so much to think about...
 

alright, in any competition, whether it be sports, poker, chess... etc.. there are a lot of things that you need to study and learn...

when you are actually playing however... do u think about and remember those things before taking action... or is it so ingrained in your memory that almost every move you make is pretty much 2nd nature?

is it good to follow your first instincts when playing poker?

Re: so much to think about...
 

When you're first getting started you learn to pick up on a lot of things. Experience at the table is just as important as any book you can read and after you play thousands of hands you'll start developing good instincts and reads.

A lot of people here move on to multitabling an enormous amount of tables and thats where you stop reading people and start playing an ABC game of poker. At this point there's not really much thinking before taking action and it's pretty robotic, compared to focusing on one or two tables.

As for instincts, sometimes it's good and sometimes it's bad. I don't like to rush into a call/fold, and sometimes have to replay the action in my head and realize that my first instincts have a good chance of being wrong. In other sports you don't get the luxury to think as long as you want, so in poker you want to capitalize on that and really focus if you have a big decision in front of you.

Re: so much to think about...
 

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when you are actually playing however... do u think about and remember those things before taking action... or is it so ingrained in your memory that almost every move you make is pretty much 2nd nature?

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Most of it is pretty well ingrained, but I also play mostly limit hold'em (where you see many of the same situations over and over again). Still, many things that I once had trouble with, such as figuring my immediate pot odds & how much if any implied odds I had, are now pretty much instinctive.

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is it good to follow your first instincts when playing poker?

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I'll also say yes & no. Playing online, and especially multi-tabling online, you often have to go with your first instinct because time is so short. Playing live, you can & should take as much time as they'll give you to fully analyze the hand & figure out first of all if your gut instinct is correct, second of all why it is, and thirdly what course of action results in the most money won (or least money lost) for you. There's a reason why so many top pros always pause before committing any action.

You should be doing all of that anyway as a beginning player, because your lack of experience will cause your first instinct to be wrong more often than it will be after you've put in thousands of hours of play. However, when you do your analysis you should probably put your initial emphasis on that gut instinct, and why it may be right or wrong.