Trusting my instincts.

When I play at casinos, I usually have an advantage on reads of what type of player they are in the low-limits. Aggressive and whatever. I have the Hellmuth's tells dvd and caro's tells dvd. But here's the problem I'm having. After someone spikes trips or something, my instincts are telling I have a loser, but a lot of times I call because it is limit. A lot of times my instincts are correct on having a good hand but losing. Can anyone help me out? For example last night, a new player on the table limps in w 47 off suit. He's a young guy so I felt like he's loose and maybe aggressive. No really good reads because it was his 2nd hand, it was a kill pot. so I raised. and i raise w my 88 on the flop when he bets his 7s and he bets on the turn. My instincts told me I LOSING! but I still call and he was almost all in for 5 more chips.. Can someone help me throw those hands away when my instints are telling me I'm losing?

[Pog0]

Looks like you value confirming your instincts higher than money.

A good player not only knows the right play, but he also makes it.

[Harv72b]

Your mind loves to play tricks on you. It does this by remembering countless times when you were convinced that your hand was no good and called anyway, only to lose the hand. It conveniently forgets about the times you didn't think you had a prayer of winning but called for one more bet anyway and took down the pot.

When you get to the river (or in this case, the turn vs. a short-stacked opponent), you have to look at the strength of your hand vs. the size of the pot, then run a quick calculation on the odds that he's bluffing or betting a worse made hand vs. the odds the pot is laying you (plus the odds you'll improve to win the hand anyway, in this case). This is why you so often see the advice "never fold for 1 bet on the river in a big pot"...if the pot size is 20 BBs, you only have to be right 1 time in 20 to make this a good call.

It's obviously different in NL, where you will very rarely get pot odds that good.

BTW, how bad would have felt if you'd folded your overpair there and he had showed you a worse hand?