Making the right decision - quickly

[AndrewT]

In a live event, when faced with a big decision, we can take our time to decide what to do.

What action has there been? What's his image? What's my image? How are the chips stacks? What pot odds am I getting? Is this a situation in which he'd bluff? Who's left to act after me? What range of hands can I put him on? How many times has he done this before? Etc etc etc.

However, it's not a live event, it's the internet. The little timer is counting down your 18 seconds (not Pokerstars so no timeout available). There are just two buttons in front of you - Call all-in and Fold. You can feel your brain melting as the timer zooms towards its destination. Quickly, you press one of the options. The cards are revealed. You chose unwisely. "If only I'd thought about it a bit longer, I'd have made the right decision" you cry to yourself.

In these situations, there are so many questions, the answers to which hold the key to the correct decision. How do you quickly distill what's important and what isn't? Do you have a set thinking pattern which you go through to get to the correct answer in time? Or is there no time for that, everything has to take place on a subconscious level - rapidly percolated through thousands of hands' worth of experience?

How do we come to the correct decisions correctly when we're against the clock? I'm specifically talking about times when, afterwards, you know that not only did you make the wrong decision, but that with a bit of extra thought, you would have got it right. The one question which held the key to the dilemma was one you didn't get around to considering.

[rivered]

Nice thoughts Andrew.  Its something that bugs me, but I guess we're all in the same boat when playing on line.  I always try to think ahead when I'm in bigger pots, and run a few 'what if' scenarios and use up my time on the flop and turn betting rounds, even if i know what I'm going to do on that round.  It can slow things down a bit, but it's well worth it because the time always seems t run out faster when you're unprepared.  I comes down to the old 'do everything for a reason you understand' line, whether it's simply limping through the rounds whilst playing the odds, or raising someone for most of their chips.  Of course, in practice I don't think about things as much as I should, and that is why I am a fish :-)

[TightEnd]

May I add one question to this before you get going on your responses?

How much importance do you attach to the time your foes take to make their decisions online when you have to  make your crucial decision?

quick, instant call/raise = monster?

dwell=marginal?

or do you see a lot of deception at the levels you play?

[mex]

 IMO You have less info to process on line so you don't have to take as much time, live your looking at the player in person looking for tells etc, building tension for subsequent cards to come.

i think good players tend to have a good idea of how they are going to react if they miss/hit the flop or how the hand will progress, i have sometimes made the call in my head before the guy has made his mind up to check, bet, or shove. Other times the All in Vs  Fold is such a hard choice, if you have doubts then fold, now i know that i have totally ignored that and called anyway LOL. sometimes you hit call and then think NOOOOOOOOOOOooooo before you' ve even seen the cards.

If i find I'm about to make a big all in call esp in the money or near the money i ask myself the following question/s........

"Do i need these chips now, and will i mind going out now?"

as for the reaction times i try not to let it influence me too much, after all some people have poor connections.

And prefer to be the one going all in

i find i can make my mind up very quickly