I need to stop thinking

[jfletcher]

I think recently I've been trying so hard to improve my game that I'm going the other way. I think when I watch the table very intently, it causes me to extrapolate reads on players based on small sample sizes and then make plays that aren't appropriate.

I think just in general I'm reading too much into what I see and what I think, rather than just going with the old ABC, standard plays, which are correct most of the time.

Maybe I should just play so many tables at once that I have to do ABC.

Anyone else have this problem?

[Richie(UK)]

There is a scene in Ronin where Sean Bean says to Robert De Niro "You think too much!" and De Niro, no doubt contemplating the seriousness of the situation and ways in which they might die, replies "Nobody ever told me that before".

Its unlikely that you're thinking too much - you may simply be drawing the wrong conclusions. Perhaps you need to think more and that further thinking will tell you that the simple play is the best one.

I sometimes have a similar problem - I give my opponents credit for doing any thinking at all!

[jfletcher]

Just after that post I started 6-tabling some NL 50 for a couple of hours and I won about $50.

I'm sure that doesn't mean anything. I'm sure I just need to stop "over-reading" situations, but it's hard. My brain wants to feel like it's doing something -- rather than just pushing ABC buttons -- and it leads to me making "decisions" when I really should just be doing the obvious thing.

The more I think about it, this is my single biggest leak, live and online, cash and tourney.

I really need to fix this.

[torch]

[jeffnc]

You're not thinking too much, you're just putting too much stock in the answers you come up with. i.e. your conclusions should only be adjusted slightly for the very imperfect information or probabilities you're coming up with. Unless you have a rock solid read, then you should only be nudging decisions slightly one way or the other for close decisions, not straying a lot from what basic poker theory tells you.

[MXRider]

[Hermann the Lombard]

I was re-reading this thread and I see a related phenomena in my play. I take a lot of notes about the other players, the cards they showed down from a position, what they raised or re-raised PF, sometimes later actions and the board they acted on. Sometimes I get so caught up that when a hand finally arrives that requires my attention it's hard to get my attention back. ("Don't bother me, I'm typing!")

I'm also not making that much use of the notes yet. Running their actions through my brain and out my fingers does help reads a bit. ("He called with 72o UTG!!!") With more data it may help me narrow down ranges. ("He did PFR UTG with AJs but not ATs"). All in all, it should help more than "30.27/6.5/0.5" does, but it's a bit distracting just now.

[riverme_now]

I had this same problem after I took a private lesson to improve my golf swing. It through my game off for weeks before I finally had to discard it and go back to what I was comfortable with. Eventually, I was able to gradually introduce some of the mechanics into my swing.