One of the easiest mistake to do as a poker player is to overplay a great pre-flop hands (like AA, KK, QQ, AK, AQ) on a bad flop. It is important to remember that, even though they often win you big pots, the aces can also make you lose a lot of money. This is why a good poker player should be able to fold his top five hands if the flop is against him no matter how hard it his to see those aces go to waste.
Archive for the 'Hand Histories' Category
If you like playing texas hold’em then you know what I’m talking about. Every once in a while you get that itch to test your opponent by over valuing your hand. We all know the best strategy is to be what most would call “tight-aggressive” and you’ll see in the following hand that I was just “aggressive”.
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.
Subscribe to RSS Feed
Recent Comments