Over the last two years I’ve worked with a student named Matt, who has gone from having a plethora of leaks to being a consistent, profitable tournament player. We’ve run through countless scenarios and made tactical adjustments. But most important was a change in perspective.

Matt recently played in a WSOP Circuit main event and had a critical loss in a massive hand. Five hands later, he was out of the tournament. When we discussed this sequence of events, a quality lesson-point became clear.

With blinds at 500-1,000 late on Day 1, Matt had a stack of 134,000. He was dealt pocket kings in middle position and raised to 3,300.

A player we’ll call “Julie,” sitting with a stack of 98,000, reraised to 10,000 from the small blind. When Matt reraised to 28,000, Julie shoved all in.

Looking at how he arrived at the decision to reraise, it was clear that Matt didn’t analyze all of the possible outcomes before making his play. Had he walked through all of the possibilities, Matt might have bet differently from the first action on and he might have come out of the hand in better shape.

If you often find clarity after a hand, it’s a sign that you need to do a better job of looking at potential outcomes and using that analysis in your betting decisions.

Matt’s opening raise to 3,300 was a bit larger than a standard open and had an exponential effect upon the hand. Had he opened for 2,200-2,400, his opponent’s reraise likely would have been to 6,500-7,000. Matt’s four-bet would then would have been 15,000-18,000, and instead of shoving in her entire 90,000, Julie very well could have five-bet 30,000-40,000.

If Julie had shoved anyway, Matt’s odds would have made it far less favorable to call than it was with the 70,000 he actually faced. He would have had up to 10,000 less of his own money already invested in the pot.

Sometimes we add to the difficulty of our decisions through carelessness. Matt could have found his way to a fold or a call of 30,000-40,000 rather than making the decision he was facing even more difficult. That’s why it’s important to not just think of the bet you’re about to make, but each subsequent bet every other player at the table could make and how it could impact your hand strategy.

Looking at the actual decision, Matt was faced with 70,000 to call and 130,000 in the pot. The odds favored him against any hand that wasn’t specifically pocket aces. What were the odds that Julie was taking the line of play that she did with a hand worse than pocket aces? It’s unlikely that a player would risk 100 big blinds and her tournament life on the hope that Matt’s four-bet was made with a hand that Q-Q or A-K beats.

Julie did indeed have pocket aces and won a huge pot.

Discussing the hand later, Matt regretted his call. He admitted that if he’d done a more thorough analysis, he might have folded. The loss left Matt with 30 big blinds that he was emotionally unprepared to protect. On his last hand he open-shoved his last 20 big blinds with 8d 9d, losing to a player who held As Qs and sniffed out Matt’s negative tilt.

The tactical lesson was on bet-sizing to decrease the level of difficulty on future decisions. The Jedi lesson was to consider your mindset for the range of possible outcomes. If you’re ill-equipped to suffer a large loss and still maintain a positive frame of mind, you should probably avoid taking too many large risks.