Instant Thoughts when in a hand

I have been playing the game of poker for quite a few years now.
That being said my experience in the game has taught me a few things that i'd like to pass on to those who are very new to the game.

I used to be an avid player of pool, and i remeber vividly when a very good player watched me play my inconsistant game, and after a time he came up to me and told me he could improve my game exponentially with just one piece of advice if i was willing to take it and apply it

he told me that i was looking at the cue ball when shooting and instead i should be looking at the object ball.

now there is a similar problem i see with new players in the game of poker.

now think about it and be brutally honest with yourself, Assume that you already understand hand selection and use of position.

when the flop hits what is the FIRST thing that you think about after you look at it?

for most people who do not take the game seriously and or do not play live very much if at all , the answer will be "what do I have?"

and this is imo the first and most fundamental mistake a new player makes.

becuase when looking at the flop, yoou must teach yourself to think differently
first question you want to ask AND answer : "What is the best hand that that flop can make"

then "what do I have"

logicaly the next question should be: "how many hands are between the best possible hand, and what I hold?"

followed by "How likely is it that my opponent(s) hold hands better than mine based on the play before the flop and what read i have on them ..(if any)

when i hhave decided for myself whether i think i have the best hand at the moment (assuming I think I have the best hand)

next thing I consider is whether the board is draw heavy or dry, beucase this is a basic way to determine if and how to bet...if the board is draw heavy I tned to try and bet people off of their hands or force them to pay alot in order to try and improve what they are holding against me(commonly known as protecting your hand).
If the flop is dry (unlikley to have given many ways to improve) then i tend to want to trap and give them a chance to try and steal it, on this type of board I try to get them to make a big pot and let them think they are having me chas while i am actually just letting them pay me off.

just some basic thoughts on how people play the flop when they are first learning the game, and how they COULD look at it differently.

Great point! I have been playing a while and learned this too but find myself forgetting to go over this information a lot of the time. The pros are thinking about this all the time. The hard part for me is I have a hard time believing that someone actually hit that hand. Thanks for the reminder.

this makes so much sense. since your not playing your cards but playing your opponents why would you think about your hand first. there are so many things to think about when playing poker its overwhelming. i used to think i was a pretty good player until i joined this site. thanks for the tip.

This is a start, but to truly improve at this game one needs to think of ranges.

Think of it like this.

NLHE 9-max (for ease). I am UTG (again for ease).

I raise, what types of hands would I do this with? Well QQ/AK+. I may have a random bluff in there to take advantage of the tight image but we'll ignore that.
This is my RANGE of hands. All of the hands that I COULD have. We use this information to decide how to play the hand.

Villain calls on the button. We need to assign him a range, what would he do this with? We assume he's decent.

His range COULD consist of, all PP's, SC's maybe A-rag.AQ. That's what I would think of anyway. How do we do this? well we need to think about what he would do that with and why. He knows my range is strong. He knows that 3-betting hands like 1010/JJ is probably wrong. He also knows that if he hits a set he could get paid off. Hands like SC's play really well. You either flop or something or not, and they can make big hands against my tight opening range.

So he would play hands that could hit the flop and stack me. He isn't likely to have AA/KK/AK as he would re-raise pre-flop.

Now we have the flop. (Notice I haven't given either of us a hand yet?)

K72 rainbow.

So what does this mean? Our range is QQ/AK+. This means we have a great flop. It hits our range well, and strengthens our starting RANGE. We could have made TPTK, a set, overpair or one over card. Although we could have a hand that isn't so strong now (QQ) our RANGE is strong.

Now we look at his RANGE. PP's and SC's, maybe A-rag/AQ. So this flop doesn't hit his range. He isn't likely to have a king here, and the only other hands that he can be confident with are 77/22 for sets. Sure e could have KQ, but compared to his entire range we are strong.

How we play this is a completely different matter though and I'm not going to go into that, but I hope I've introduced some ideas. We shouldn't be thinking about our hand or his hand, it's his range of hands we need to look at.

Remember think of a starting range and after each card cut it down depending on how your opponent reacts. Don't forget other things though, like betting for value and protecting your hand. Use all the available information to help decide an opponents range. Also download Pokerstove and play around with it. It's free and it's a great tool, to get an idea of what ranges look like.

Good luck.

thanks LuckyChippy...thats why im coming to love this sight, because all i have to do to improve is to keep coming back and be open to learn from others.