I am winning, but I am not a winning player

[Mr. Curious]

I don't really know what I am. I play 95% live and keep accurate records, but I don't have any PT type data that really tells me if I am breaking even. The fish have padded my wins nicely, but I still suck out a lot of the time too.

For instance:

Playing last night in a NL game at a B&M. On my left is a tight, aggressive, tricky professional who I have covered. I am the SB with J8s and he is in the BB. Six of us see a flop of J98 (pot is $30), I lead out for $30 and he is my only caller. The turn is a brick, I bet $60 and he raises me to $160. He's got roughly $250 left and the pot is now $310. When I bet the flop, I had the feeling that someone had QT [we can talk about feelings in a different thread /images/graemlins/smile.gif], and when he raised I thought that his most likely holding was a slow played straight, looking for flop overcalls to trap the other players. Even with this information, I still called the $100. The river is a J, I bet $100, he pushes for the rest, I call and win the pot. He showed QT for the flopped straight.

But here's the deal. I put him on his hand and yet still called the bet without the correct implied odds to do so. Even though I scooped the pot, I did not make a profitable call on the turn.

EV:
Including implied odds, Hero is only getting $560:$100 or 5.6:1.
Hero has 4 outs, so the odds of winning are 40:4 or 10:1.
Clearly it is -EV to call the turn.

I don't really know where I am going with this post, maybe just to remind myself that short term wins mean nothing in the big picture.

Edit: Fixed the pot size on the turn.

4/40?
Why not 4/45 = 1/11.1?

I'm still trying to get better on my odds calling.

This play is obviously -EV on this hand, however:

If the professional bluffs regularly (and is capable of bluffing in this situation), then you might consider calling very occasionally.

Considering that the call-off costs you $250, and the pot is $280, you could make a legitemate argument for calling off 280/(250+280) -- roughly *one half* of the time to protect against bluffs. In practice, that's too high -- especially if you have accurate reads, but making 'bad' calls occasionally can have long term benefits.

Consider this from the pro's point of view -- his thought process is now something along the lines of, "this guy called my straight with two pair and sucked me out" so (1)he likes to call so I should bluff less, (2)he likes to call, so I can push legitemate hands more (3) he's making -EV plays so I should stick around.

Consequently, as long as the call here is an abberation rather than the norm, it's not necessarily a bad move. Against players who use bluffing effectively, you're going to have to make 'bad' calls to keep them somewhat honest.

[ QUOTE ]
4/40?
Why not 4/45 = 1/11.1?

I'm still trying to get better on my odds calling.

[/ QUOTE ]

Well:
1. He's using odds notation, and you're using probability notation, so
4:40 (note the use of a colon) is equivalent to 4/44.
2. He's put his opponent on the straight. With 8 cards accounted for that's 4 in 44 (or 4 to 40 odds) that the jack or four hits.

[cincy_kid24]

poker players are always guilty of thinking one thing but doing the exact opposite, I'll always catch myself say out loud, "he's got the flush" or "he caught that strait" and being right more times than i care to be.
thats the beauty of playing a game of wagering based on incomplete information.