the pot.

I know it sounds pretty menial – more like “make work” than anything truly useful. But it isn’t. The size of the pot frequently comes into play when you have a close decision to make. Experienced winning players can keep a running tally of the size of the pot in their head effortlessly because they’ve had plenty of practice. But for everyone else, it can be a chore. So get into the habit even when you’re not playing. After a while it will become second nature to you. And that’s what you’re aiming for – so you won’t have to draw attention to yourself when you’re seriously thinking about it in the future with a borderline hand.

#2 Keep track of the discards

This only applies to stud games where there are exposed cards. Even so, it is so vital a skill in that game that I mention it here – even though so many people play just hold ‘em these days. Remembering folded cards is the key to remembering how live your cards are in stud. It too takes practice until it becomes second nature for the proficient stud player. It also builds strong memory skills that are transferable to all forms of poker – such as remembering the action and remembering the general style of play of your opponent.

#3 Recreate the play of the hand

Go back and try to remember how the hand had been played up until the moment you are observing. Right before the flop, for example, you might recall, “The five seat raised the big blind after the three and four seat folded. The button called him as did the small and big blind.” Try to keep a running narrative in your head of what has happened, adding on at the end of every round of betting. So after the flop round is over you might think, “The five seat raised the big blind to $15 after the three and four seat folded. The button called him as did the small and big blind. When the flop hit the small and big blind checked and the five seat bet $60 and everyone folded except the big blind who called.” Keep that up throughout the hand. It takes some practice but it will help you figure out what players are likely to hold when you’re in the hand.

#4 Put opposing players into broad categories of play.

Observe the general patterns of each player, one at a time. Try to remember from one hand to the next what type of player they are. For example, observe who tends to fold and who tends to call. After a while, see if you can go around the table, mentally, and just label the opponent “loose” or “tight”. Of course you will adjust your opinion as the behavior of each opponent develops through your playing session. But even after ten minutes or so you should be able to go around the table, starting with your left, and say to yourself, “loose, loose, tight, loose, tight, loose, loose, tight”. As you get some experience doing this you should modify your assessment with another broad characterization. Are they aggressive or passive. Combine these two descriptors with the initial two, so each player is labeled with one of four designations: loose-passive, loose-aggressive, tight-passive, tight-aggressive. And then continue to observe them to see how true to form they seem to play or how much you need to change your assessments as the game progresses.

#5 Put other players on hands

This is a useful test of how good your observation and memory skills are. Using the information gleaned by observing and remembering the cards and the actions in the hand, you should be able to come to some reasonable conclusions about what the competitors have – even when you are not one of them. See how well you do.

#6 Record difficult decisions you made at the table

With very few exceptions, public poker rooms don’t mind if you take notes at the table. I have done it regularly and only had a problem in one of 160 or so places I’ve played. Use your time out of the hand to make written notes about hands that gave you pause. Write down the hands, the actions, the opponents you faced, and the decision you had to make. It will be a useful tool later on when your session is done, helping you analyze how you did and whether you made mistakes.

#7 Keep a book on your opponents

If you were observing your opponents and categorizing them then you will have a lot of information that can come in handy in the future. Don’t try to carry it around in your brain after the session is over. You will surely forget it, as it merges together with all of the other things you’ll be thinking about. Instead, use the time in between when you have folded and when you are dealt your next hand, to write down the characteristics you have observed about your opponents. At the very least, write down the simple two-part designation that you used to label other players. Even better would be if you had even more detailed information about them. For example, you might write down, “Tight pre-flop but loose once he’s in the pot” or “likes to make continuation bets but folds if re-raised”. These records will be especially useful for future sessions if you play in a home game against many of the same players week in and week out. But they’ve helped me in a casino too – facing some of the same opponents on many of my trips.

#8 Keep a book on yourself

Your play will be noticed by the better players. Did you lose a few hands at showdown when you were caught bluffing? Did you receive a long run of bad cards, giving observant opponents the impression that you were unusually tight? Of course the short run of a session may have little affect on your image in the minds of those players who have played against you many times. But against the players whom you seldom see, one particular session may shape their entire impression of your play. Keep track of that. Knowing that a certain opponent thinks you a rock, because in your last encounter you folded every single hand, can be very useful in future sessions.

#9 Make friends with the player to your left

When you and your poker neighbor have each folded, it’s an opportunity to make friends. A friendly player to your left is often less likely to raise you and is more likely to believe you when you want them to think that your raise means a strong hand (and they should fold). So chat them up in between hands. Show interest in anything you can think of that they may be interested in. Are they wearing a watch? Say you like it and ask where they got it. Are they reading a racing form? Ask them who they like and why. There are countless opportunities to exchange niceties at the table. Take them. It may well give you a strategic advantage when you want them to play soft against you. And even if you gain nothing strategically, isn’t it nicer playing with friendly people that with a bunch of incommunicative lumps?

#10 Piss off the player to your right

Making friends is probably the better move, but if you’re in between hands and don’t engage people easily, tending perhaps to be a jerk, from time to time direct your enmity, sarcasm, and needling at the player to your right. By playing to his immediate left you can isolate him if and when he goes on tilt or otherwise plays sub-optimally because he’s pissed at you. I’m not suggesting that you become a wise-ass just for fun, but if you find that you are naturally that way at the table, use it to your strategic advantage when you don’t have a hand to concentrate on.

Written by Ashley Adams

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