How Poker Can Improve Your Decision-Making

Life can pretty much be summed up as a series of decisions. From trivial to life-changing ones, we’re in a constant state of having to decide what’s the best outcome for us. Whether we’re making those decisions deliberately or unconsciously, there’s always that moment when we wish our decision-making abilities were better. That’s where poker comes into play. Poker is one of those games that best resembles the decision-making process that we go through every day. That’s why being good at it is almost synonymous with having good decision-making judgment. So, let’s see how we can translate that experience to real-life situations.

It Teaches You to Do Best With the Least

It happens only so often that life forces us with hard choices that require making difficult decisions. We’re so afraid of the worst possible outcome, that we tend to delay our decision-making process as long as possible. But in a game of poker, with other players at the table, you need to make them rather quickly. You have a limited amount of time and information to make the best possible decision. And if you practice long enough, you’ll develop your decision-making skills just enough to apply them to your real-life situations. That’s why it’s a perfect game to test the soundness of your decisions and learn when to play it safe and when to take advantage of the risks that life poses.

Your Risk-Taking Abilities Will Increase

Speaking of risks, poker is a great game to practice your risk-taking abilities. Since you don’t know the cards that other players are holding, you need to be able to withstand a certain amount of risk. And every great poker player knows that you don’t always need to be in full control of every situation. What you need to do is consider the risks and rewards of those situations. If the second outweighs the first, cut yourself some slack and you’ll reap the benefits sooner or later.

Your Confidence Will Get a Boost

How many times have you found questioning your decision-making skills because of a lack of belief in your abilities? Probably more times than you would like to admit to yourself, but there is a cure for this problem too. Fake it till you make it! Poker is probably the best game to train your confidence. Since you need to keep your cool in front of a whole table of players who will take advantage of every uncertainty in your behavior, you have to be more self-assured than most people. And if you’re not sure where to start with that, check out our 5 tips for maintaining a perfect poker face.

It Makes You Focus on the Process Instead of the Results

As most of you know poker is one of those games where both luck and skill play a significant role. That means that you need just the right amount of the two to become a successful player. The same thing can be said about life. Sometimes, no matter how great and thought-out decision you think you’ve made, things lead to a bad outcome and vice-versa. What’s important to consider is that not getting the results you were aiming for, doesn’t mean your decision-making was flawed. That tendency is what poker players call “resulting”. And no one knows better than experienced poker players how important it is to avoid this type of thinking. What you should do is combine all the previous advice. Asses all the possible outcomes with the available information, see if the rewards outweigh the risk, and have a little trust in yourself.

Put Your Decision-Making Abilities to Test With Our Games

If any of this advice sounds reasonable enough for you, there’s no reason not to put them into use. From three-card poker to Texas Hold’em alternatives you can already put into practice your decision-making abilities by choosing the right variation of poker Mr. Yabby has in stock for you. May your decisions be on point and luck always by your side!