Why: Poker’s Most Important Question
I began teaching the importance of “Why” in poker fifteen years ago.
It’s been a while since I’ve put it in writing, and I have some present-day additions.
Today, let’s dive into “Why,” at the poker table and beyond.
Your Whys: Newer Players
The number one piece of advice I give to new poker players is this: Start asking yourself why you make every play you make.
Why did you bet the turn?
Why did you call preflop instead of 3-betting?
New or unstudied players will often find themselves answering things like:
“I don’t know” or “Because I had top pair,” neither of which are good reasons to do anything.
But that’s okay! Their answers are supposed to be bad!
It’s through this process of asking themselves “Why” before and after each play they make that they begin to become aware of not only their own thoughts, but their reality.
I keep betting for no reason.
It seems like I’m making a lot of plays out of fear.
I don’t understand what I’m supposed to be thinking about. Maybe I need to study?
Eventually, they advance out of the unconscious incompetence stage and realize that high-level poker won’t simply “come to them” over time. Poker is not toddlers learning a language – it’s teenagers learning algebra.
As these recreational players examine their own thought process and begin to incorporate some type of formal education, they find themselves on the path to winning poker.
Your Whys: Students of the Game
If you’re a winning poker player, it’s likely that you’ve been studying the game in some form.
Perhaps you’ve watched a course, hired a coach, or studied with GTO tools – or many of the above!
I became a winner in 2004 after reading a few poker books and joining strategy discussions on forums with serious players, but in 2024, it’s not quite that easy.
So, if you’re well-studied, do you still need to ask yourself “Why” like the newbies do?
Yes!
Notice when you’re not sure a play is right, but also notice when you know a play is right, but your why is “a coach/solver/video told me.” These are opportunities to dive in deeper and strengthen your understanding of the game.
A great player should know why they are making every play they make.
They don’t need to be right all the time – literally nobody is – but they need to be able to reason their way through hands. All hands. Until you can do that, you’ve got a ceiling.
I love playing against players who are just attempting to execute a system, as I explained in a past post. Some of them, with a ton of hard work and dedication, can become very, very good. But they’ll never be the best.
Your Opponent’s Whys
The next step on the path of “Why” is turning that question towards your opponents.
Facing a river bet: Why is he betting that size?
After a showdown: Why did she decide to overbet the turn with that hand??
Whether your opponent is studied or unstudied, experienced or inexperienced, smart or dumb, they have a reason for each play they make.
They might not know the reason, but that doesn’t mean you can’t figure it out before they do. This is a path towards huge edges over your competition.
An Example Opponent
To give you one of countless potential examples, let’s say you’ve observed your opponent:
Consistently bet big with strong hands on dynamic flops and turns.
Frequently bet big with decent hands on dynamic flops and turns to check back the river.
Show down slowplays with full houses and nut flushes, but never with sets or two pair.
Bet smaller with value hands on very dry boards, like K♠️9♠️ on K❤️9♣️3♦️ and Q♣️J♦️ on Q♠️7❤️2♦️2♣️.
Bluff on occasion, but miss many clear bluffs and semi-bluffs.
So, what do we know about this player?
To sum up, I’d say that the key thing we know is that they value bet too much and don’t bluff enough.
What else did you observe, if you think about their whys?
I’ll share my observations next, but if you'd like, give yourself a chance to think first.
A Breakdown
To me, this player lets fear run their game.
They bet big with hands that they think are best when there are draws present because they’re afraid of being sucked out on. This is why they bet smaller on dry boards with big hands, and why they only slowplay with hands like boats and nut flushes that basically can’t lose.
They’re afraid of facing tough decisions. They push too thinly for value so that they can check down the river, missing out on potential river bluffs from their opponents. They’d rather avoid the discomfort of facing a bet.
They are afraid to lose money with a bad hand, so they rarely bluff themselves.
They know enough about poker that they bluff occasionally, but they don’t know enough to realize that their missed bluffs combined with their too-frequent value bets means that they’re massively underbluffing and that any good player should fold to them all the time.
That’s a lot of reads! But now that we have this player profile, we can take it further with some more educated guesses.
While we didn’t observe anything about their flop and turn raises, I’d be willing to bet that they handle them just like their bets: Not enough slowplaying, too much value raising, and not enough bluffing.
Their same fears take over – they’d rather take the pot down now without getting extra value than risk a scary river card hitting.
With a little bit less confidence, I’d guess that they don’t like making big calls on the river. That risks putting in money bad, which they don’t like doing.
Whether the above is true or not, it’s virtually guaranteed that they’ll overfold to river bets after checking the turn. Their betting range was too strong, which means their checking ranges have tobe too weak. If they don’t like hero calling, they’ll overfold even more.
I’d make the same reads on the turn, but with more confidence. A player who doesn’t like scary decisions won’t want to call a big turn bet with a marginal hand, knowing they’re likely to face a scary decision on rivers. Once again, this is exacerbated by the fact that their flop checkback range is too weak.
I’m going to absolutely hammer them with turn bluffs when they check back. I’ll bluff rivers against their weakened ranges. I’ll make big, big folds when they’re doing the betting.
Any unique situation I find myself in, where a hand has played out in a non-standard way, I’ll think back to everything I know about how this player not only thinks about the game, but feels about the game, and I’ll have an excellent idea of the type of range they’re going to have and what they’ll do with it.
I understand this player. They won’t have a chance.
So, begin to unravel the 'why' behind your decisions... before it’s too late and someone else does.
Next Up
Next week, we'll continue on the topic of "Why?", but in a broader context. Spoiler alert: It's a question you should be frequently asking yourself outside of the poker tables, too!
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