♠️ Stop Thinking “Did I Win?” Start Thinking “Did I Play It Right?”

With the WSOP going on, there’s been loads of clips of crazy hands, big bluffs and huge hero calls.

But something I think gets overlooked is that poker isn’t really about whether you won the hand. It’s about whether you made the best decision with the information you had.

A lot of players (myself included sometimes) instantly judge a hand by the result.

“I won, so I played it well.”

“I lost, so I must have made a mistake.”

But that’s not really how poker works. You can make the perfect decision and lose. You can also make a terrible decision and get rewarded.  

The best players are constantly asking themselves different questions: Did my line make sense? What range does my opponent actually have? Would I make this same decision again?

I think this is why studying hands is so valuable. Not just asking “what should I have done?” but understanding why. Because eventually you’ll face a similar spot again.

And the goal isn’t to win every hand. It’s to make better decisions than the people around you over thousands of hands.

Curious what you guys think - do you review hands more based on the result, or the decision you made? And do you find yourself falling into a trap of short term thinking?