To think…. or not to think

When you start to play poker, it’s all about the cards. YOUR cards and the cards on the board. Other players in the hand ceased to exist once you hit top pair – a straight or a flush lights up your face like Vegas Boulevard on New Year’s Eve and when you push all in, even Gus Hanson knows to fold.
Then one day – after your top pair gets beat time after time – you start wondering “how did I not see that coming?” , you have a light bulb moment and realized that people don’t always call bets for no reason. They don’t always have the same pair with a worse kicker. Now you start paying attention to the cards your opponents might have.
Probably at this time you also are getting curious and start reading up on how to play against these people who call with draws. You learn from various sources about the different levels of thinking in poker. Oh no, now I have to think about not only what my opponent is holding, but also what he thinks I am holding?
Putting that into practice is a different animal. So you decide to give it a try. Two limpers in the pot, you raise from the button with two random cards. Both limpers call and the flop comes K-8-3 rainbow. OK, so you want them to think you have AK, so you bet a reasonable amount after they both checked. But the EP guy has read the book too, so now he wants you to think he has a set of 3’s or 8’s, so he called with the intention of leading out on the turn. Other limper just calls too.
Turn is a 2, first guy bets, and now you decide you want them to think you have a set of 8’s and you raised. First guy now is thinking that you thought he had a K and that you think he thought you had a medium pair and that you thought he thought you had AK. At this point, all this thinking is taking it’s toll and neither of you has a clue of what you’re really holding.
Lots of raising and re-raising going on and at showdown you have two people with crappy cards shouting at each other ‘how can you call with that, I was representing AK” followed by “I put you on AK and I was representing a set, you’re the donk!”, while the second limper (beginner player still on Level 1 thinking) who totally missed all the thinking that were going on, silently stacks the chips that he/she just won wit K2o.

I think it’s important that we stop overthinking every hand and sometimes just play them. Wait for the right opportunity against the right opponent to switch to the next level of thinking. Don’t get caught up and carried away.