Focus.
Over at the Hendon Mob forum there's been a lot of talk about `focus' in poker. Naturally it is considered to be a `good thing'. I don't know why it is necessary to state this, as it's obviously true. However, I want to express a dissenting view. Firstly, all the focus in the world can't help you if you have a fundamentally unsound understanding of the game. Imagine a `focused' roulette player. He can concentrate as hard as he likes, but he's not going to win, because he's in a negative EV game.

Not only that, but I do believe that trying too hard to focus can be counter-productive. That might be personal to me, but I don't think it is. I remember that when I played chess for Midland Bank, I used to keep records of the games I played in the inter-bank league. As well as recording the actual moves, I noted the time on the clock at the point at which I played each move, thus allowing me to see how long I had taken over it. On reviewing my games, I would find almost without exception that the worst move I had played in every game was the one I had thought longest about.

This has applications to poker. When some people start to go into deep thinking mode, what they are actually doing is fighting their initial instinct. That's because their instinct is telling them to do something that is emotionally unappealing: in many cases, folding a strong, but not outstanding hand. In this situation, they start reviewing the betting trying to find some circumstances that would justify calling. So often I see people dwell up for long periods and then make terrible calls.

You will rarely see me do that. I act pretty quickly and chatter away if the conversation is interesting. I positively don't want the game to go quiet, in case I hear the siren voices calling me onto the rocks. If this happens to you, consider talking more and acting quicker. If you are going to be any good at this game, you need to have decent first instincts and if you can't trust them to guide you most of the time, you should consider quitting.