Improving your intuition - PokerTraining.org

Improving your intuition
Not to be underestimated

Well, since we have to work a lot with assumptions and probabilities instead of evidences and proofs in Poker, this topic definitely should cause everybody´s interest. To start, let me give you a simple example of how my intuition once helped me:

I sat on the button with a pair of jacks and one player already called. I decided to raise the pot and the big blind re-raised me all-in. Everybody else folded and I had to make a decision whether or not to call his re-raise and go all-in. When looking at our starting hands chart, a pair of jacks is a pretty strong hand making a call in such a situation reasonable. You mustn´t forget that I sat on the button, giving the big blind a reason to believe that I was trying to steal the pot with a mediocre hand. On the other hand, my intuition told me that I was probably in deep trouble would I decide to go all-in. The player I was going up against wasn´t a bluffer in pre-flop situations, especially not if someone else played aggressively before him. Additionally, I was involved in a similar situation with exactly the same player almost half a year ago where I raised him with AK and he went all-in with QQ.

All that information helped me to intuitively paint a picture of the hand he might be holding. There were four hands I put him on: AA, KK, QQ or AK. If my intuition was correct, the best-case scenario I was looking at was a 50-50 situation against AK. I decided to fold my hand despite already investing a huge chunk of my stack into the hand and my opponent showed his hand: A pair of kings.

As you can easily see, your intuition can help you avoid a huge loss or make a tough call when you´re rightfully putting one of your opponents on a bluff. However, the question that should be the most interesting for you in that regard is how you are able to improve your intuition in order to make better decisions while playing Poker.

To me, your intuition is built through a combination of your previous Poker experiences and your (Poker) intelligence. If you´re really smart, but you´re absolutely new to Poker, you mustn´t trust your intuition that much since you haven´t seen enough hands before in order to get a feeling for the situation you´re in. On the other hand, if you´re really dumb, it doesn´t matter whether or not Poker is your favorite hobby, since you won´t be able to properly work with all the information you accumulated during your Poker career.

If my assumption is correct, there are two key factors that determine your ability to intuitively make the right decision: Your intelligence and your experience. Now, how can you work on improving your intuition?

Let´s be real! You won´t be able to improve your intelligence that much in order to make an impact. You´re smart or, well, not so smart. But the level of your intelligence is more or less a given. On the other hand, the aspect you can really work on, you can really improve in order to become a better Poker player when it comes to successfully using your intuition is your experience.

The equation is pretty simple, the more hands you´ve seen in your Poker life; the bigger are your chances of recognizing certain behaviors, patterns or potential bluffs due to your intuition.

But wait, not so fast my friend! Just playing hands en masse alone won´t do it! The key to improving your intuition is to stay active even when you´re not actively involved in hands. When you´re folding your cards, don´t make the mistake of turning your focus away from the action on the table. A lot of people lose any kind of interest in the game once they´re not involved in a pot anymore. Those guys start surfing the internet, answering e-mails or switching through the TV channels. It´s pretty simple: You cannot increase your Poker experience when you´re not interested in the other action on the table.

After knowing that, monitoring your opponents and other players whenever you can should be your mantra. Start taking notes on other people´s behavior (for more information on that topic, please check our article on “Taking notes”), don´t look at every situation on the table only out of your own perspective, but rather try to take on your opponents´ view. Another common mistake a lot of bad players make is that they´re only thinking about their hand once an opponent has made his decision. Don´t wait on a rival to make his bet in order to think about what you´re going to do in case he does so.

Now, since the topic of this article is to improve your intuition, let´s take a look at how you can get a better feeling for the game. An easy way, especially for starters, is to focus on one single player on your table. Pick the most aggressive one and closely monitor his behavior. When is this guy betting, how much and how does he react once other players stay in the pot with him? Take notes on every move that doesn´t seem normal for a reasonable player.

If that´s too overwhelming to you at first, focus your attention on one single potential pattern. Maybe the guy you´re monitoring likes to bet a lot on the flop and you´re suspecting him to bluff a lot. Simply put a pen and paper next to your PC or laptop and start to make a tally.

Another option for you would be to spend an hour every one or two weeks in order to pick a table where you only observe the play of the guys playing there. This is a great chance to put yourself in someone´s position without feeling the pressure of risking your own chips at the same time.

To finish up this section, don´t assume that your Poker intuition improves over night or that you won´t make any bad calls or lay-downs in the future anymore. Getting a feeling for the action on the table while playing Poker takes a lot of perpetual training and your willingness to improve your skills. However, once you´ve accumulated enough experiences, you´ll be able to recognize certain patterns and behaviors. A great way of profiting from other players’ experiences is by participating in our program here at Pokertraining.org where we´re offering personal Poker coaching for free. This is a great opportunity for you to not only work on your game, but also to gain access to information that will help you improve your intuition, leading to better decision-making in the future.

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