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.
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.
Doesn’t happen and shouldn’t happen too often but when it does, losing a monster such as pocket Kings is always devastating. Why? Well The only hole cards better than yours is pocket Aces. In a single-table or multi-table tournament you will usually win big when all you’re chips are in the middle. The odds of you losing are pretty low because your opponent will usually be an underdog. Take a look at the possible situations:
- He has pocket Aces which in this case you are about a 4-to-1 underdog.
- He has Ace-King which would make him a 7-to-3 underdog or roughly 2.5-to-1. If he has Ace high with any kicker your odds will go up with pocket Kings.
- He has a lower pocket pair, Queens and lower which would make him roughly a 4-to-1 underdog.
- He has any cards which would still make him roughly a 4-to-1 underdog.
As you can see, out of 4 possible situations your opponent doesn’t stand much of chance since he’ll be a big underdog 3 out of 4 times. Unless he has the Rockets, his best chance is to hit one of the three remaining Aces in the deck assuming he has an Ace in the hole. Without that, hitting two pairs, a set or making a made hand is practically impossible with only 5 cards to come. Well that’s what happen in the following hand, take a look at the hand first and I’ll go over it after.
- Level III (25/50) -
9-max Seat #6 is the button
Seat 1: d-jarl (1455 in chips)
Seat 2: BankerREL (1490 in chips)
Seat 3: jlmadsen80 (1750 in chips)
Seat 4: ChrisSolopow (1425 in chips)
Seat 5: willies777 (1640 in chips)
Seat 6: buonanotte (1335 in chips)
Seat 7: ME (1330 in chips)
Seat 8: BinAllN (1620 in chips)
Seat 9: Premier (1455 in chips)
ME: posts small blind 25
BinAllN: posts big blind 50
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to ME [Kc Kh]
Premier: folds
d-jarl: folds
BankerREL: raises 50 to 100
jlmadsen80: folds
ChrisSolopow: calls 100
willies777: folds
buonanotte: raises 250 to 350
ME: raises 980 to 1330 and is all-in
BinAllN: folds
BankerREL: folds
ChrisSolopow: folds
buonanotte: calls 980
ChrisSolopow said, “99″
*** FLOP *** [Tc As Ks]
*** TURN *** [Tc As Ks] [6c]
*** RIVER *** [Tc As Ks 6c] [Qh]
*** SHOW DOWN ***
ME: shows [Kc Kh] (three of a kind, Kings)
buonanotte: shows [Jd Jh] (a straight, Ten to Ace)
buonanotte collected 2910 from pot
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 2910 | Rake 0
Board [Tc As Ks 6c Qh]
Seat 1: d-jarl folded before Flop (didnt bet)
Seat 2: BankerREL folded before Flop
Seat 3: jlmadsen80 folded before Flop (didnt bet)
Seat 4: ChrisSolopow folded before Flop
Seat 5: willies777 folded before Flop (didnt bet)
Seat 6: buonanotte (button) showed [Jd Jh] and won (2910) with a straight, Ten to Ace
Seat 7: ME (small blind) showed [Kc Kh] and lost with three of a kind, Kings
Seat 8: BinAllN (big blind) folded before Flop
Seat 9: Premier folded before Flop (didnt bet)
As you can see, everything happened in the preflop stage. After a minimum raise from an early position player, there was one limp and on re-raise from the button. That’s when I pushed all my chips in the small blind. Did the button make the right call? No, preflop stage is very important, especially in a tournament format but clearly this player had no idea and I’ll go over why. First of all he re-raised because he wanted to fold other players and determine how good his hand was compare to the others which is fine but after I re-raised he should’ve known he was beat by either higher cards or a better pocket pair. What saved him? This player is an idiot who couldn’t get a proper read and figure out I was a tight-aggressive player.
Basically if he knew how to play he would’ve figured out I played a minimum of high cards which was giving him at best a coinflip situation. I knew I was getting more than a coinflip and I could’ve smooth call the 350 raise but with the initial raiser and limper behind me I couldn’t risk one of them calling having too little information on them, so playing it tight was my best shot. So I re-raised for all my chips. Why not just make a standard re-raise? I only had 1330 in chips and making a 2X or 3X raise would leave me with less chips then my initial re-raise so instead of smooth calling a monster and giving a flop I made forced him to take a bad gamble in which he would be about 4-to-1 underdog or 2.5-to-1 if he has an Ace.
With the blind being so low the move for him was to fold because he didn’t have to commit all his chips for a hand like Jacks when you can be beat by so many overcards and 3 pockets. He took the gamble and won with a made hand. Basically his re-raise was completely lucky because if he knew what he was doing he would’ve known that after my raise his Jacks didn’t stand much of chance and would’ve laid it down hence the reason of the raise. Obviously he made a bad move but that’s ok, sooner or later this kind of bad play is going to cost him.
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