On of my major leaks is I sometimes act without thinking. I make a play and I know it's a stupid play and I don't really know why I do it but I'm pretty sure it is because I don't stop to think. This never happens in the starting stages of a tournament but more towards the later phases and what makes it more dangerous is that sometimes it works, even when it's a bad play.

I do generally realize is a bad play as soon as I make the move, which is, of course, too late and even when it succeeds it sucks because I know it's a huge mistake.

A couple of examples:

– The other day I was HU against a guy that I read as only betting when having a piece of the board and incidentally a guy I knew I had an edge against. I raise with A8s in the button and the flop is 559, he donks 4/5 of the pots and I insta jam something like 18bb… he calls and sure enough he has 9J. The moment I jammed I knew that was a wrong play… a couple of seconds before I was telling myself this guy would only bet with a hand so … what the **** was I thinking?? So many ways of playing the hand and I didn't even think about it, I just jammed.

– Another situation came from jamming over 21bb in the bubble against stacks I knew could hurt me with KQs. I know a small 3bet could have probably achieved the same result as a jam without taking such a big risk, but even if that shove was correct, I didn't stop to think about it, I just did it.

– Sometimes I find myself opening something like J9s in MP without looking at the stacks on the blinds. Again, the problem is not the open itself, is the fact that I do it without thinking or without analyzing the whole situation. Is like, J9s, nice to steal the blind… but then I realize the big blind has 8bb and is going to shove any two and put me in an uncomfortable space.

Another thing that does happen to me sometimes online is predeciding the hand preflop and then failing to adapt. This will be a situation where I see the hand and I decide I'm going to play it on a given way. But then something happens that changes the flow and I end up in a situation where I don't want to be or else I end up making a bad decision.

i.e. I have ATs in the SB and I'm planning to 3bet the button who's been stealing a lot of pots and push to his 4bet if he does 4 bet because I know he's full of shit most of the time. The button opens, I 3bet and the big blind 4 bets, button folds and I stuff it all against the big blind without thinking.

Pretty similar to what I intended to do but against a completely different player. This has happened to me recently and I ended up getting it in against a guy that was pretty tight (and I knew it based on stats) and to whom I had no fold equity with a 5bet shove as opposed to the button.

Do you have any advice or tip for how to avoid those situation and keep concentration or at least, some sort of way to avoid making ANY move without thinking? I'm sick of those situations where I've made the move before thinking, I don't mind if I end up making a BAD move as long as I've stoped to think about it because then I can go back and analyze why that was a bad move, but when I don't think about it, is just stupid.

Any advice? Any tricks you use to remind yourself of always stopping to think about the hand?