Some interesting observations

1. It's amazing how tenacious people are over their big blind. It's borderline psychotic. If you raise from the small blind, the big blind will defend roughly 99% of the time. It doesn't matter how bad their hand is. They will call. J2, 74, you name it. I've lost so much money with big aces and medium pairs in the small blind vs. the big blind heads up, it's not funny.


I believe the answer is just to never raise from the small blind heads up without a big pair, and maybe AK. One reason to raise is the chance you might win right there. When raising from the small blind, that chance is somewhere around 0%, so forget it.


2. Running bad can last a lifetime. Of this I'm convinced. I think the pros and the really successful guys are just the subset of good thinking players who aren't running bad. I know I know. Nobody will agree with this. But I have seen things ...


3. I can never get it right. All around me I see players calling down the raiser with a pair, and beating overcards. Whenever I try this I lose. Every single time. How do they know? Is there a secret to this?


4. If you raise, bet the flop, then check the turn, and your headsup opponent bets into on the river, 95% of the time he has a small pair and now thinks you missed with AK. The funny thing is, this is a terrible bet. You must fold your AK most of the time. If you have a hand you can call with, he must lose. Much better to induce another desperation bluff from AK.


But wait. A tough tricky opponent, who thinks you are also tough and tricky, will probably call you down. In this case, if you are the guy holding the small pair, a bet on the river may be a good value bet. If you check-call again, you probably can't win. If he had AK, he's very likely check behind on the river. Once he bets the river, the odds of your pair being good go way down.


So if you check-call with your small pair, you probably can't win, but if you bet and get called, you're more likely to win. With bad players, it's the opposite.


5. In pot limit, when someone makes a small, token raise (say, raising the $5 limpers up to $10) it could be almost anything, but it's NEVER aces.


6. In pot limit and no limit, if you check behind on the turn after being the aggressor, and your opponent bets into you after a scare card comes on the river, don't call. He's not bluffing. Your turn check looks SO much like you were betting a draw that he wouldn't bluff you here. He made his hand. This goes for all players, from the very best to the very worst (except for maniacs).


However, if he checks again, you can probably buy it there no matter what you hold. Most of the time. Suspicious guys will call but you should know that about them before hand if you're any good.


natedogg

nate-web@thegrovers.com

It's amazing how tenacious people are over their big blind. It's borderline psychotic. If you raise from the small blind, the big blind will defend roughly 99% of the time. It doesn't matter how bad their hand is. They will call. J2, 74, you name it. I've lost so much money with big aces and medium pairs in the small blind vs. the big blind heads up, it's not funny.


How can you lose in this situation?


I'll take AJo, 88, whatever against 74 any day of the week.


Also, they are getting 3:1 and have position. It is correct to call with many hands.

Players in the sb raise too much and furthermore, I think they raise with the wrong hands. Specifically, I am inclined to raise from the sb with QJ,QT,JT etc etc (and small or medium pairs) moreso than with Ak,Aq,AJ or with KK or AA.


When you raise with the first set of hands, you have two ways of winning postflop: You could hit a hand or you could flop an Ace or King and bet him out. That is, you can hit or you can represnt and when you hit, they are less likely to knw that you have hit.


With the second set of hands, good luck trying to represent any hand other than the one you have got. The bb puts you on Ace high and is gonna stay with ya assuming he has flopped anything so long as there is no Ace out there. Some will call with 32 on a J97 flop just to see if you are going to follow up on the turn and if you don't (which you can't really be blamed for), they will scoop up the pot with a bluff.


Notice also that when you have AQ in the sb, don't raise and flop an Ace, you are going to make way more money (usually) than if you had raised preflop.

"I believe the answer is just to never raise from the small blind heads up without a big pair, and maybe AK."


Whew, thats about the most weak tight advice I've ever seen. Sounds like you may have a loose wild image at the table if you are getting this many calls.


"If you raise, bet the flop, then check the turn, and your headsup opponent bets into on the river, 95% of the time he has a small pair and now thinks you missed with AK."


Do you ever check-raise on the turn? Sounds like your opponents don't think so.

"Running bad can last a lifetime"


This is true. We only achieve our expected value at infinity. Compared to infinity, a lifetime is insignificant. I know a few otherwise good players who cannot win because they simply cannot get their hands to hold up and they get sucked out with greater frequency than the statistics would indicate. There are also players who win more than they should because they are "card-catchers". They simply make a lot of hands. In addition, their suckout cost per hour is quite low compared to statistical norms. This is not a game you can beat on skill alone. However, playing "skillfully" gives you your best chance of winning. But there are no guarantees. That is why they call this gambling.

I don't think so. After 5000 to 10000 hrs of playing, you will almost certainly be within a couple of dollars per hr of where you should be. Maybe someone more mathematically capable would care to elaborate?

It's possible that a guy who runs bad for an extended period of time is just..well...running bad. But way more often than not, his results are bad because he is playing bad or plays in a game where not many of his opponents play poorly.

Of course it is statistically improbable that you would play perfectly and still lose, but of course it's not impossible. I know nobody who I consider to be a good player that does not turn some kind of profit, but there is never a 0 chance of losing a hand unless you hold the nuts on the river. Thus it's technically possible to lose every hand you play without getting the nuts. No matter how unlikely, it is possible in one lifetime. As Jim Brier said, the pot odds are meant as long term indicators, but long term can mean anything from a year to infinity.

the real bankroll you have to deal with as a full or semi-full time player is your emotional bankroll.


some peoples mental toughness just wears out. its happened to me on occasion.


brad

Lets say Bob plays 10 20 holdem. During his lifetime he plays a total of 10,000 hours (strictly 10 20 holdem). He thinks he is a small bet per hour winner($10/hr). His final results after his last session show that he lost $10 per hour. I'm saying that is more likely that I could go out and buy a lottery ticket and win it all than Bob is really a $10 per hour winner.


People are not naturally lucky, none have the gift of catching cards more than others and in the long run (a lifetime of playing), and your results are very close to what they should have been.

I know what you're saying. Don't take it as an attack. I'm just saying that it is statistically possible for a technically perfect player to be a lifetime loser. I probably have a better chance of jumping off the grand canyon, getting hit by lightning three times and surviving, but that doesn't mean it's impossible.

Sounds like a player who's losing at poker and trying to blame it on bad luck. Look at your play. Your not losing because your raising with AQ and AJ against any random hand out of thwe sb against the bb. You may not be making as much as you could becuase of the way you play the rest of your hand, but this is not why your losing. It just may seem that way. You only remember the times they call with 23 and beat you, not the times you don't see there hand and you take down the pot.


Alot of the things you write about in this post show weaknesses in your game that may be the problem, and not that your running bad. The one that stands out is saying it is wrong to bet your pair if it is checked to you and you suspect he has AK. The reason you give is becasue if you bet he will throw his hand away. Well i want him to throw his hand away. The amount in the pot is almost always worth more than trying to gain an extra bet on the river and giving him 6 outs to outdraw you when he would have folded. And if he had me beat on the turn he would have bet most of the time. And i can always check the river if he calls the turn if i think he may have more than AK. This is flawed thinking on your part. And as far as only raising Ak and a big pair from the sb because they fold o percent of the time is ridiculous. It may or may not be a joke on your part but the point your making is you should raise less becasue they will call. Well i want to raise pocket 88's and other similar hands every time there if they call with any 2. I want as much money in the pot as i will be the favorite more often than not. And in case you were serious you would be pretty predictable if theses were your raising standards.


In closing to say that pros are just good thinking players not running bad is silly. Your making it sound like your as good as them but they are just luckier than you. This is how you justify why they win more than you. How about they make less mistakes. They are more disciplined. They have better feel for a situation. They can look into themselves and find the mistakes they do make and correct them rather than saying i think people or I can run bad there whole lives. If your running bad for this long there may be a problem. Possible? Maybe. Likely? No!


I hope my response helps because it sounds like you may be in denial. I've seen this reaction before from players that can't figure out why there losing. Think about it.

We've had this discussion before. My conclusion is the same as yours but read Mason's book Gambling Theory and Other Topics if you haven't already. You'll find that it is POSSIBLE for players of the same skill and standard deviation to have results that are quite different after 10,000 hours. Still someone who makes $10 hour at $10-20 has the proper bankroll size, and has a standard deviation of 10 big bets an hour (fairly typical) will most certainly be ahead. Such a player will fall in a range of between $4 per hour to $16 an hour as approximately 2/3 of the time their results will fall betwee $8 an hour and $12 an hour after 10,000 hours.


To be fair to Jim I don't know what time frame he's think of when he claims players are constantly lucky or unlucky. As Mason has pointed out before players with a high degree of skill and who read hands well will have results that vary much less. For a player of this ilk their results will fall between $16 an hour and $24 an hour approximately and approximately 2/3 of the time they will have results that vary between $18.60 an hour and $21.40 an hour after 10,000 hours. I don't care how unlucky they are the excellent players are going to have decent results after 10,000 hours.

I'm sorry everyone focused on my little comment about how long you can run bad (or good for that matter). I was not talking about myself. In actuality, I've seen many more examples of the opposite (bad players running good for so long they think they are god).


I thought the part about what to do with AK or vs. AK was more interesting. For those readers who didn't understand, or maybe were too lazy or don't know english so good I was discussing how to play AK (unimproved), in a heads up pot, acting last on the river. NOT the turn, NOT from in front.


I have found that against typical opponents when they bet into you on the river after you've checked the turn, they have a small pair almost every time. Your job with AK is to determine whether it's a bad player or a good player. Against a good player you can sometimes win with a raise.


Also, remember, my comments about the small blind pertain to when you are HEADS UP. Everyone has folded to you and now you see KTo, or A7 or even AJ which seems like a monster here. Are you going to raise? In my experience, I have found that raising here is not a big winning play without a big pair. He's always getting the right odds to flop a pair against any two cards except a big pocket pair. Therefore, your raise doesn't have THAT much value, AND he has position.


Little pairs are the same problem. With 66 or something, every board is scary. And he has position. Are you going to fold to a raise on the flop just because there's an ace out there or a ten? Then why raise in the first place if all he has to do is raise the flop and you fold everytime you don't hit a set? And if you get really tenacious after the flop against a tough aggressor, well, I'm sorry, but your edge here is slight at best.


I don't think a lot of money is made against loose aggressive or solid players by raising from the small blind with weak hands. The only profitable loose raise from the small blind is against a weak-tight player in the BB. I think many players think, 'well, you should open-raise very loosely from the button, so do the same in the small blind'. I think that is wrong.


One little comment about running/good bad for what seems like forever.


For all practical purposes what I said is true. 5000 hours?!? come on, that's 40 hours a week for 2.5 YEARS. 10,000 hours? Get real. For a non-pro player who tries hard, reads, studies and learns but can only play a few hours a week, he can lose for a decade. And in wild california games, the variance is so extreme you can have a 1000 big bet losing streak due to bad luck. Or an idiot who likes to get drunk and play all night twice a month can win for years. Believe me, I know SEVERAL of that latter kind.


All you guys who play 40 to 60 hours a week, well, you have a different perspective. That two month losing streak you had once can translate into a 3 year losing streak for a weekend player with a lower, yet still positive, theoretical win rate.


natedogg

nate-web@thegrovers.com

.. For a non-pro player who tries hard, reads, studies and learns but can only play a few hours a week ..


You probably already know this. If you play 500 hours per year at b&m clubs with a win rate of $10 an hour in a $10-20 game and a standard deviation of 10 big bets an hour, your results can range from approximately -8416 to 18416 or in hourly terms from approximately -$17 an hour to $37 an hour. Approximately 2/3 of the time you'll be between -$1 per hour and $20. Year to year results are dominated by the luck factor for such a player.


One thing that is good about Gambling for a Living is they discuss the difference in hourly rate for otherwise very good players to world class for various limits. Very good players to excellent players can increase their win rate a lot by being game selective. For the player above if he plays 500 hours in games where his win rate is doubled to $20 by being highly game selective, his hourly win rate will fall between approximately -$7 an hour and $47 an hour. Appoximately 2/3 of the time the rates will be between $11 an hour and $29 an hour. The message is clear if you're a part time player (which I am) in my mind, be highly game selective which means be willing to not play if you can't find a game that meets your criteria i.e. if you don't want to have a significant chance of being in the red for a year. Also keep a record and know your standard deviation. The results are more consistent if you can lower your standard deviation. Mason claims and he has convinced me that improving your hand reading ability will lower your standard deviation and increase your win rate. I realize that your fluctuations increase a lot when you play in wild games where there is a lot of money going into the pot preflop from many players. Perhaps these games should be avoided like the plague by the part time player. I would think that short handed games usually should be avoided unless the players are clueless on how to play and will let you them over.

tom, good salient comments as usual, however, (those ominous words)..get real..when i finally get to a casino to play for a couple of days, i am going to get in the games available...i agree with you that game selection is very important, but in many card rooms it is not easy to apply if you are a part timer and there is limited game selection...a pro living in an area with more game choices, would have the best of both game selection and (hopefullly better win rate and lower st dev.) maybe we should expect huge swings as part timers?...gl

You may be surprised but I understand totally. I live 15 minutes away from a card room so it is very accessible to me. If I didn't have a card room so available and I traveled to a place to play I wouldn't be particularly selective either. I just don't have a really good answer. I think if your win rate is low you should expect to fluctuate quite a bit.

About the heads up small blind situation: Does your play change with the number of players at the table ? It seems to me (but I am a fish) that 3 handed, if UTG fold, You should raise a lot in the SB. The fact that at a full table 8 players folded instead of 1 does not change much.


Just a thought


Gatlif

Consider 1000 equally talented, equally disciplined players. They each play 10 hours per week (500 per year) and have hourly expectations of 1 bet per hour and deviations of 10 bets.


After a year of play, the typical player's win will be 500 bets. But the expected deviation of that win will be 10*sqrt(500) or 223.6 bets. The expected win is only 2.24 deviations above break-even.


This means that of the 1000 identical players who expect to be winners, at the end of the year something like 12 of them are going to be losers.

I think your right someone is not understanding the english language, or at least there own writing. Becasue if you reread #4 in your examples it clearly discusses if you raise AK preflop, bet the flop, now check the turn that your opponent will bet 95 percent of the time and you say it is a terrible bet by the opponent. Do you remember this? Seems pretty clear you are discussing play on the TURN. NOT the river. You do discuss river as well but here you are clearly disscussing TURN. Do you agree. Maybe you just didn't understand what you were writing maybe i've clarified things better for you now.


I don't like your thinking again here discussing checking the turn now raising the river unimproved. Once you checked the turn MOST players not just GOOD players will put you on no piar AK,AQ. Saying they almost always have a small pair here is WRONG! And that you can sometimes raise good players after you check the turn is BAD play. The only exceptoion is if a real scare card for them comes and you feel there weak, and there hoping your weak. Then once in a very blue moon you can make the play to keep them off balance. The problem your having is it sounds like you may be checking the turn to often leaving yourself in a sticky sitaution on the river.


K10 off, a7 off, and AJ can and should be raised. Once in awhile to mix it up you can limp. But you should also do that once in a while with your really big hands. What happens the times they have one of your cards. You will have them in real trouble more often thsn they will have you in trouble. Because when the cards are shared you stand to have the best kicker because there playing any 2 and your playing big cards. This is a profitable situation. And if you only raise big pairs people will catch on and you will get NO action and or they will know EXACTLY where your at.


Little pairs. Will i fold evertime an ace out there or a ten? Big difference an Ace or a ten. The difference is if the ace hits thats what they put you on. You said it yourself so if you get raised you will be beat more often than not becuase they would fear that hit you and be less likely to make a play at you. So i would lay down. If it came 10,5,3. I would be much more inclined to continue. Because they will think this misses you and may raise with nothing or a 5 or 3. Sometimes they will have the 10 but there are too many combinations of hands they could have that you are ahead as opposed to behind.


In closing you should really remember what you write, or at least look back at it before you insult others about not understanding the english language when they clearly point out that you did discuss the things you say you never discussed. You seem very unwilling to accept good advice and this may be one of the problems your having with your poker game. Your only giving a few examples of play and I see clear mistakes. Maybe you should listen instead of being argumentative about how people are comprehending your comments. Just a thought.

(n/t)

"There are also players who win more than they should because they are "card-catchers". They simply make a lot of hands."


Uh, how about:


There are also players who have won more than they should have expected because they have been "card-catchers". They simply have made a lot of hands.

I hate to do this to you but here's the quote:


If you raise, bet the flop, then check the turn, and your headsup opponent bets into on the river, 95% of the time he has a small pair and now thinks you missed with AK.


In the instance you thought I meant, I agree wholeheartedly that checking the turn from in front and getting bet at on the turn does not guarantee you are losing.


However, in the scenario I described , I have found that he almost always has a pair.


Endy story.


Interesting points about the small blind, but you haven't convinced me.


I notice in your evaluation you focus on card values a lot without much consideration to other factors including position. Preflop card values may indeed be the most important factor here but in my experience, I haven't seen that. Is this where we diverge?


All I know is that raising guarantees you will be playing heads up out of position in a raised pot and probably miss the flop. Now what do you do? This is just not a very profitable situation to be in, and there's no doubt about it in my mind.


natedogg

nate-web@thegrovers

you haven't made a point about being perpetually lucky or unlucky. I think Alan was discussing a part time player's one year results and how many for a given year would end up losing. Your implication seems to be that this will exist for players of similar skill for many, many hours. This is simply not the case.

"If you raise, bet the flop, then check the turn, and your headsup opponent bets into on the river, 95% of the time he has a small pair and now thinks you missed with AK."


So then vary your play. Say you've got QQ, raise preflop and the flop comes J84r. He checks, you bet, he calls. The turn comes 3o. Now, if you check when he checks to you, he thinks you have AK. So now another blank comes on the river (6). If he's got any pair, he bets, thinking you have AK. You raise him and get paid off. You still make 2 BB on the turn and river combined, and now you'll get a lot more free showdowns when you miss with AK.

Your implication seems to me that there are some who could beat a game for greater than 1 small bet an hour and are adequately bankrolled will lose no matter how many hours they play and that probably isn't true. I suppose if your standard deviation was high enough with the same win rate (greater than 1 small bet per hour) it could be true but you don't seem to be making this point. So far in several posts over a long time all you've basically stated is that some people are lucky and win when they shouldn't and some people are unlucky and lose when they shouldn't. Apparently your time frame is 500 hours and this is surprising given that for someone who plays a lot of poker over many years it isn't really that much time.

> Your implication seems to me that there are some

> who could beat a game for greater than 1 small

> bet an hour and are adequately bankrolled will

> lose no matter how many hours they play and that

> probably isn't true.


No. My *assertion* is that, for any length of playing time and a sufficiently large population of identical players with a given expected win rate and hourly deviation, some number of those players are going to be losers at the end of that playing time.


For 500 hours, 1000 players, 1 bet EV and 10 bet deviation, the most likely number of losers at the end of the year is, as I've said, about 12. But note that this can in no way be taken as a prediction of these 12 players' next 500 hours, or even their next sessions.


Put eight identical fair coins into each of 1000 boxes; shake all the boxes, and then open them all up to look. In something like four out of those thousand boxes you will find that all the coins turned up tails. There's nothing peculiar about the coins in those particular boxes. Take one of those coins and toss it, it's still a 50:50 proposition whether it comes up heads or tails.


I picked 500 hours in a year, by the way, because I'm not a full-time poker hustler, and by no means all of the people who read and post here are full-time hustlers. It's a reasonable time horizon for people who play a lot of poker while still holding down a job.

Tom, in "Gambling Theory And Other Topics" Mason Malmuth talks about a player who could have a 4000 hour losing streak. Mike Caro has stated that every full time pro will almost always go through a 1000 hour period where they will lose sometime over the course of their playing careers. I could give you many other data points but you would probably write it off as simply anecdotal.

.. No. My *assertion* is that, for any length of playing time and a sufficiently large population of identical players with a given expected win rate and hourly deviation, some number of those players are going to be losers at the end of that playing time. ..


Your point is well taken. I wasn't posting about your assertion I was posting about Jim's implication (or what I perceive his implication to be). Anyway I calculated that there would be approximately 1 losing player out of the 1000 player population you described if they played 900 hours instead of 500. Is that right? If that same group of 1000 players played 2000 hours (arguably one years worth of play for a full time player) I don't know what the percentage of losing players would be but I know it's a lot less than .001. If it is 10000 hours (arguably 5 years of play for a full time player) I know that the chances of finding a losing player that has an expectation of 1BB an hour with a STD of 10 BB per hour is miniscule.

A 1000 hour losing streak in my mind hardly proves the point that someone is perpetually unlucky. A 4000 hour losing streak from someone making a BB per hour with a standard deviation of 10 BB is so improbable it might as well be impossible (at least to me). You seem to be not understanding or most likely not willing to understand that a 4000 hour losing streak is almost certainly due to a lower than 1BB win rate to begin with. Even with players that have a win rate of 1 SB per hour with a STD of 10 BB an hour the chances of finding someone that has had a 4000 hour losing streak is around 1/1000 (if I'm wrong Alan will correct me). Am I doing the math wrong? If I am doing the math right is it that we can't trust what math tells us? I'm not doubting your data points, what I doubt is that they play that well especially if they have encountered 4000 hour losing streaks.

I realize that something less than 1 BB an hour is not the norm as the norm is something less than that amount. The reason that I use 1BB a lot is that 1 is an easy number to work with. Take these calculations with a grain of salt but I'm fairly certain they are right and they probably strengthen your case.


I did some calculations regarding the win rate required for 4000 hour losing streaks and 1000 hour losing streaks. I calculated the win rates required to have a 1/20,1/100,1/1000, 1/10000, 1/100000 and 1/1000000 chance of having 4000 and 1000 hour losing streaks based on a standard deviation of 12 big bets an hour (higher than the 10 often used but perhaps more realistic, perhaps not).


4000 hour data for previously described player:


A player with a win rate of approximately 0.312 big bets per hour will have 1/20 chance of having a 4000 hour losing streak.


A player with a win rate of approximately 0.441 big bets per hour will have 1/100 chance of having a 4000 hour losing streak.


A player with a win rate of approximately 0.586 big bets per hour will have 1/1000 chance of having a 4000 hour losing streak.


A player with a win rate of approximately 0.706 big bets per hour will have 1/10000 chance of having a 4000 hour losing streak.


A player with a win rate of approximately 0.809 big bets per hour will have 1/100000 chance of having a 4000 hour losing streak.


A player with a win rate of approximately 0.905 big bets per hour will have 1/1000000 chance of having a 4000 hour losing streak.


1000 hour data for previously described player:


A player with a win rate of approximately 0.624 big bets per hour will have 1/20 chance of having a 1000 hour losing streak.


A player with a win rate of approximately 0.883 big bets per hour will have 1/100 chance of having a 1000 hour losing streak.


A player with a win rate of approximately 1.173 big bets per hour will have 1/1000 chance of having a 1000 hour losing streak.


A player with a win rate of approximately 1.411 big bets per hour will have 1/10000 chance of having a 1000 hour losing streak.


A player with a win rate of approximately 1.619 big bets per hour will have 1/100000 chance of having a 1000 hour losing streak.


A player with a win rate of approximately 1.809 big bets per hour will have 1/1000000 chance of having a 1000 hour losing streak.


_________________________________________________


Mason has indicated a very low standard deviation for expert players. If I remember correctly his was something like 7. He has pointed out that gaining proficiency at reading hands can lower your standard deviation. There have been some posts in the past that indicated that standard deviation can vary a great deal from location to location e.g. in LA it's a lot higher than in LV. So using 12 as the STD is an arbitrary choice that I made. Based on an STD of 12 big bets per hour it's fairly clear that 1000 losing streaks happen a lot more than we'd like them to happen. Again based on an STD of 12 big bets an hour, 4000 losing streaks are semi-rare for players that have an expectation of one small bet per hour but they do happen.

(n/t)

Tom,


Thanks for the work in those numbers (i realize you say they could be miscalculated).


What I take away from this is how important it is to have as big of an edge as possible in your games. There doesn't seem to be a better remedy for decreasing losing streaks than becoming as expert as possible and choosing good games-the lattter becoming easier if one increases the former.


I know I am stating the obvious.


I also think that folding preflop more has a tendeceny to lower variance. (Abdul often says that). I know I go through less swings when I knowingly forgo tiny theoretical profits with ugly hands like QTo, JTo, and 98o.


I also believe that very good bluffers have less variance. They don't need to hit to win some pots here and there.


Regards

You said:

"Also, remember, my comments about the small blind pertain to when you are HEADS UP. Everyone has folded to you and now you see KTo, or A7 or even AJ which seems like a monster here. Are you going to raise? In my experience, I have found that raising here is not a big winning play without a big pair. He's always getting the right odds to flop a pair against any two cards except a big pocket pair. Therefore, your raise doesn't have THAT much value, AND he has position."


With the hands you mention (AJ, A7, KT), you are somewhere between a 2:1 and 3:2 favorite over a random hand before the flop. Not raising here costs you between 1/3 to 1/5 of a small bet in pot equity. If you are a 1BB/hour winner, that means you are giving up between 1/6 to 1/10 of your expected win for that hour by not raising here.

The fact that he has pot odds to call doesn't mean you are not making an error here, it just means that he would give you even more equity if there was some chance he would fold to your raise.