I've been studying a lot the last months and the more I study, the more I realize that all of this knowledge is useless if you don't have information on your opponents.

Online that's easy, you turn on the hud and you have (almost) everything you need.

Live it's a totally different story though.
You want to keep track of how active players are, what ranges they play, their betting patterns, do they call too much, do they bet or bluff too much, do they fold too much on certain streets, ...

Gathering all this information requires a huge amount of focus at the table.


At the moment I'm playing mostly on instinct.
I try to pay as much attention as I can and I do have good instinctual reads on opponents a lot of the time.

But then on the other side while playing live, I constantly find myself not knowing what is going on, who bet, who raised, what happened on previous streets, ...


One possibility to train is to count the amount of hands opponents are playing and calculate their VPIP.
Starting for one opponent and adding more and more as I get better at it.

But I don't think this strategy works for me, since I'm a very instinctual player.
I do know a lot of the math behind poker and I do use it, but not in an active way. I'm not actually counting stuff at the table, I just -feel- when I'm getting the correct odds or not, or when someone is playing too much or too little or when someone is bluffing or folding too much, ...


I'd like to find a way to train my instincts and to pay more attention at the tables.


I'm also interested in what other people think about instinct vs math.
I don't feel comfortable using real math at the table, it just doesn't seem to work for me. I assume some people will feel the same and others will feel the opposite.


Any constructive ideas, advice, tips, ... are welcome.

1) Drink lots of water
2) Dont eat a heavy meal before/during a session
3) Write random hands down on your phone and dont be obvious about it
4) Having good instincts/estimation skills is great to have as a live poker skill
5) Its too hard and a waste of time to calculate VPIP since there are way more important things going on. This is what you estimate. Try to remember who semi bluffs or just calls with draws. How players play their huge hands vs medium strength vs weak vs bluff hands is the most important thing you should be trying to remember. How they play multiway, dry vs wet boards. Those are the crucial spots where your mind should be.

There's some contradiction in your post. If you play by instinct and dont like to use math at the table why would attempt to count the number of hands people are playing to calculate their VPIP? Thats nothing but math. (Not too mention its impossible to do without tracking every hand everyone plays).

Online players always think live poker is so easy and that live players suck. Live players mostly do suck, but they suck in all different kinds of ways. Some call too much. Some fold too much. Some never raise and limp even premiums. Some are too aggro, bluff too much...ect.

You can beat live poker by playing ABC, but to crush, you have to be able to recognize each players leaks and exploit them at every turn. As you have acknowledged, that's a lot harder to do when you arent being spoon fed everyone's numbers by a HUD (which in my opinion is cheating). Its no different than sitting down at a live table, a guy raises and your neighbor whispers to you "That guy only raises AA/KK". That would be considered cheating.

Live poker requires some different skills, one of which is being able to recognize leaks of 8 other people on the fly with limited numbers of hands being dealt so limited number of opportunities to get that info.

The best thing you can do is stay off of your phone while at the table and watch every hand. Try to put people on hands and see how close you are at showdown. If you see someone show down after raising in EP with A6s, thats good info to have. If you see someone limp KK in EP, more good info. A guy leads into the raiser with a set, take mental note.....ect.

Eventually you will get better at focusing on all of that stuff at the table.

Huge +1. As usual we are making alot of the same reflections Mike. I see online players getting destroyed so often when they come into my regular games and tries to grind live without making huge adjustments from their usual online game. I have a hard time not laughing when i for example see them stackoff with JJ pre for 150 blinds against the OMC in the game who doesent 3 bet ever without QQ+, while they say things like "I have to get it in there, i am at the top of my late pos range" and BS like that. Keep sticking to those kind of terms/GTO stuff from your online training and see how long it takes before you are busto playing live.

Exactly

Gut feels (which is what you are basically saying you do) are a matter of you subconsiously picking up signals that you are responding to. The way to "improve" those is to figure out what those signals are. For example, suppose you are playing a game where someone holds up a random card with a 1 or 0 on facing them and the back facing you. You start finding out that you're guessing them correctly more than 50% of the time. You can try to get better at guessing, or figure out that the person holds the card with 2 fingers and a thumb when it is a 1 and 3 fingers and a thumb when it is a zero.

Which one do you think will give you a better result?

I can tell you the lazier answer is to try to become a better guesser.

I've found most of what has been posted here online, thanks for the tips though.

It's pretty obvious that if you wanna play good and be able to exploit others that you try to pay attention, and thus are not watching tv or your phone, ...

The thing is, there are a million other distractions.
People talking walking around, ...

I'm trying my best to pay attention, but I keep noticing that I'm not able to keep up my attention levels.

What I'm asking for is a way to train or practice this skill so that I can pay attention for longer periods of time without getting distracted.

I think this really depends on your personality.
Some people will never notice the fingers change but they might notice subconsciously and still be just as accurate or even more accurate trusting their gut feel. Since it is basically picking up the same information, just not consciously.

My list
1.) Exercise
2.) Meditation ( May sound weird and religious but it calms your mind and helps you focus )
3.) Eating right. ( Studies prove this one, brain empowering foods make a huge difference )
4.) drink plenty of water
5.) Absolutely no cell phone ( unless you take notes ) or more importantly SOCIAL MEDIA. Huge distraction
I’m not a professional, but I consistently beat 2/3, and do pretty well at 2/5 when I take my shots.

any tips on this one?

Excuse us for wasting our time posting things online that you couldve found somewhere else online. Wont make that mistake again.

Do a search. I'm sure you'll find the answer online.

It always is weird to me that people don’t understand this but I’ll give it a shot.
No processed Sugar is a good start for anyone new to eating well, stay away from soda, candy, ice cream, etc. eat healthy carbs no bread I’m talking oats brown rice sweet potatoes. Fruit and vegetables lean meats, turkey chicken fish, steak is a once and a while thing, Pork is almost never.
My day of eating
Breakfast: 3 whole eggs mixed with sautéed spinach & oatmeal with an orange.
Snack: plain nonfat Greek yogurt with blueberries
Lunch: salad with chicken
Snack: almonds / granola
Dinner: 8oz chicken or turkey brown rice and mixed veg
Post workout: protein shake

After an hour at the table, you should at least be able to tell who’s playing a lot of hands and who isn’t playing any. That’s substantial info right there.

Pay attention to who’s raising preflop, and what they’re raising with in whatever position they’re in. Is anyone three betting? Check raising? Who’s squeezing? Who’s trying to steal from the button? From the cutoff? Pay attention to every showdown.

In other words, don’t try to gather all the info- there’s too much of it. Pick out the value heavy data points and pick up more data as play continues.

@Ddebaggi so it's just eating healthy in general?
Thought there were specific brain-food thingies that would help :P

Yeah eating healthy foods enhances brain function

Thanks, will work on that then!
Well I already am, so I'll continue to work on it! (Trying to cut soda atm)

Anyone got any tips on how to actually practice staying focused on and/or off table?

I don't look at my phone while playing, not watching tv or screens, ... But I do get distracted by stuff happening at and around the table. To be honest I don't even really know what distracts me most of the time. I just notice myself not knowing what is going on at the table at multiple points during play.

The real issue for me is that I lose focus without noticing and I don't really know what's causing it or how to stay focused on the game. Kinda like daydreaming in class, it just happens.

I will try to meditate more, since that does seem to be a way to practice focus.

Anything else?
Any good ways to keep focused at the table?