Are you an overthinker or an underthinker at the table?
Is it better to be somebody who thinks about hands they just played too much, or somebody who forgets them in an instant?
Last weekend I went deep in the IPO Main Event, as did a friend of mine, Ray Wheatley. Between hands he told me about a cooler he played, then at dinner, he was still talking about it, then back at the tables he still was.
We also played a small pot against each other, where after the hand he was trying to work out if he should have checked back the river. I suggested to him he was overthinking his hands and surprised him, and most of the table, when I revealed that I often forget hands I just played.
It led me to ponder which was it better to be, the overthinking, or the 'in one ear, out one other' mindset I have?
Overthinkers learn from mistakes
I have long held the belief that the biggest source of improvement for any poker player is to simply talk out hands after you play them. In that respect, being an overthinker is invaluable. You are constantly sanity-checking your lines and learning from your mistakes.
From a sheer number of repetitions perspective, being an overthinker is probably better for your long-term improvement.
Having said that, it doesn't help your mindset or your performance. If you are in the middle of a pot and still ruminating on a hand you played two orbits ago, you are not fully engaging in the hand you are currently involved in.
Mental game coach Jared Tendler suggests writing the hand down (or marking it online) and then pledging to review it later. You get a feeling of closure so you can perform better, while also learning from the hand later.
Underthinkers are 'in the moment'
I don't forget the meaningful hands, but the small and/or 'standard' pots will be gone from my mind in half an orbit. Often I find myself thinking I should study a hand I played for later, only to forget to do it long enough that I can no longer remember the hand itself.
I actually have to record sessions I play for this reason, so I can look back on hands I played to learn from them, without having to recall them from memory.
I think I would rather be the overthinker (ironically I am a big overthinker in every other aspect of life) but there is an advantage to not being. I believe I adapt better when, for example, I go from a small stack to a big stack, or vice versa, because I am not fixated on a hand I just played.
I suspect the sage advice is to know which one you are and plan accordingly. Everyone has a different learning style and this is part of it. If you are an overthinker, mark the hand and move on. If you are an underthinker, take steps to force yourself to record hands for later.
Are you an overthinker or an underthinker? Let us know in the comments:
