I hate when I play bad!
I hate when I play scared.
But most of all, I hate making MISTAKES!!
Not all winning sessions are created equal. I'm going to be completely honest, I didn't play my best, even though I got the desired results. As a poker players, you're always looking to make the best decisions looking for the long-term result. Short term anyone can win, but if you don't make the right decisions, you'll be leaking money! In this blog, I'm gonna give you 2 examples of bad play from my poker session last Saturday at Venetian:
1) Big Stack of around $600 (Rather weak passive old man) at the table raises from early position to $10, it's folded to me and I hold 32 suited. My stack is over $300 and I fold. You may thinking, what's wrong with this play? Sounds standard to me? Let's look at this closely. I have $300 and the big stack, who is weak passive, raises..This is the perfect scenario to try and find a "double up" flop...Since the big stack raises in Early position, you have to put him on a big pair. If I call and I flop two pair, trips or maybe a straight, I could win a lot of money...You see, when the flop comes with a bunch of low cards, a typical weak passive player will never think you connected with a low-card flop. He probably would have bet, I'd raise, and most of time, he'll put a re-raise, and I have my chance to double up...On the other hand, if I completely miss the flop, I can quietly fold to any bet and no one will know I was sitting there with 3-high.
2) I open limped in middle position with pocket 2's...folded to the short-stacked big blind who raised to $12. The short stacked has 40 bucks after the raise...I'm the only caller...Flop comes J 9 2....Short stacked goes all in. Of course, I instant call with my set of dueces..My opponent has AA and doesn't catch up and I win...Again, where was my mistake...I don't think it's my open limp -- with my small pair I'm looking to see a flop as cheaply as possible. The mistake here was calling the raise from a short-stack. With only 40 bucks, it's not mathematically correct to call. The odds of flopping a set is 7.5 to 1...and my implied odds was only 3.6-1 with my opponents smallish stack of only 40...even if I flop a set (Which I did)....I wouldn't have won enough money to make it worth it in the long run.
No matter how good of a poker player you are, you ARE GOING TO MAKE MISTAKES!!! The key is not to make too many of them so they compound into something bigger.
I'll probably hit the poker rooms again this weekend, and I'm hoping I learn from my Venetian session to think through each hand and make the right decisions...
1 comment:
This is the kind of thing I like to read.
You know you screwed up the hand when you called with 22 and you pointed it out instead of saying "well, I hit my set so good for me" which is what most people would do.
Depending on whether or not the shorty knew how to play his stack or not depends on your action though.
Sometimes I just insta push if I have a hand that I want to run against them - so they get to make the decision if they want to flip their AT against my push.
However, never call that bet pre-flop unless he got a bunch of others to come along - then you are playing for multiple stacks potentially - or at least have others where you can get your odds up
Post a Comment