How do you train your decision making in poker?

Poker decisions often have to be made quickly under pressure. How do you improve your decision making process?

For me, what helps the most is to review some hands after playing.
I focus on the games where I lost a lot of chips and try to understand what I could have done differently. If a similar situation comes up again, I can react better, even under pressure.

Play- Review- fix mistakes - Repeat. 👍👍

Really study fundamentals. I review fundamentals all the time. I don’t want to be in a spot where I don’t know what to do. So I study a lot of spots that I know I’m going to find myself in like blind vs blind, CO vs BTN and things like that. Board structure is important to study so when a paired board hits the flop I won’t be so lost.

I think it's all about how you feel playing. Personally, I already have strategies in my head for what to do when you encounter all the possible situations in poker. Of course, sometimes they don't work out due to luck or many complex reasons in this game, but I'm at peace if I applied them as I designed them.

SergioV said:

Poker decisions often have to be made quickly under pressure. How do you improve your decision making process?

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There is only one way to train this and that is by studying situations away from the table. Easy hands play themselves but the moment it gets complex we do not have the time to work thru the situation in detail while we play.
It does not mean playing by rote but instead having certain pieces of data already in mind when a complex issue occurs. Such as bet sizing changes on board interactions--when do we bet big when to we check etc etc. There are very many strategies we can be prepared for before they occur so that we need only focus on the in the moment data that would make us deviate--player is aggressive or passive or a calling station etc etc.

One thing that helps me a lot is to describe the whole hand aloud, mentally analyzing all the possibilities. This helps me remember the full hand, making it easier to rule out a lot of options.

For example, if I remember someone betting 3BB preflop, I would rule out low hands from different clubs.

I review my worst played hands, not my bad beats. I drill spots until the decision feels boring. If I have to think at the table, I haven’t trained enough.