Got some spare time at work, so thought I'd discuss some poker stuff.

Consciously not judging stuff

By this I mean reviewing a situation, and deliberately deciding not to make a decision as to whether its bad or good. This is something I've been doing more and more lately. Often my decision not to make a judgement is due to a conclusion that I cant make a judgement without being results oriented. Its largely an attempt NOT to be results oriented.

For instance earlier this month I played a session on bad tables where I wasnt in the right head-space and lost almost 4 buyins. A couple times recently I've gotten down more than 1 buyin on bad tables and felt I wasnt playing well, but tried to regroup and ended up making small profits. Were the situations different? Was it the right decision to play on and make that money back, or was it a bad decision where I just got lucky? On review I decide not to make a judgement as to whether it was right or wrong on THAT occassion, but try to commit in the future to being sure I'm really able to play better if I continue, otherwise to quit.

Another example might be making a hero call. Its very easy when you make a correct one to decide 'good read', and when you make a bad one to decide 'not a good enough read'. It can be hard after you know the results to really make that justification. If anything, the results affect your opinion of the read. Sometimes its obvious afterwards that even if I got it right, a fold was really the best play. Other times even when I get it wrong I decide that I had good reasons to make it. A number of times though, I just cant decide. Did I really have a good read, or was it wishful thinking? Again, rather than decide whether those exact hands were bad or good, I decide not to judge them, but remind myself that I really do need justification for making hero calls, not just wishful thinking, and commit to taking time to think before hitting the call button.


I'm not sure if this has much relevance to anyone else, or if its at all useful, its just something I've become aware of in myself. Last couple of pages you can find a few examples where I discuss something, and seem fairly vague on my feelings about it. That usually means I've made this call not to make a decision on it. I do think most poker players have this desire for everything to be black and white, right and wrong. Sometimes its more subjective than that.