Good Or Bad?
Here’s a tough one for you. I’m playing this one table SNG and after playing for about 40 min. we’re down to 3 players meaning that you’re sure of making a profit. The question is how much depending on your position. Anyways here’s how it went down.
- Level IX (300/600) -
9-max Seat #3 is the button
Seat 3: werd2u (6090 in chips)
Seat 4: koomo (3860 in chips)
Seat 8: ME (3550 in chips)
werd2u: posts the ante 50
koomo: posts the ante 50
ME: posts the ante 50
koomo: posts small blind 300
ME: posts big blind 600
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to ME [Jh 4c]
werd2u: folds
koomo: calls 300
ME: checks
*** FLOP *** [5s 2c 3d]
koomo: bets 3210 and is all-in
ME: calls 2900 and is all-in
Uncalled bet (310) returned to koomo
*** TURN *** [5s 2c 3d] [3c]
*** RIVER *** [5s 2c 3d 3c] [4s]
*** SHOW DOWN ***
koomo: shows [Ks Ah] (a straight, Ace to Five)
ME: shows [Jh 4c] (two pair, Fours and Threes)
koomo collected 7150 from pot
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 7150 | Rake 0
Board [5s 2c 3d 3c 4s]
Seat 3: werd2u (button) folded before Flop (didnt bet)
Seat 4: koomo (small blind) showed [Ks Ah] and won (7150) with a straight, Ace to Five
Seat 8: ME (big blind) showed [Jh 4c] and lost with two pair, Fours and Threes
Was I right or wrong? There is no answer. The fact is we both made what we thought was the correct play. Although I’ll be honest if I had Ace-King in my hole cards I wouldn’t have just called the blinds and give the opportunity to my opponent to outdraw me.
With the blinds so high after the flop I decided to call with an open ended-draw. Why? I’ve been playing with this guy for a good half an hour and I know that he wouldn’t play low cards knowing how risky they are. You could say he was a pretty tight player. In any case, he pushed with an inside draw which I think was pretty wild for him but it comes back to the blinds. Since there was already 1350 chips in the middle, any raise he made would give me at least a 3 to 1 on the money and with 3 to 1 on the money it makes it possible for you to call with more speculative hands. In my case I had exactly 12 outs or 11 since I saw he had an ace when we both showed cards. The outs were any Aces, Sixes or Jacks. So 11 outs is about 23% chance of winning or in pot odds a little over 3 to 1. 3 to 1 is equivalent to 25% so there’s a 2% difference.
So I made the call because my hand value and the value of the pot were about the same. Although I lost it doesn’t mean I made a wrong decision. This is where many pros will have different opinions. In my book, slight percentage variations can be worth playing if you have a good feel of your opponent but in many cases, even if the odds are only 1% shy of being favorite you should fold.
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A few updates
It’s been a while since I wrote on my blog… I actually was thinking about giving it up because I haven’t been playing so much lately.
The reason is because I’ve been tilting a few weeks ago and didn’t feel good about playing. That’s an important lesson that separates the disciplined players from the undisciplined players. Poker is after all a game a skill but without proper discipline all the skill in the world won’t help you.
When playing poker games, you are accepting that at some point during the game, you will have to take chances or mostly known as take a gamble because you can only hope to win even if you have the best hand. What I mean is if you have the nuts before the last card you could win 99% of the time but there is that 1% of the time where your opponent could draw for a better hand if that draw exists.
At some point you’re going to have to decide whether or not you want to commit all your chips or not with a 99% chance of winning. This example is a bit drastic but the same principle applies to situation where you have a 70%, 80% or even 90% chance of winning. Would you put in all your chips knowing you’ll win 9 out of 10 times? The answer would be yes but after careful evaluation of possible hands your opponent could have.
Now if you can’t accept losing 1 out of 10 times then this is where the game is going to get you. When you’re tilting or whenever someone is tilting, no matter how good you are, players will tend to loosen up their plays. Why? In order to become tilty you must have lost a pretty big hand to someone’s lower cards so you might get the feeling that if you play crappy hands you could outdraw your opponents. That is completely false and over the long term will cost you a lot.
So what to do when you can’t seem to win at any game or level? Simple, take a deep breath, scream if you want to (make sure you’re alone), let go of the table, DO SOMETHING ELSE! The screaming part is doing something else, although not too healthy so I wouldn’t recommend it. Bad beats are always going to happen but not as often as you might think. If you feel the cards are running against you then why not stop before losing even more money? There’s always tomorrow, there’s always another time. If you can’t discipline yourself with this you’re going to lose a lot of money and before you know it you’ll be on thin ice with your bankroll.
What I like to do? Open up heads-up play money tables and simply push all my chips on every single hand. This way I could lose but that’s fine since play money is only for fun, it doesn’t include real money. Although I like to do that, I will usually start with whatever chores I need to do for the day and then if I still feel tilty and have time I’ll start play money tables. Usually I don’t have the time after my chores or I’m simply too tired =P.
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Classical Showdowns
When reaching towards the end of your single-table or multi-table tournament it’s important to start playing aggressive because with the blinds going up and your stack being proportionally smaller every blind you win will add big to your stack so you don’t want to take chances when you raise you want to make a decent raise. Minimum raises are usually out of the question unless you are hiding a monster hand such as Aces, Kings or Queens. Here’s a situation where minimum raising with powerhands such as Ace-King, Ace-Queen, Ace-Jack or even Ace-rag should’ve cost you.
- Level VII (100/200) -
9-max Seat #3 is the button
Seat 3: iopå (8795 in chips)
Seat 6: WhiskeyR (2495 in chips)
Seat 8: ME (2210 in chips)
iopå: posts the ante 25
WhiskeyR: posts the ante 25
ME: posts the ante 25
WhiskeyR: posts small blind 100
ME: posts big blind 200
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to ME [9d Th]
iopå: folds
WhiskeyR: raises 200 to 400
ME: calls 200
*** FLOP *** [9h Qd Ts]
WhiskeyR: bets 2070 and is all-in
ME: calls 1785 and is all-in
Uncalled bet (285) returned to WhiskeyR
*** TURN *** [9h Qd Ts] [Jd]
*** RIVER *** [9h Qd Ts Jd] [Jh]
*** SHOW DOWN ***
WhiskeyR: shows [Kh Ah] (a straight, Ten to Ace)
ME: shows [9d Th] (two pair, Jacks and Tens)
WhiskeyR collected 4445 from pot
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 4445 | Rake 0
Board [9h Qd Ts Jd Jh]
Seat 3: iopå (button) folded before Flop (didn’t bet)
Seat 6: WhiskeyR (small blind) showed [Kh Ah] and won (4445) with a straight, Ten to Ace
Seat 8: ME (big blind) showed [9d Th] and lost with two pair, Jacks and Tens
By the way he’s a very strong player, only mistake he made was that one and he was rewarded for it. Anyways Ace-King is pretty strong and will usually help you alot in winning hands without showdowns but at this point in the game Ace-King is not that strong because with our stacks being so small and the blinds being high you can see that odds are both players will put all their chips in and go to the showdown.
In this case if he had pushed preflop there was no way I could’ve called but giving me a cheap flop to see was his mistake. After I made two pairs on the flop WhiskeyR still had many outs but he had to either hit runner cards for a better two pair or hit one of the 3 Jacks remaining in the deck. Hitting a King or an Ace was not enough. Well obviously he had to hit one of the remaining 3 Jacks to complete a straight and hit one of the remaining 2 Jacks on the river to add insult to injury.
Preflop is very important and this is another player who couldn’t see that because he gave me a cheap flop. Yes it’s possible my opponent could’ve made a straight already but if he had a marginal hand or King-Jack he probably would’ve pushed all his chips and I would’ve folded avoiding a bad beat.
So did I make the right call? Well in a heads-up situation two pairs on the flop is pretty strong and even if he did make his hand I was still good to hit one of the remaining 4 outs for a full house or a runner-runner for a straight, better full house or even four of a kind. Either way I had more outs than he did so pushing all his chips with Ace-King after the flop came out was his mistake and I couldn’t have played this better. Another situation where the better player gets it handed to him.
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