Results-Oriented Thinking

Below is hand taken from one of my poker sessions today – a 6-max Limit Hold ‘Em cash game on PokerStars.

Poker Stars $2/$4 Limit Hold’em – 6 players – View hand 976801
DeucesCracked Poker Videos Hand History Converter

Pre Flop: (1.5 SB) Hero is BTN with 7 7
UTG calls, MP raises, CO 3-bets, Hero caps!, 3 folds, MP calls, CO calls

Flop: (14.5 SB) T 4 8 (3 players)
MP checks, CO checks, Hero bets, MP raises, CO calls, Hero calls

Turn: (10.25 BB) 5 (3 players)
MP bets, CO calls, Hero calls

River: (13.25 BB) 2 (3 players)
MP checks, CO checks, Hero bets, MP calls, CO calls

Aside from the strangely colored suits, an astute observer should also notice that they have no idea who won this hand. And that’s exactly how it should be! In Poker, as in Magic and most other aspects of life, decisions should be analyzed with the information you had in hand when the decision was made. How many times have you lost a match and tried to pin the exact mistake that led to it? How accurate do you think you are with that? Quite frankly, once your observation has been “tainted” by seeing the result of your decision (your key spell was Mana Leaked, your alpha strike was Fogged, etc.), most people simply cannot perform an objective analysis on the play at hand.

We humans are very biased observers. Relay that same hand history from above, both with and without results, to two different groups of people. With a large enough sample size, any group seeing my razor-thin valuebet as a success would be more likely to gauge it as correct. If instead the results showed me losing the hand, the response would likely be more negative.

In fact, if I were posting this hand for analysis of my play on the flop, it would be correct to cut off every single thing that happened after the point of contention. Don’t post the turn, don’t post the river, don’t post the results, nothing except the game state leading up to the decision and the decision itself. Again, we are all such biased observers, whether aware of it or not!

How objective are you during playtesting? Even in a game with imperfect access to information (you can rarely see the cards in your opponent’s hand, the top of the libraries, or the contents of your opponent’s deck), there is always at least one objectively correct play at every moment. Try to be honest with yourself, how often (or how well) do you objectively assess your play?