I tend to get into habits where my thinking during a hand is not as specific as I feel it needs to be. Besides tilt, I think this also happens from playing at the micros (NL 10) because against loose passive fish their ranges are super wide, and overall if they bet or show aggression they have it, and if they check or call they don't have it. So, my thinking turns into like a "blah blah blah" kind of thing. Then, when I realize this and try to like manually think about the things I feel I'm supposed to be thinking about, I take too long and the timer goes on and then that's another issue altogether. Especially during live play, taking too long is a good way to piss everyone at the table off. I'm looking for anything that's proven helpful to fix issues like this.

Play a sweat session against one of these LAG opponents with another player and explain your thoughts. If you can, play with 2+ people watching and they might be able to remove the thorn from your paw. Otherwise keep practicing and reviewing spots with these opponents and see what you could do differently to adapt.

I'm interested in this thread though, hopefully some other forum members can share some insight.

In that moment make a decision and stick to it. After the session go back and review that scenario. I like to write these situations down during the session. If you play without a HUD I'd advise doing that, can be done live as well. If you notice any sign of tilt just quit. Playing LAG opponents can be a gift and a curse, their play is unusual so it gets you thinking about your game, but I can see frustration growing if someone is opening 8/5o from MP. Try to play your best game.

You basically have to already know your strategy, its extremely hard to create a strategy on the spot and also usually a bad ideea. You only have time to execute your current strategy as best you can.

I think part of the problem is that really bad players are hard to read. I can't remember where I learned this concept, but there's sort of a spectrum w/really bad players on one end and they are hard to read bc even they don't know what they are doing. The players more in the middle are the easiest to read bc they have some pretty basic or fundamental patterns that similar level or better players can exploit. Really good players are thinking one or more steps beyond and then it gets into: "What do I think he thinks I think he has?" and so forth.

What can you do? Get value as best as you can since you are playing tighter and your range is stronger in general. Also, I think the only way to become a better player is to work through hands off the table. Post hands, journal about them, start a PGandC and post them there--whatever you prefer. There's so little time to make decisions during hands (as pokerforumposter pointed out) that you really can't develop your game by just playing. You have to take hands that didn't go right w/you when you end your session.

Call me crazy, but I like to narrate my sessions sometimes. Talk to someone in my head as though I'm explaining poker to someone new. Imagine you're making a video for a coaching site.

I'll go through stuff like "Okay, this guy's a nit so I'd normally 3-bet JJ here but I think this is a flat". It forces me to think clearly about every decision and stay away from auto-pilot. It also means I can look back through a session just after playing and think whether I was totally misreading something at the time.

Not out loud though. I haven't completely lost it.

cool question man, something i've thought a lot about. in my experience it's really easy to get caught up in generic narratives that sound reasonable on the face of it - usually stuff that you've heard someone good say at some point in time or thought about yourself beforehand - but in reality don't accurately capture the situation. this can be extraordinarily difficult to realize because by default humans are extremely, extremely biased. we constantly seek out evidence to confirm our preconceptions and ignore evidence that contradicts them. to boot, when our brains get overloaded with stimuli, which happens often in poker, we resort more and more to this type of thinking because it is easy and natural. trying to understand things statistically & trying to question our assumptions do not come naturally to us. so, for example, if you have a preconception that someone who is loose-passive preflop doesn't bluff postflop, you could go your entire life thinking this is true even when it isn't. every time they show down a value hand you will nod emphatically, but every time they show down a bluff it will skip off the surface of your mind like a stone. this is just what we as humans do. we don't think probabilistically and we latch onto familiar narratives with the jaws of death. it takes a lot of deliberate practice to overcome it. you have to catch yourself doing it over and over again.

every situation in poker is so unique that it can be very dangerous to overgeneralize with simplistic narratives. every spot that comes up carries with it a unique combination of timing, history, observed hands, statistical reads, stack size, board texture, betsizing, etc. when you really focus on everything that's going on, the narratives get to be more and more complex and specific to each situation. there are certainly themes and ideas that carry from hand to hand, but general ideas like "big bets are value" don't necessarily hold from spot to spot. (there are some exceptions to this, like the vast majority of people still don't bluffraise rivers enough)

i think i've gotten the hang of this pretty well over the past year for the first time in my career. now i'm more or less hyper aware of my thought process during a hand. meditation has helped with that - it's allowed me to really observe what i'm thinking and to be able to critically evaluate it as opposed to "getting caught up in it." normally i'm not crazy about hippy-dippy phraseology like that, but i'm not sure how else to describe it. i also play fewer tables than most people and focus as much as possible on every single decision. if i ever feel my focus waning, i either gather myself up and get back to it or quit. it feels like it takes an absurd amount of effort at first, and it does. like you i still struggle with feeling like i have enough time. i have literally had to ban myself from certain zoom-type games because my thought process gets too rushed, and i get really anxious if i don't have a timebank. it gets easier as time goes on, and maybe i'll get quick enough to where i can play those games in the future, but right now i still feel more rushed than i'd like and am still drained by the end of a session more often than i'd like. it's improved significantly, though.

i would also recommend studying away from the tables quite a bit. this allows you to hone your thinking in a calmer setting with more time to go through hands. the more you do this, the more automatic it will become. i had to start doing it on a very consistent basis for it to stick, otherwise i'd just constantly have to remind myself of things i'd learned. i would say at least 1/4 of your time should be spent studying under most circumstances, and probably a good bit more than that if you're just starting out.

talking out loud is definitely reasonable, but make sure that you're doing it because it allows you to deconstruct your thought process more finely. sometimes talking out loud can just echo your internal thought process exactly. you could also try recording yourself playing in real-time and voicing your thought process through a mic, as if you were making a coaching video, and then go through it later.

finally, make sure your mental game is in order. it's very difficult to try and play well or even be aware of your thought process if you're constantly tilted, frustrated, etc. jared tendler's books are fantastic for this. i like tommy angelo's stuff quite a bit as well, esp for the meditation side of things.

however you go about this, it's extremely important that you take your time enough to do it correctly and deliberately from the get-go. be COMPLETELY honest with yourself about what you don't know and fierce about trying to correct it. question your assumptions - there are probably a lot of bad ones in there, and they can be very sticky. most of all, be patient with yourself. i know some of this sounds tedious & time-consuming, and it certainly can be, but it can also be extremely rewarding and, well, it can dramatically affect the rest of your life. it has for me.

good luck man!

Honesty with yourself is massive. Lex had a good bit about poker players being honest in his pod with Joey Ingram, I recommend checking it out.

This post is a diamond. The point of off table work is so that you can execute your strats (it took you 10 minutes to develop) within 5 seconds with understanding and certainty.

If you find you’re running into a lot of new spots and this is hampering your thought process then well you need to study more.

Or play less tables. It’s too easy to miss things on autopilot. Take the time, run through your mental checklists, no matter how “obvious” the hand is. Sit there with a literal written down checklist if you have to.

Try doing what are called ‘Focus Sessions’. These are where you are not concerned with volume (multi-tabling), rather you are focused on a particular concept that you learned or studied this week. Focus on when those spots come up. Practice do these every week for every new topic you learn.

Also, start to really over exaggerate the inner dialogue you have in your head. Helps even to talk out loud with every decision. Talk about why you are folding, why you are raising from this position, why you are 3 betting, why you are c-betting, why you are firing barrels, why you are bluffing, what the board texture is, what my opponents tendencies are that influence my adjustments, etc. This is something I’ve started to do myself, and you will see it will help a lot. The more you force yourself to practice this inner dialogue, the more you will be able to bridge that gap between what you learned, and applying it to the tables. Soon the thought process will all become second nature.

When I came back to poker, I had to completely relearn how I saw the game in a fresh light.

I had dated views and misconceptions. I used to play a LAG style when I was a professional before and it was a bitter pill to swallow to realise that it’s not an ideal playstyle these days.

One thing that helps the focus is a ton of study. I spent many late nights with a solver open trying to understand why something was a range bet and why something was a range check for example.

Even something as simple as that allows you to see a ton of exploits in real time.

Also, don’t take anything at face value. People might say something and it might be ‘common knowledge’ and it might not even be correct. Go through everything with a fine tooth comb.

CrazyAndy27s what solver? Pio? Snowie? A lot of professional players have been discussing how valuable solvers can be, do you think Solvers can help players at MS and Mid Stakes?