Part of your evolution as a poker player should not only be a progression of correct decision making, but an understanding of the process by which you make those decisions.

Once you get past the basics of knowing good starting hands, the importance of position, pot odds and other fundamentals, a big part of your game should center around not what you actually do, but how you think about what to do.

I owe this lesson in large part to the “Harrington on Hold’em” book series. While I do not believe the three books are the classics that some reviewers taut – at $30 a pop, I think there are better values for your dollar – an important concept I took from “Action Dan” was his assessment that the biggest blunder he sees players make is not thinking the situation through. He observed a number of hands in which he believes a player’s mistake was not calling, raising, checking or folding, but that he didn’t really think before he did it. Harrington concludes that if you’re going to invest the time, effort and money that it takes to win a tournament, then you owe it to yourself to make an informed decision.

It might sound like a relatively basic lesson, but one thing I’ve come to know about poker is that the more I learn, the more I realize I didn’t know. One level of understanding seems to lead to another, at which point you wonder how the previous version of you ever won anything.

I bring up the point because of a recent hand I played in a live tournament that might otherwise be considered inconsequential in the grand scheme of things. But I realized after the tournament ended that I had never thought of a similar hand in such layered terms.

Here are the particulars: in the middle stages with blinds at 200-400, a player who had been splashing around in a lot of pots limped in from early position. I was in the big blind and only had about 3,600 left after posting the blind. The limper, due to a run of fine luck and questionable decisions, had worked up his stack to around 10,000, the biggest at our table. After watching him play for about 2 hours at my table, I made a few conclusions about his play: inexperienced, uninformed, reckless, volatile. In other words, a donkey.

He had been raising and playing a lot of pots, but a big part of my assessment came from an earlier hand in which I was not involved. With the blinds at 50-100, he raised to 300 from early position then called a super-tight player’s all-in re-raise for 2,500 more. Super Tight turned over Q-Q and Volatile Donkey showed A-J of diamonds. After making about an even-money call as a 3-1 dog and losing, Mr. Volatile shrugged his shoulders and claimed, “I had ace-jack suited. I had to go with it, right?” Nobody responded.

Back to the hand in question. After he limped, everyone folded to me in the big blind, where I looked down at 4-5 of spades. I checked and the flop came down J-6-5 with two hearts. I check, and my opponent immediately declares all-in.

Great. What now? There’s no question that there was a time when I would have tossed bottom pair, 4-kicker into the muck without hesitation with my tournament life at stake. But this time, I took a while to analyze the situation from all angles.

For one, if he really had anything, wouldn’t he try to sucker me in with a smaller bet in hopes of getting my whole stack? I realized that, because of his predictable play to this point, there was no way he had a big hand here. He had been raising liberally with his strong hands – or what he considered “strong” hands – and limping in with suited connectors and the like. As my previous example illustrates, I also knew he was capable of making a big raise from early position with A-J, so I knew he didn’t have that, either. So what could he have? Trying to put him on a range, I concluded it was garbage somewhere in the neighborhood of 7-8 off-suit to the Q-10 of hearts. I was absolutely certain he didn’t have a pair.

So now, what? Since I know I have the best hand, I have to call, right? Not so fast. The problem with my hand is that, even if my pair is good now, it is susceptible to all types of holdings, even the garbage variety that I believe my opponents holds. Let’s go with the Q-10 of hearts example; if he has precisely those two cards, he would have 15 outs to beat me (nine hearts, three queens and three 10s), or would be approximately a 60 percent favorite if I call. Those aren’t the type of odds you want with all your chips in the middle.

I look over and my opponent, perhaps more than half inebriated, wearing a tank top and shorts and sporting an untrimmed mustache, starts laughing at me, then stands and does something that resembles a drunken Texas two-step. Now, I know he doesn’t want a call.

But the thing is, I’m in no mood to bust out, either. This example just illustrates that even if the game were played with the cards face-up, you’d still face no shortage of tough decisions.

I flicked the 4-5 of spades into the muck, much to my opponent’s delight. He made some comment about having a flush draw, and I don’t really care whether he was telling the truth. I made – and stood by – my decision not because I thought I was beat but because, if my assessment was correct, I was indeed ahead, but chose to pick a better spot in which to put my tournament on the line.

It was a decision I didn’t regret. I went on to make the final table and a fair payday while Mr. Volatile bubbled out. How did he bust? He re-raised me all in with K-6 from the big blind against my 10-10. Maybe next time, he’ll give it a second thought.