The Five Post-it Notes Stuck to My Screen

Like many people in 2024, I mostly use my phone and different apps to remind me of things. Yet, anyone who visits my office will find five old-fashioned sticky notes stuck to my monitor.

Each sticky note reminds me of something crucially important to my game, and they’ve been worth their weight in gold.

In today’s newsletter, I’ll explain why I find these five yellow squares so important, and why you might want to consider visiting your local Office Depot!

Sticky Note #1: HAND READ!

My first note is written in all caps, underlined, and with an exclamation point.

It’s really, really hard to play for six hours straight, stay focused, and hand-read throughout. Our minds aren’t built to sustain the same level of energy and concentration without lapsing. And when we lose focus, we revert to autopilot.

You might find yourself in a river spot and say to yourself, “Well, I have the spade blocker on a board with three spades, so I’m supposed to call,” so you do. Most of the money in poker isn’t made this way.

When I'm playing my best, I'm reading the way that my opponent's played on every street, thinking about the way that they've played every hand that we've played together before, and comparing their chosen line to a profile of them that I have formed in my mind.

Having a single blocker on the river often moves the needle by a percent or two, whereas even great players can easily be off by 15% with their frequencies. Reverting to autopilot and deciding on a river play based on a theoretical 1-2% edge is just lazy.

Do I think they’ll struggle to find enough bluffs on this board? Or is this a runout where they’re going to end up overbluffing due to their understanding of the situation?

When I glance at this sticky note, I think: “All right, Phil, don’t let yourself be this lazy. Lock in.”

Sticky Note #2: Patience, Some Pots Aren’t Mine

This note reminds me of a core lesson: Don't think about how I can win this pot; think about how I can make the most money. Sometimes, that means conceding the pot.

There are times when the only way to win the pot is to bet. But that doesn’t mean betting is the best play!

Not only are there situations where our opponent is overcalling, and we’re simply burning money by bluffing. We also end up with ranges that are way out of whack (making his overcalling great!) if we almost always bluff when we can’t win.

Sometimes, you’re facing a flop check in a 3-bet pot, and you think, “If I don’t bluff now, I’ll probably lose this pot.”

Sometimes that’s okay 🙂

When you sense weakness, it’s tempting to attack – and you should attack often! But if you don’t use moderation, you’re going to be the one who gets exploited. This note helps me restrain myself by reminding myself of the big picture: I can’t win every pot, but every hand is a chance to make the best possible decision.

Sticky Note #3: It’s So Simple

This note was specific to a couple of heads-up matches I played, but the lessons from it are applicable to many situations.

I went into these matches with a game plan that I had worked on away from the table – I had done the work and identified tendencies I could exploit, and I felt my opponent’s strategy just couldn’t beat mine in the long run. Not only that, but my counterstrategy was (relatively) simple.

But I would often start sensing patterns in-game. Pattern recognition is normally very useful in poker, but your in-game barometer can often be misleading.

For example, let's say I went into a session with a plan of overcalling rivers with my bluff-catchers when most draws had missed, because I knew my opponent tended to overbluff. Then, to my surprise, I saw him checking with a hand that I was expecting him to bluff. So I started to question myself: Is my plan still good, or has he noticed what I’m doing and started counter-adjusting?

The problem is that these "reads" formed in-game are often driven by fear: “Oh, he's taking advantage of me in a spot that I’m not prepared for!”

What happened to me (before I wrote this note) was that I second-guessed my rock-solid game plan when the in-game patterns seemed to fly in the face of the assumptions they were built upon. Eventually, I realized that if my opponent was truly making a big adjustment, I could find out later.

After the session, I could calmly look back at stats and showdowns, and determine whether or not my opponent had actually made an adjustment. If he had, I’d have all the time in the world to formulate a counter-strategy. But in-game, not only was I going to analyze the situation with less conviction; I wouldn’t have time to formulate a proper counter-strategy.

Sometimes we also just get fooled by randomness. Maybe the reason that your opponent check-raised paired boards three times in a row is that he had trips twice and a perfect bluffing combo once. Or maybe he had three perfect bluffing combos, and he's still playing the exact same strategy as he's always played.

It's so important to not overreact to tiny samples – especially when you're emotional and in the heat of battle. There are many explanations for unusual play over a tiny sample, and reacting to it in-game, away from a game plan that was going to work very well, can be costly.

Sticky Note #4: Discipline, Power

Alongside focus, the two elements that I judge my sessions on are discipline and power.

When you’re playing on autopilot, a spot like this will often come up: You’re facing a big turn bet, and you have a decent bluff-catcher plus some outs. Based on your history against this particular opponent, you think he’s likely going to way under-bluff in the situation you’re in. But you flick in the call anyway, because theory says it’s a call – it can’t be too bad, right?

This is a perfect example of lacking discipline. If my opponent is underbluffing such that I have 25% equity against his range, facing a pot-sized bet with no implied odds, it’s just a fold. A sad fold, sure – but a fold.

Usually, when I'm having an undisciplined session, I don't struggle with finding calls; I struggle with finding the folds. For you, it may be something different. The first step is becoming aware of your leaks!

“Power” is not as self-explanatory as “discipline.” To me, in relation to poker, it embodies intensity and relentless execution. When I'm playing a session without enough power, I may find myself in a spot where I know that my opponent’s turn betting range is too weak, and I know that if I check-raise bluff the turn and jam river, he's going to overfold. But I just don't feel like doing it and subjecting myself to a big swing, so I shy away and concede the pot.

When playing against tough competition, the problem isn’t the couple of lost big blinds in EV. It’s that when I have the value hand that's supposed to check-raise the turn and bomb the river, I'm always going to go for it. For a sharp opponent, it’s not difficult to identify a leak this big and start exploiting me by overfolding.

Power, by the way, is one of the toughest things for me to consistently maintain. It's so easy to start a session with power: I do a lot of things pre-session to prepare, and as a result, I'm usually feeling pretty comfortable. But as the session goes on, it's easy for me to lose that power and find myself no longer in the mood to make the big play.

That’s when the sticky note comes in handy!

Sticky Note #5: No Protection

While betting for protection is part of the game, protection is only a tiny slice of the reason for betting flops and turns – most players tend to overvalue it. I overvalued it in a couple of my matches, hence this note.

Years ago, as I was re-learning PLO for my challenges, I was reviewing hands with a friend. In one of the hands, I was playing $25/$50 heads-up, and this spot came up:

I open to $150 with Q♣️8♦️5♦️3♣️ on the button. My opponent 3-bets to $450. I call.

Flop: Q♥️7♠️3♥️ ($900)

My opponent c-bets $600. I pot it to $2700 with another $1900 behind, with the intention of getting it in with my top and bottom pair. My opponent folds.

“Well, I knew that my hand would be doing okay against the range that's getting it in, but it was going to be really uncomfortable on a lot of turns and rivers,” I said.

“If your hand is going to be really uncomfortable on most turns and rivers, it can’t be a very strong hand to begin with,” my friend countered. “This hand isn’t strong enough to be worthy of protection.”

“Worthy of protection” really resonated with me, and this consistently served as a great reminder of how easy it is to slip into a flawed thought process in the name of protection.

These days, I overvalue protection less than almost anyone, yet I still need this note to remind myself not to overvalue it. What does that mean for you?

Your Leaks, Your Notes

Despite their simplicity, I personally find these reminders really helpful. If you decide to try my method, don’t just copy my notes. A great way to start is digging deep and identifying your own leaks and biases. Once you’ve found a few areas to pay extra attention to, it’s time to grab a pen and those sticky notes!

And even if you don’t want to use my advanced sticky-note system, I hope you found these lessons as helpful today as I did each time I stared at them.