Counterproductive Analysis

As a poker coach, I fully believe in putting your poker energy to good use rather than wasting it. It's pointless to bemoan a bad beat over which you have no control. On the other hand, spending time analyzing hands, and looking for improved ways to play them, is an extremely useful exercise.



However, you must make sure that you analyze the right kinds of hands, and for the right reasons. In certain situations, I find too many players analyzing hands with the idea of getting better immediate results, rather than focusing on correct long-term strategies. They are losing sight of the goal of hand analysis, which is to improve the way you played a hand, not to simply find a different way to play it.



For instance, let me describe a specific pattern I see far too often, using "Wilson" as an example of a typical player who exercises too much counterproductive analysis:



1. Wilson is in the middle stages of a no-limit hold'em tournament with a medium stack.



2. He manages to get all of his money in preflop with K-K against an opponent with an equal amount of chips who has 10-10, making Wilson approximately a 4-1 favorite to double up.



3. Instead, his opponent draws out on the river, knocking Wilson out of the tournament.



4. Wilson then goes back to analyze what he could have done differently, and concludes that if he had not gotten all of his money in preflop, he could have gotten better results. He could have either found a way to get his opponent off his hand or gotten off his own hand before losing his entire stack.



5. Therefore, he decides that when the same situation comes up again, he may play it differently, rather than getting all of his money in as a 4-1 favorite.



Wilson's Mistake

He is trying to control a situation that is out of his hands. As a poker player, you can do only so much, and then at some point the cards have to run their course. If you can get your money in as a 4-1 favorite, do it. If the cards don't cooperate, so be it. But once you start trying to control the one time in five that you will lose that confrontation, you will cost yourself dearly when the four winning instances come around.



Example No. 1

Let's stick with the scenario in which Wilson has K-K and his opponent has 10-10. They get all of their money in preflop, and the board comes Q-J-3-8-10. Wilson then decides, "If I had merely called my opponent's preflop raise, I could have won the hand. After the flop, I could have bet, and it's unlikely that my opponent would have called with a queen and a jack staring him in the face. Instead, since we got our money in preflop, he was able to see all five cards, and that enabled him to make his set and knock me out."



So now, Wilson may have found a way he could have won the hand. But at what price? After a Q-J-3 flop, his K-K has become about a 90 percent favorite. Is he happy to end the hand right there, giving himself only a small portion of his opponent's stack?



He shouldn't be. If he had the choice, he would much rather have his opponent all in, even if it meant seeing the next two cards. It would be worth taking the 10 percent chance of going broke if it meant a 90 percent chance that he would get his opponent's entire stack.



But instead of understanding that he got the scenario he wanted, Wilson is playing results. In this particular instance, his opponent rivered a set, so he wants to buy into any strategy that could have avoided that outcome. If he does that, and consequently changes his future playing style, he will be costing himself dearly by not doubling up in situations in which he should. He must take a step back and realize that he did exactly what he needed to do, and the cards simply did not fall his way.



Example No. 2

Briefly, let's look at a second example of Wilson's musings. We'll stick with K-K versus 10-10, but this time the board was A-Q-9-8-10. He might say to himself, "If I had flat-called my opponent's preflop raise, I could've gotten off the hand on the flop. Once I saw the ace, I would have laid my kings down, and that way I'd still be in the tournament."



I actually hear this sort of reasoning all the time, and it drives me nuts even more than the first example. I mean, come on! The way that the hand played out, it's true that Wilson could have folded on the flop, thus not enabling his opponent to spike a set on the river. But if his opponent bet the flop and he folded, that meant his opponent got Wilson to lay down a hand that was a 9-1 favorite! How can Wilson possibly believe that is the correct play?



Yet, Wilson might convince himself that it's correct because, in this particular instance, it would have kept him alive in the tournament. Big deal. The other nine times, it would have had him laying down his kings, costing him a portion of his stack, when by all rights he should have doubled up. If he's going to be a winning player, Wilson can't play results. He has to make the correct play, not the one that enables him to avoid all possible worst-case outcomes.



His Analysis is Simply Counterproductive
I don't care if you are a rank novice or a world champion. It doesn't matter whether you are in a tournament or a cash game. You could be playing for pennies or Porsches. It's all the same. If you can get all of your money in as a 4-1 favorite, do it. And if you lose, live with it. It happens. Wait for the next opportunity to arise, and then do it again. If you are able to consistently create that scenario, you will be a successful player – end of story.



There are too many Wilsons out there, dwelling on the few times they lose those favorable confrontations. They are not willing to accept the fact that they got their money in as a substantial favorite, but couldn't win. They must realize that they made the right play, and simply got the wrong results.



In general, hand analysis is an excellent learning tool, but not if it leads you to make bad plays in hope of occasionally getting better results. When you start thinking that way, you are taking a huge step backward.

Matt Lessinger's Book of Bluffs is now available at http://www.cardplayer.com/. While there, you can also find other articles by Matt in the Online Poker News newsletter. Please visit his new website, http://www.mattlessinger.com/, to learn more about him.