Stop Being Results Orientated In Poker

May 23, 2010

Being result oriented

Be carefull because it can effect the way you play

The concept of being results orientated in poker is important to understand because it can seriously affect the way you think about and play poker. In a nutshell, results-orientated thinking refers to the outcome of the hand influencing how you think you played the hand. You hear it all the time from players “I told you so”, often times to justify a poor play. What they fail to realize is the outcome of the hand does not show if you played the hand correctly. It’s faulty logic and stupid to think that just because you win a hand you played it a hand well. Luck is a component of the game and suckouts do happen, so there will be times where it was unavoidable to lose the hand, even when you play correctly.

Downswings are something every player has to deal with and they don’t necessarily reflect how good or bad you may be playing, so tilting and poker bankroll management is important. If you are not familiar with variance then it’s something you need to understand well, because its something you can’t avoid.

What you need to realize is that even though you lose a hand, doesn’t necessarily mean you didn’t play the hand well. The same can be said about winning a hand, you could have played a hand terribly and still win the hand. The winnings graph doesn’t reflect how well you are playing. You could have a huge upswing in earnings over a short period of time, and for all you know, it could just mean you have been running good and hitting every flop hard. You could mistake this for thinking you are playing well, when really you just have been getting really good cards. Do you think this is going to always happen? Of course not, which is why you need to realize, especially when you are getting started in your poker career, it’s the decisions and actions you make at the table which is important.

All you can hope to do is make the correct decisions, and get the chips in the middle with the best of it. If you consistently do this you will make money in the long run. Playing with a results orientated mindset can get you in a lot of trouble when you are playing and end up costing you a lot of money. Let’s say you lose a few big pots in a row where you had the best hand on the turn, get all the chips in the middle, and the other player sucked out on you on the river. This could easily make you go on tilt and make you not play your best game, and you end up donking off more chips because you are not focused and playing how you would normally.

Instead, if you learn to deal with variance and bad beats, and evaluate your play without bias, you know that in the long run those plays will make you money, so what is the point in getting frustrated and losing even more money still thinking about it?

Naturally you will want to review your losing hands to evaluate your play. Every time you lost a big pot, you should post the hand on a poker forum where other experienced players will give feedback on the hand. It’s easy to get frustrated with your game when you lose money, but if you get feedback from other players in how you played the hand, you may come to realize that you actually took the correct line and didn’t play the hand poorly at all. The hand could have just been a cooler and you just need to suck it up. By getting other players to review your hands, not only will it improve your game, because it gets you thinking more deeply about poker, but it will help your ego and remind you that you are playing well, even when you are losing hands. Confidence is a huge aspect of a winning player’s poker arsenal, and by not thinking in a results orientated manner, it will only help to make you a better player and less prone to tilt.

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