Posted by Dr Fro 2:50 PM
Last night, I played a little $2-$5, and I found myself staring at a profit of $860. I was quite pleased. I decided to play "one more orbit" and shortly thereafter regretted my decision. Over 2 consecutive hands, I lost all my profit.

Hand #1
In the first hand, I held AsKh and was heads-up. After the flop, there was app. $250 in the pot. The board was 258, 2 hearts. The turn brought the Ace of hearts. I paired, but the flush came. My opponent went all-in $400ish. I thought forever about what to do. Ordinarily, I would run and hide, but this guy is known to be a tricky player. Surely he didn't make the flush…why would he over bet a made hand? Maybe he was stone-cold bluffing. Maybe he hit the Ace. This guy also considers me to be a scardey-cat (he made app. 10 big bets into me during the night, 9 of which chased me off). After a lot of thought, I decided that he did it the Ace, but that I had a better kicker (plus I had a draw to the nut flush with my King). I called and I was right…..sorta. He did hit that Ace, but his 2 gave him two pair. The river didn't help me and I lost.

Hand #2
The very next hand, I found myself with an open-ended straight draw. The raises were absolutely enormous on every street, but I was getting the right odds to draw (it was a multi-way pot, but I don't recall how many). I drew, missed and packed it up and went home.

In Rounders, Mike talks about remembering every big pot you lose. I was thinking today that when I suffer bad beats, I really don't sweat it. Similarly, if I am getting pot odds (Hand #2) but don't win, I don't care. In the long run, these things sort each other out. However, in hands like Hand #1 where I had to make a tough decision and it turned out that I made the wrong decision, well, I dwell on those for a while. I thought about that hand while lying in bed, in the shower, while at work, etc. I can't shake it.

Hand #1 played itself out a lot like a hand I played at Bellagio once. It was an almost identical circumstance (I had a huge stack, I played longer than I planned, the bet came from a guy that was successfully bullying me, etc.) I also called there and regretted it. Lessons learned from these two scenarios are:

Set a time limit and stick to it. I have trouble leaving at my time limit when I am up huge. The problem with a huge stack is that you may get caught in a very sticky situation, one for much bigger stakes than you can really stomach. Just cash out, pat yourself on the back, and go home. Do not try to set the Guinness Book of World Records record for biggest score ever.

Don't call a very big bet on the flop unless you have the cojones to call a much, much bigger bet on the turn

When you have that big bet come at you and you have a massive stack, remember that it is less likely they are bluffing than if you had a small stack. Small stacks may play scared, but nothing loosens up the purse strings like a nice roll of big wins. Good players know this and are less likely to make a move at a big stack than a small one.

I used to play with a wise old man in London who would say, "he who turns and runs away lives to fight another day." I wish I had thought of those words around 12:30 a.m. last night.

1 Comment(s):

Posted by  Junelli, at 3:31 PM, February 17, 2006  

Re: Hand #1

In poker all you can do, is make a read and go with it. Sometimes you're right and sometimes you're wrong.

Afterwards, you can go back and evaluate whether or not you made the right read on a given hand, but it's just that...a read.

It's inexact and no one, not even the pros, make the right reads 100% of the time.

That hand reminds me of the hand I wrote about on Feb 8, where I flopped the nut straight against a guy who turned a flush. I was faced with a tough decision, but I had to make one and go with it.

It turned out to be wrong, but hopefully I learned something from it.

All you can do is use your experience/instincts to make a decision.

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