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PSI - My Mental Checklist

There are so many factors to consider when playing poker that often it can get daunting. I used to have a really long mental checklist I would go through when making decisions, but often found that it would go out the window in the heat of the moment, so I simplified it down to a three letter acronym as a good baseline. I call it PSI.
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POSITION
STACKS
IMAGE
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PSI should be applied through every stage of a hand. Even before the hand is even dealt!
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POSITION:
This includes both your absolute position, relative to the button, and your relative position relative to the likely first aggressor. Button position is pretty obvious. Button or 1 off button is best, blinds or under the gun is worst. Relative position relates to where the first bet will come from. For example if you are UTG and the person immediately to your left raises preflop, he is likely to bet first on the flop. By letting him bet first post flop, you are effectively last to act, which is ideal. Preflop position can dictate your hand selection pre flop and post flop can allow or limit different options of how you procede with a hand. Position can also help with your hand reading. An early position raiser vs a button raiser could yielf very different hand ranges. Position is paramount in every decision you make.
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STACKS:
In big bet poker, you must always be aware of stack sizes. Yours and theirs. Always have an inventory of all the stacks at the table. Where are the big stacks, medium stacks and small stacks relative to blind size and relative to your stack. You should think of stack sizes not in absolute terms, but in BB increments. Such as player 1 has 10BB, player 2 has 25BB and player 3 has over 100BB. What is the average stack of the tournament? Stack sizes play an important role in things like fold equity, available leverage and commitment scenarios. Don't forget that it is effective statck that matters in equity calculations. Effective stack is the smaller of the stacks in play. If you have 10BB and the opponent has 200BB, you are effectively playing for 10BB, his additional 190BB are irrelevent mathmatically (although not psychologically) Also try to get a feel for the Stack to Pot Ratio. I posted something about this before, so I won't go through it here. As a side note, in a live environment, the chip denomination make-up can also give you some clues. Often times when you move to a new table, the player with a lot of small denomination chips might be an aggressive player picking up a lot of blinds and antes, and therefore has all the small chips.
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IMAGE
This is both your table image, and your opponents, and this changes moment to moment. What are people's perceived image of you? What is their motivation for playing? Having fun with buddies or grinder pro? What is your opponents' images in terms of style? Tight/Loose? Passive/Aggressive? What is their state of mind? Did they just loose a big pot? On tilt? Live you can pick up a lot more on image such as how people dress, how they talk, their usage of poker lingo, how they handle their chips, cards, etc. One tactical application is to raise to isolate weak players. Image boils down to knowing your opponents. Playing the player as they say. Everything in poker is player dependent so obviously this is very important.
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So that's my mental checklist in a nutshell. P.S.I. One thing you'll notice is that no where in here was a mention of any cards, hands, boards etc. Also, this is not something that is only applied preflop, or postflop or when it's your turn to act. PSI should be applied regardless of the cards, and constantly throughout the hand (even before the hand), even when the action is not on you. By thining in terms of PSI ahead of time, you can focus on other things when it is your turn to act. Obviously there is so much to consider beyond this, but I find it a good baseline you can fall back on and use consistently in any situation.

DonkeyKong

COMMENTS

POSTED BY:
alig8trblood

Mar 16, 09 11:40 AM

Nice blog BRO. I like it. Thanks for the nutritional info. A lot of players miss out on these key factors.