Many moons ago when I was at junior school, I was taught a short sentence that helped me remember the colour and order of the rainbow. You know the one:

Richard Of York Gave Battle In Vain

R=red, O =Orange and so on

In poker, we are continually faced with decisions where we need to consider a multitude of different factors, so I thought it might be helpful if there was a quick way of remembering good practices whilst playing.

What I have come up with is:

SPECTACLES                

There are many thought processes that are always helpful when playing any form of poker, and I have put some of them into this one simple word. Spectacles has therefore become my new memory jogger. It is easy to use and remember.

Starting Hand Strategy:     tight or loose specific ranges.
Position:                           advantageous or not
Equity:                             is it a potentially profitable play?
Comparison:                     comparing stack sizes        
Transparency:                   how readable is my or my opponent’s play?
Amount:                           how much to bet/call for desired result (value or bluff)              
Consideration:                   considering our opponents playing styles
Level:                               are my opponents better or worse than me?
Expected Value:                 is it a long term positive?
Summarize:                      recap the situation

The benefit of this easy-to-remember word and its associated meanings is that it can be applied in several ways. You can use it for each and every hand you play as a built in safety mechanism to help reduce the number of bad or inappropriate plays on each and every street, or you take each component (letter) and work on them separately. If you use it enough, you will eventually reach a point where you are naturally considering all these factors and are able to arrive at the most reliable decision possible.

To offer a few simple examples:

Comparison: Simply comparing the stacks of your opponents may alter your starting hand range and also remind you to compare notes on players at the end of a session.

Level: During the course of a game I might decide that the level of play of my opponents is better than mine post-flop, so I would now adjust my game to try and play to my strength which would be preflop in this example. Considering ‘Level’ may also remind me that this is an area of my game that I need to work on.

Transparency: It’s important to consider if you are playing your hand face-up and making yourself easier to read. This will also serve as a reminder to work on deception and the ability to disguise your hand.

These are just a few example of how you can use the memory jogger to not only aid your decision at the time, but also aid you in your analysis after the hand is over in terms of working on your game. Using a memory jogger is totally flexible and can be applied by a beginner or expert alike. I hope that wearing spectacles will increase your vision whilst at the tables.

Ed Note:

After reading Mike’s article, I decided to explain how our thought process might work if we were to use the memory-jogger 'Spectacles'. Let's apply the idea to a recent hand I played in a live cash game.

History: The game was full-ring £1/2 No Limit Hold’em and I was sat with £200. I had only been at the table for a few orbits, but already noticed that the game was very loose with multiple players seeing flops. Calling seemed to be the flavour of the day.

The hand: There were two limpers, and I looked down at Ad-Qs so raised to £12. The cut-off called, as did the small blind. The limpers folded. Flop: Qc-8c-7d. The small blind checked, and I continuation bet for £33. The cut-off raised to £75 and the small blind moved all in for around £100. The cut-off had me covered.

Using Mike’s acronym, my thought process could have gone as such:

Starting Hand Strategy:

Although I hadn’t been at the table long, it was obvious that this was a loose game with people making loose calls. Therefore, my opponent’s starting hand range was wide.

Position:

Position wasn’t a major consideration in this situation as the game was so loose. I didn’t feel the small blind was as loose as the rest of the table, so after he defended from the small blind, I was able to narrow his range more than I would the other players.

Equity:

Equity is rather tricky to calculate live and easier online where you can utilise tools such as PokerStove. It is also dependent on what you consider your opponents’ range to be. Hand ranges may also need to be weighted towards specific holdings and take into account the size of the pot and monies invested.

In this instance, I considered the small blind to hold a small flush draw at the very worst, and the cut-off a slightly wider range that included inferior hands such as certain flush draws and K-Q. Entering these ranges roughly into PokerStove informs me that I had about a 25 percent chance of winning. I considered this to be the very max as I was being lenient with my ranges.

I had invested £45 and there was now £373 in the middle. If I called my remaining £155 and won, I would win a total pot of £528. This means my equity was £132 (£528 x 0.25), which would equate to a loss of £23 in equity if I decided to call the hand.

Comparison:     

Again, stack sizes won’t have been a major concern for my opponents in this game, although I did notice that the small blind had a suitable stack for check-raising all in with.

Transparency:     

As a new player who had been relatively quiet, my hand was perhaps inadvertently transparent. This was the first pot I’d raised and continuation bet the flop, so, to a certain degree, I believed they would put me on a minimum of top pair a lot of the time.

Amount:            

The maths of the decision here is relatively simple as I am facing an all in (and the cut-off has committed half his stack), so I don’t need to consider the betting amounts of future streets.

Consideration:

This is hard to decipher, but although the game was loose preflop, I was aware that post-flop was a different story, especially when it came to raising continuation bets.         

Level:

At the risk of sounding arrogant, having watched my opponents carefully over the last few orbits, I believed they were worse than me and would make more mistakes in the long run. The cut-off in particular seemed to like seeing multiple flops and chasing draws.

Expected Value:         

Seeing as though my estimated equity in the hand is only £132 (and this is without weighting towards sets, which I felt were highly possible), the optimal move here would be to fold. In the long run, a fold will prove the most profitable play in terms of my overall bankroll. Naturally, utilising online equity calculators is not an option during a live game, so good estimation skills are certainly required.

Summarise:     

At the time, I will have automatically considered many of the issues raised by Mike’s memory jogger, although perhaps not all of them. In the end, I decided to fold because I felt my image was such that they would believe I had a strong hand that wouldn’t be folding, especially when I’d put a near 25 percent of my stack in. Although I believed the game to be loose, I deemed it passive post-flop with lots of calling and chasing of draws. A raise to me would suggest strength.

At best, I thought I would be up against two top pair weaker kicker hands, but deemed this considerably unlikely. The most likely scenario was that at least one of my opponents had a superior hand, in particular the cut-off, and the other player a draw.

So, with this in mind, and despite the 2:5 pot odds, I decided to fold. The cut-off showed a set of eights, and the small blind an ace high flush draw.

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