Making Mistakes

[Chris Daddy Cool]

Just played some poker online and had 2 consecutive hands where I foolishly paid off a river checkraise and incorrectly called a turn bet, costing me 2 BB, which is like, an entire hour's worth of play assuming a 2BB/hr winrate online.

How often do you make mistakes per session? Per hour? And how does it affect your winrate? How many mistakes can you make before you turn a winning session into a losing one? Or worst, a winning player to a losing player? Etc. etc. etc.

[Danenania]

Well, paying off on the turn/river isn't a full 2bb mistake because of the chance you will win the pot. Obviously if you don't win it enough to recoup your bets then they are -EV, but only for a fraction of their amount (depending on pot size, outs, and chance you are best). The only time you're losing the full 2bb is if you call when you are certain you are behind and drawing dead.

Therefore I think that a winning player could still be a winning player even if he always paid off on the turn/river when outdrawn or behind, just not as big a winner as if he learned to make a few smart folds. Folding too often when ahead, on the other hand, costs the whole pot and would turn a winner into a loser much quicker I imagine.

[Chris Daddy Cool]

I don't necessarily mean paying off river raises or whatnot, I mean blatant mistakes that can be quantified, e.g. incorrectly counting the size of the pot and taking a card off (1 BB), only getting in an extra bet on the flop rather than waiting till the turn (1 SB) etc etc. How many of these mistakes can you afford before your session turns from winning to losing? And how many do typical good players make? That sort of stuff

[h_ven]

I never make mistakes while playing poker.

[Danenania]

Well I make a ton of mistakes per session (more than I can count or remember) and I'm still a fairly steady winner. I think poker is actually a pretty forgiving game in that as long as your mistakes are less frequent and less severe than the rest of the table's, you can do well even with a leak-ridden game.

So to answer your question this time, my guess is that even the best sessions of the best players contain plenty of mistakes. Therefore, it would take quite a few more to turn a winning session into a losing one or a winning player into a losing one. But fortunately for all of us, there are so many decisions to be made during the typical poker hand that the opportunity to make those extra mistakes (that separate the winners from the losers) is ample.

[tony_brock]

A specific number of mistakes is hard to determine.
A couple of things that came to mind:

If you make a couple of mistakes, but others at the table are making many more, you're probably still ahead-just not as much as you could be. This seems to be the answer to me. As you move up in limits, the other players at the table are supposed to make less mistakes, as well as punish you more for the ones you do make.

If you make a couple of mistakes, and let it set you on tilt for a few hands, you will make matters worse.

There are different kinds of mistakes, making an obvious bad call when you are not even close to getting odds is worse than just making an incorrect read.

[J.A.Sucker]

Realize that your mistakes don't ever really cost you a full bet, since you always have a chance to win. This includes when all the cards are out, since there's always a chance that your opponent is bluffing. Don't beat yourself up over your mistakes. Believe it or not, I played with Ray Zee, and I saw him make a mistake, albet a small one. Everyone does it. Just keep in mind that the best players never make big mistakes. As long as you don't do this, then you'll be fine. In limit poker, calling bets never can be as wrong as incorrectly folding. In NL, folding can never be as wrong as calling big bets.

[Michael Davis]

"Believe it or not, I played with Ray Zee, and I saw him make a mistake, albet a small one."

Blasphemer!