Poker Tips - Smart Decisions vs Right Decisions

Being able to distinguish between smart decisions and right decisions is all important at the poker table. People ask me about a hand they recently played, and they usually turn out to be bad beat stories in disguise. However, sometimes they honestly don't see it that way and that is what separates a winning poker player from a losing one. They think that because they lost the hand, they either played it badly, or they must be playing on the rigged pokerstars and everyone is out to get them and they played the hand perfectly but lost because its rigged. You get the idea...

In poker there are Smart Decisions, and Right Decisions, and being able to distinguish between the two is very important if you want long term success. When you make a decision it may turn out to be right or wrong depending on what happens at the end of the hand. If you win the pot it was the "right decision" and if you lose, it was the "wrong decision". But it may have also been smart, or a not-smart decision. Actually, lets just call it a dumb decision. However, not all smart decisions turn out right.

A simple example is calling bets to the river in a multi-way pot with a pair of threes. When it is obvious from the actions and exposed cards that your up against a better hand. The hand should have been folded long before the river, so calling this far was almost certainly a dumb decision.

However, if the river card is a 3 and you win a huge pot, it clearly was the right decision to play on. Conversely, folding a weak hand early is usually a smart decision. However, when the hand is over and your 7-2 off suit would have made a full house then you clearly made a smart, but wrong decision. The best anyone can do is to make smart decisions. Nobody knows what is going to happen in the future. If you make smart decisions though, you have done the best you can towards making right decisions. In the long run don't blame yourself when a smart decision turns out wrong, and don't pat yourself on the back when your dumb decision ends up winning the pot. Learn from your results to do better and understand where you are making smart decisions and dumb ones. Don't worry if you made the right decision because the rightness of a decision can only be made in hindsight, and hindsight has no place at the poker table in terms of decision making!
Instead, focus on making the smart move and let the results sort themselves out in the long run!

I hope this was informative and you'll learn something

If you want more poker tips don't forget to follow.

Profit Master.