Tips for improving post flop thought process

[GreenDaddy1]

In short, I'm looking for actionable tips for making better decisions post flop in the heat of battle, ie putting what you have learnt into action rather than struggling to do so when it matters but seeing your errors clearly when off the table.




At length..... Anyone who has played and studied poker for a reasonable amount of time will know that, in comparison, learning/mastering a decent pre flop strategy that you can easily recall with a fair amount of accuracy every time you sit down to play is a great deal easier than learning/mastering a decent post flop strategy you can easily replicate every time you play.

The reason for this comes down to the amount of different scenarios you will face. There are relatively few pre flop spots to learn and it is easy to make very black and white decisions based mostly on basic hand strengths, position and your impressions (or hud stats) of opponents. On the other hand there are a great many post flop spots to learn, spread across three different streets with an additional 5 cards to consider in addition to your 2 pre flop cards.

I’ve reached a point in my game where I am very comfortable pre flop playing my main game at 100BB, which is microstakes cash. Not silly enough to say perfect, but good enough that I have formed a solid basis of confident play pre flop that is rarely too far out of line without a good reason to be.

I’m a winning player. But I am not a big winning player, because post flop I am erratic and inconsistent. I know a lot of theory and correct lines. I am not good at putting them into action. Some days I criminally miss value. The next day I am way too aggressive. Other days I call down hopelessly light and passively paying people off. Or I bet when check/call lines are more profitable. I know this because when I study hands off the table with more time to consider and think about things I can see the very obvious mistakes I make (and folks on the cash hands analysis forum are kind enough to point out these and more besides!).

I’m really keen to insert some of the consistency, confidence and self belief I have pre flop into my post flop game. I’m very interested in how others have done this once they reached a similar stage.

I've tried using a similar approach to how I learnt pre flop. At pre flop it was having various ranges and a few tips on adjustments visible to refer to as I played. It worked well and gave me a lot of confidence I was staying in line. For post flop I've tried various ways of doing this broken down into hand strengths, streets, board textures, in position, out of position, remembering to consider ranges etc. All that good stuff we need to know about and put to use. The result? Too much info to digest every time I hit post flop. It just doesn't work and I end up ignoring it and playing by my gut feel based on what I can recall about all the above.

Basically, there are too many spots post flop and too much complexity to create a handy reference sheet you can just refer to every time you get post flop. So, how do we trigger ourselves to recall that info when we need it?

At this stage I want to work on a script or set of questions I pose to myself every time I am post flop and see if that works at improving my decision making. This is nothing revolutionary and I've seen similar things on videos or in books. These would be based around ranges, better hands fold, worse hands call etc.

What methods have others used to get better at putting what they have studied to use while at the table while multi-tabling? Do you find that using more of a questioning method with yourself helps you to identify the correct play in many different spots? And in that way rather than learning 'spots', you are learning exactly why you are either checking, calling, betting or folding at any time?

 

[TeUnit]

I had a coach once tell me "find a reason to play". What he meant by this is figure out what the villans are doing and how you counter it- for example does the villan/s fold to cbets too much, do they go to showdown too much? do they have sizing tells? are they high blind limpers, etc.

 

[thesternburglar]

Always rank the hands from the nuts down to top pair post flop. Then rank your two cards where your 5 card hands play. If your hand does not rank between 1-10 and there are more than 3 opponents in the hand, its usually a fold to any bet unless you have a really good drawing hand. Obviously this is subject to change. My motto when I first started was "tight is right."

 

[alien666dj]

In order to apply the acquired knowledge, I practice in the game, while noting the hands that raise questions, after the session I look through the marked hands and analyze them in specialized programs.

 

[Luvepoker]

In short, I'm looking for actionable tips for making better decisions post flop in the heat of battle, ie putting what you have learnt into action rather than struggling to do so when it matters but seeing your errors clearly when off the table.




At length..... Anyone who has played and studied poker for a reasonable amount of time will know that, in comparison, learning/mastering a decent pre flop strategy that you can easily recall with a fair amount of accuracy every time you sit down to play is a great deal easier than learning/mastering a decent post flop strategy you can easily replicate every time you play.

The reason for this comes down to the amount of different scenarios you will face. There are relatively few pre flop spots to learn and it is easy to make very black and white decisions based mostly on basic hand strengths, position and your impressions (or hud stats) of opponents. On the other hand there are a great many post flop spots to learn, spread across three different streets with an additional 5 cards to consider in addition to your 2 pre flop cards.

I’ve reached a point in my game where I am very comfortable pre flop playing my main game at 100BB, which is microstakes cash. Not silly enough to say perfect, but good enough that I have formed a solid basis of confident play pre flop that is rarely too far out of line without a good reason to be.

I’m a winning player. But I am not a big winning player, because post flop I am erratic and inconsistent. I know a lot of theory and correct lines. I am not good at putting them into action. Some days I criminally miss value. The next day I am way too aggressive. Other days I call down hopelessly light and passively paying people off. Or I bet when check/call lines are more profitable. I know this because when I study hands off the table with more time to consider and think about things I can see the very obvious mistakes I make (and folks on the cash hands analysis forum are kind enough to point out these and more besides!).

I’m really keen to insert some of the consistency, confidence and self belief I have pre flop into my post flop game. I’m very interested in how others have done this once they reached a similar stage.

I've tried using a similar approach to how I learnt pre flop. At pre flop it was having various ranges and a few tips on adjustments visible to refer to as I played. It worked well and gave me a lot of confidence I was staying in line. For post flop I've tried various ways of doing this broken down into hand strengths, streets, board textures, in position, out of position, remembering to consider ranges etc. All that good stuff we need to know about and put to use. The result? Too much info to digest every time I hit post flop. It just doesn't work and I end up ignoring it and playing by my gut feel based on what I can recall about all the above.

Basically, there are too many spots post flop and too much complexity to create a handy reference sheet you can just refer to every time you get post flop. So, how do we trigger ourselves to recall that info when we need it?

At this stage I want to work on a script or set of questions I pose to myself every time I am post flop and see if that works at improving my decision making. This is nothing revolutionary and I've seen similar things on videos or in books. These would be based around ranges, better hands fold, worse hands call etc.

What methods have others used to get better at putting what they have studied to use while at the table while multi-tabling? Do you find that using more of a questioning method with yourself helps you to identify the correct play in many different spots? And in that way rather than learning 'spots', you are learning exactly why you are either checking, calling, betting or folding at any time?

The problem with what you want is there is not an easy way to learn and recall for post flop play. Between different flops, different players the way the game changes and on and on its not a short process. You can become better and pretty good post flop but it may take years to get there and you still wont know everything.

Johnathan Little and many other will say you dont become better playing poker but reviewing poker. You will become better afterwords when reviewing what went right and wrong. Its not to say you cant learn when playing but the meat of the work is then and as you become better you will begin to reconcile whats happening in game.

One thing i would suggest if you really want to learn is play only 1 table at a time if playing and trying to learn. You need to watch everything every hand whether in or out of the hand. If out make a game of it is what I did.

Pick a hand or 2 before you start. pick a week and better than average hand. Lets for fun pick red pocket tens and JTs of hearts. Lets say your on the button and someone raises before you and you have 72o. After you fold play along and pretend you call. If someone calls behind remember that and play them both. Flop is As, Jh and 8s. Now since there is a jack of hearts you now make your JT diamonds since and your pocket tens black not red.

The raiser bets 1/2 pot. Make your decision based on his play but also talk out what you think he has and is doing. Hopefully the caller calls. If he does you pretend you had raised and he called. Put him on a hand as well and call it out. turn is a 2d. Now the raiser checks this turn, put him on a hand or range of hands he could have. You now pretend you check and see what the caller does. He bets min. Put him on a hand range and if the original raiser calls re evaluate his range. Dont forget to ask yourself what you would do there. The river is a 3s. Now the original caller bets, what do you think he has and why is he betting. If lucky the original raiser call. and you get to see how your evaluation went. Just dont forget to make your decision to call of not.

Yes your doing a lot of pretending here but think of what your also doing. Your looking and a flop very often and working on improving you hand reading and decision making on what the others have. This can and should help you improve a lot. It also will stop you from being board when planing and you will really start to get to know your table

Best of luck to you.