Getting worse to get better

I am glad I'm taking a break and not playing much. I'd just lose more if I did.

I've reverted to a leak I used to have and managed to plug. It's become unplugged. Two leaks, actually.

Here's the kind of thing. It's a $50 tourney. I won a place with a ticket, and I've been pleased to find that the standard has not been that high. We're down to 50 out of 150 runners, and 20 get paid. I have, I think it was, 5000ish chips and I make it 700 to go UTG with AKs. The guy next to me calls. I sigh. One of the blinds calls too. I sigh double. The first guy has me covered by 1000 chips. The other guy I have covered.

So I've been waiting for a hand for some time. Here's leak one. Because I play tightly, I'll tend to refuse to give up good hands when they turn to dogs.

The flop comes Q77. Only one of my suit. I think I'm probably behind, but not by much. The guy next to me probably has a pair, although there are other hands he could have, notably big aces, and the other guy, well, he could have anything.

The blind checks and I bet out 1000. The guy next to me calls, and the blind folds.

We could argue about the wisdom of a cbet here, but two things to note: first, this is a decent flop for a cbet, even against two players; second, I'm going to fire again if I have to on the turn. Not that many players will call a decent bet on the turn with a small pair. They'll float the flop with it, to see whether I'll shoot again, but won't go all the way with it. After all, I raised UTG. (One mistake I made is that I forgot that I had moved tables, and had only played maybe two, three orbits at this table, so I hadn't been in many hands, but I didn't have an ultratight image, just a tightish one.)

So the turn is another Q.

I review the action. What can he have?

Well, I figured him solidly for the pair. I think AQ has to raise the flop if it's made the loose call. You have to figure I'm raising AA-JJ, AQ+ UTG. If AK cbets, it will rarely bet again on the turn. JJ will bet here but will not bet the turn. So if you call and face another bet, you are going to be beaten. Better to put in a small raise to find that out on the flop.

So that was my analysis. I know. Rubbish. He has position. He can call with AQ and see what the turn brings. If I bet, he can evaluate it in the light of what comes. If I don't, he can check behind and pick off a bluff on the river. But he shouldn't have AQ for two reasons. First, it's not beating any of my range and will need to hit a flop hard to continue. Second, calling is horrible in his spot. He gives odds to hands behind to call behind him, and if anyone has a big hand, he's going to get pushed over. I suppose he has some insurance against the push over because I have played tightly and few hands will be a good bet vs my range.

When I see the second queen, I decide to push. I am repping AQ, which I can definitely have. If I don't have that, I quite likely have the overpair. He can't call with his 99 here. With a bigger stack, yeah, he might figure that AK plays it this way, hoping to push him out, and call anyway, but if he's wrong, he's crippled.

All wrong, of course.

The problem is twofold. First of all, I made up the analysis to fit the action I had decided to take, instead of the other way round. The cbet was iffy, and once called, I need to give it up. Second, I just assume he can't be shit enough to have called with AQ, but of course these players are shit! I've just watched awful call after awful call. Just because I would fold, and I only play at $5 level, I assume that players at this level must be good enough to fold!

But the truth is, a lot of them just have more money than me, not more ability.

Anyway, a guy shit enough to call for 700 chips with a small pair is going to be shit enough to call a push with it on this board. I just lost my mind and made a terrible play.

And you know why I did it? Because I was just so fucking determined not to play weaktight and creep into the money. I could have done that quite easily, sneaked in and got a hundred bucks out of it. But good players don't do that. They try to win. They play aggressively and don't avoid edges just to cash.

It is frustrating to be where I am. I am not the worst player. I do win more than I lose. And I am improving as time goes by. Sometimes though, the lessons I learn lead me to make more mistakes rather than fewer (so I learned that in tourneys I was playing too weaktight, now I have to learn to direct the aggro a bit, because I'm far too keen to put money in in bad spots). I guess that will improve as I learn by trial and error what works, what doesn't. And some things I have to relearn, such as not overrating my opponents.

Here's another example. Today in a 4/180, I had been distracted, so I was the shortstack with 21 left. 18 are paid. I hadn't really been watching the game, so I hadn't been stealing much, and I'd been pretty card dead. A guy minraises. He has quite a big stack, so he's probably stealing. I'm in the SB with A6.

I fold this every day and twice on Sundays. I don't need to get involved. I can just creep into the money. The guy has 17000 chips to my 4600. He is never, never, never folding anything even halfway reasonable. The minraise says he's weak but he's in the hijack, not on the button.

Even if he's weak, he is not folding. If I make his range 66+, A2+, K8+, QJ, he is crushing me. Even with the Ks and QJ, he has inbetweeners, which are only 57-43 behind. He will never fold that getting 5800-3800.

So of course I push.

I have a tiny bit of fold equity because my range should likely be quite tight, and he thought about it for quite a while. (Naturally, I'd only actually fold out hands that I was ahead of!) But he had about the worst hand for me he could have, bar a monster: 66. Cheers, poker gods. When I make a mistake, they really like to punish me.

I'm not irredeemable, of course. I recognise some of my mistakes and can stop making them. I guess I'm a bit on tilt though, because of the Friday night game.

Why would I be on tilt?

Well, here are the hands that mattered to me. First of all, I'm in MP with QT. W raises in EP quite big. I put him solidly on JJ. I know his play well enough to recognise his raise for a middle pair. A bigger hand, he wants more action, and might even limp. AK he might raise the same. AQ he will probably limp because his game is all about being tricky these days. (Which is even worse than when it was all about playing values and being a bit weak after the flop.)

I thought hard about calling. If I had had KQ, I would have called, no question. So the flop comes QTx and I'm absolutely kicking myself. W put money in too, so I'd likely have done very nicely.

Then I pick up KQs. The button is sitting in front of M, a calling station, so I'm willing to limp in. But R, the laggy gf of the laggy player L, is actually the button. I didn't realise and she raised. I called, thinking I had position, and only after calling realised what was what. The flop came ATx, so that sucked a lot. With position, this is fine for me. She will give her hand away with her bet, which she did all night. OOP, I'm in the shit.

Later, I double up by pushing 77 over two limpers and getting called by AT. My hand holds up.

So I have about 12000 chips and I'm in very good shape. I pick up AK UTG. I make it 1000 to go. L, who plays quite tightly preflop, pushes for about 6000.

I have a tough decision. My first thought is "just fold". She probably has AA-JJ here. I've never seen her shove lighter than that, although to be fair, I only recall seeing her shove once. I am way behind that range and can fold. But I'm thinking, she won't have shoved AA-KK. I am not so far behind QQ-JJ, and if you add in AK/AQ... well, it's looking like a call.

In fact, I think it's an easy fold. Adding in AQ is too hopeful and I'm too far behind her range to make it a good call.

When they say QQ vs AK is a coinflip, they are wrong. It isn't. QQ is 57/43 ahead. But I haven't done enough work on hot and cold equity and I didn't have the figures to hand. I thought it was a bit closer. I do know that I always prefer to have the pair! I considered though that even if I was behind, I could do the Gigabet thing, making a slightly bad call for a great chance to win. Had I drawn out on her, I would have been by far the bigstack.

So that was a bad call, but I was still alive. However, the blinds were rising fast, and I was fairly short. I stole enough blinds to keep up, but I wasn't getting anything much to play with.

So I have about 6000 in the BB and I pick up 88. R, on the button, limps, I think. W completed and I pushed. R folded.

But W had AA. Yet again he had been willing to let himself be outflopped OOP with AA. So he can pat himself on the back that he "trapped" me. If I had a worse hand, I would have checked. One of these days, he's limping AA, I'm checking with 54 and the flop comes T54 and it's goodfuckingbye to his stack.

If he had felt that there was a good chance of my making a move, that would have been a risk worth taking. But I think I had something like 8 or 9BB, not so short that I'd be pushing all that much. And even if I hit the flop, I'm not putting money in without top pair, so he's going to need a bit of luck to catch me at all.

Oh well. So what put me on tilt was that my night was decided preflop -- I built my stack by doubling through a guy, lost more than half of it with that baddish call of L, and the rest pushing 88 into AA. I didn't get to outplay anybody, never picked up even halfway reasonable cards to do it with (and the one time I did, I passed up the chance).

Well, I'll fix it. I'm planning to learn hot and cold equities so that I have a stronger theoretical basis and do not call pushes unless I have the edge in equity. I'll be more careful postflop for the upcoming and try to read players more. It can only get better. When you know you're bad, you can only improve, right?