Lesson to learn

This sort of thing is infuriating, and you can imagine that it chips away at your ROI.

I don't know the villain in this hand, but I suspect he's not very good.

TEXAS_HOLDEM, NO_LIMIT, T4-64904151-25
played at "Erlangen" for USD TC from 2008-04-07 23:00 until 2008-04-07 23:01
Seat 2: jpa313 ($2,155 in chips)
Seat 3: Dr Zen ($1,360 in chips)
Seat 4: xKyyx ($1,926 in chips)
Seat 5: morillon23 ($2,231 in chips)
Seat 6: carlosher ($4,673 in chips)
Seat 7: scrjuergen ($1,325 in chips)
Seat 10: BROWN.ACE ($1,330 in chips)
ANTES/BLINDS
jpa313 posts blind ($25), Dr Zen posts blind ($50).

PRE-FLOP
xKyyx folds, morillon23 folds, carlosher folds, scrjuergen folds, BROWN.ACE folds, jpa313 calls $25, Dr Zen checks.

I have JTo. That's a decent enough hand for the BB, and should be ahead if I flop top pair.

FLOP [board cards: 2H TH 9D ]
jpa313 checks, Dr Zen bets $60, jpa313 calls $60.


Which I do. I bet about 2/3 pot. A flush draw won't fold and I guess most straight draws won't either, but you don't want to put too much more in with a marginal hand.

TURN [board cards: 2H TH 9D 8C ]
jpa313 checks, Dr Zen bets $100, jpa313 calls $100.

The turn improves my hand slightly. I'm putting this guy on a heart draw at this point. I bet enough that he should fold it.


RIVER [board cards: 2H TH 9D 8C AH ]
jpa313 checks, Dr Zen checks.

So the draw just came in. I'm glad to check behind.

Basically, if he had the flush draw, I get out cheaply. If he has paired or started with a low pair, I'm going to be ahead but I don't fancy the value bet (even though flushes usually bet here, afraid you will check behind). I suppose QT may not have raised, but generally TP with a decent kicker is going to put more money in somewhere in that hand.

SHOWDOWN
jpa313 shows [ AD JD ]

WTF?

Dr Zen mucks cards [ JC TS ]
jpa313 wins $420.

That's how it goes, I suppose. His play is atrocious on every street. I don't like his limp preflop, his call on the flop is bad and the one on the turn worse. To compound matters, he didn't even put in a bet when he made his hand.

See, this guy will lose money at poker. I guarantee it. No matter what he plays, what stakes, what game, he will lose. This is how I know. On the turn, he is 6.7 to 1 to hit his OCs. He doesn't know I have a jack. Assume I don't. Assume his outs will make his hand good. There is 320 in the pot and he has to call 100 to win it. He's being offered 3.2 to 1.

The bet is a losing proposition for him unless he can make up some value on the river. But if he doesn't bet when he hits, he just won't do that.

He doesn't know any of that, of course. He just thinks "I have overcards and I'll win if I hit them". The fun of the game for him is trying to get ITM in the STTs that he plays, fairly rarely probably. To me, not wanting to win, and not wanting to have the tools to win, even in the most rudimentary way, is inexplicable.

And you know, I should win money in poker. I mean, I am winning money, but I should continue to do so. Because I understand what he did wrong and I don't make that same mistake. I make others, but this guy wouldn't even understand why they are mistakes.

I made one later in the tourney. I double up when I raise 3x with QQ and some guy calls, pairs on the flop and then calls a push.

But I lose it all in a very tough hand.

I have AT and raise to 3x. A player who has me covered but I'm not sure I've seen do anything calls.

The flop comes T high, three hearts. He checks, I bet a decent amount, enough that I can push the turn. He calls.

His call doesn't mean anything much. His most likely hands are a pair and Ahx. He might have both for the combo draw. The turn is a blank and I push.

You know, it's not that some guy who called a suited ace-rag hit his flush. It's that I hit the flop fairly decently too.

I know he can have a flush. Against a better player, I'd expect him to have it more often, because other hands that I put in his range would likely get it in on the flop, hoping to use their fold equity to make them a decent favourite in the hand. When he calls on the flop, his range is not just flushes or anything like it, but I bet decently to define my hand, and I think that I should have read the oracle. The key concept that I ignored was that if you make an action for a purpose, you should not just ignore the outcome if you have no other information. I was betting for value, but at the top end of the range I'd consider betting because I felt that it should allow me to have a better idea of what I was up against. Curiously, as soon as he called, I was thinking "JJ". And I still pushed the turn! (Clearly, I figure Ahx will call the push, particularly if it has paired its kicker.) Checking behind on the turn would have forced him to bet out on the river though, and that would have allowed me to stay in the tourney. (If he bet small, I call but I keep some of my stack; if he bet big, I can get away from it.) Okay, I give a free card to flush draws, but in retrospect, that's probably not such a bad idea because they'll likely put money in on the river if they miss/have only a pair. (Which is why I call small bets on the river.)

This is what tilt does. I can see clearly how I played the hand wrongly, but I couldn't slow down when actually playing it and think it through. To be fair to myself, I don't think I've been playing all that badly. I really have been getting big hands cracked and losing when I'm ahead an awful lot. And I do make mistakes anyway, of course.

Oh well, it's another lesson, I suppose.