Learn From My Mistake

[JFB37]

I did something really stupid last night that cost me a pretty good sized stack, at least for me (about $2500). What is remarkable is that I knew it was stupid and did it anyway. This may be the sort of thing you have to experience to get the full lesson, but I thought I would post it here in the hope that someone else might benefit.

5/5 game at the Woods. As noted, I'm just shy of $2500 and having a pretty good night, built it up from $1000 in about 4 hours. Table is a good opportunity. Lots of crappy players. The pretty good (there are no really good) players are easy to spot. Villian is very tight and has played very few pots, only with starting hands on the all too familiar charts. He has not been very aggressive and has made only one or two "moves," but they are pretty basic -- e.g., calling a weak flop bet from a (not good) pre-flop raiser and then betting the turn when the raiser checked. He has also slowplayed a bit.

The hand: I have K [img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img]K [img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img] on the button. Four limpers to me. I make it 30 to go. UTG then goes all-in for 95. UTG is awful and this is an obvious steal attempt. Villian then makes it 200 to go. I think about old Doyle's comment that the third raise means AA as pure as the driven snow but I just don't buy it here. I think that (a) Villian didn't respect my initiall button raise, (b) Villian knew the UTG re-raise was a joke, and therefore (c) he is making a move, albeit one with a good hand. So, I decide to test him. I make it 500 to go on the theory that if he has Aces he will go all in. This really twists him in knots. He thinks a long time, fidgets, and I am sure it is not an act. Finally, he sighs and calls.

Flop comes Q something something, with two spades. Villian makes a noticable reaction to the flop and then checks.

I analyze the situation and come to the conclusion that, really, the only possible hand Villian could have is QQ. I'm pretty sure that he wouldn't have called the additional 300 with AK. He didn't have AA because he didn't go all-in pre-flop. The other two Kings was a remote possibility, but pretty remote. I doubt he would have called with any other pair.

Here is mistake #1: I was pretty damn sure what he had, but I decided to "test him again." So I bet another 500 at the pot. In response, he promptly went all-in, removing all doubt.

Mistake #2: I talked myself into calling. "Well, maybe I'm wrong with my read, I have two shots at one of the other Kings, I've got runner-runner flush possibilities, and, its 'only' another 1500 to win 5000, I'm pot committed."

Why did I do this? I knew damn well that I was a lot worse than 3.3:1 to win the pot. But I still stuck the money in there. Why didn't I just pour lighter fluid on my stack?

I've been thinking about this a lot and, in my case, I think a big component of it is stubbornness. Even though I was sure that the chance that his push was a bluff was vanishingly small, I DIDN'T WANT TO BE WRONG. I would have felt like a complete chump if he had flipped over something else (I have no real idea what that might have been), which he was going to have to do to take down the now puny main pot created by UTG's all-in.

Now I am not going to let this experience turn me into Phil Helmuth and start laying it down when ever anyone exhales in my general direction. But, there are times where you have to face the facts. There is a section in HFAP that talks about the situation where you just have to be beat. This was one, and I just refused to accept it. So, to the extent there are lessons here, here they are:

First: if you don't trust your abilities and instincts in the first place you shouldn't be playing poker. So listen to what your brain is telling you. When it really matters, don't chicken out and overrule what logical, sound analysis tells you.

Second: it bears repeating, loss avoided is just as good as profit made.

Third: it bears repeating, make your money betting, not calling.

Maybe this post is useless to anyone else, but writing it helped me work through the hand and try to learn something from it.

[Al Schoonmaker]

It was a very expensive lesson, but you seemed to have learned it. I said, "Seemed," because you won't really know until the next time a similar situation arises.

The critically important point is that you reviewed your own play with an open mind. Instead of trying to defend your decisions, you looked at them objectively. That's all any of us can do, and you did it well.

Regards,

Al

[jdl22]

Let's look at the mistakes:

1. Not necesarily bad, but make sure you don't pot commit yourself if he has what you think he does.

2. Let's take a look at twodimes:
http://twodimes.net/h/?z=583893
pokenum -h kc ks - qd qh -- qc 7s 2s
Holdem Hi: 990 enumerated boards containing 7s 2s Qc
cards win %win lose %lose tie %tie EV
Ks Kc 121 12.22 869 87.78 0 0.00 0.122
Qd Qh 869 87.78 121 12.22 0 0.00 0.878

so you were about a 22:3 dog getting 10:3 on your money. You are nowhere near pot committed at that point. If you are confident in your read there is no way calling is +EV here.

How confident of your read do you have to be? Suppose there are two possibilities, he has QQ or AQ. You win 81.4% of the time he has AQ and 12.2% when he has queens. If your read is good with probability p then your hand is good with probability .122p+.814(1-p). We are analyzing the EV of calling 1500 in a 5000 pot. To make this call zero EV set
(.122p+.814(1-p))5000 - 1500(.878p + .186(1-p)) = 0

Solving for p gives p = .835. So if you believe there is a greater than 83.5% chance that he has queens then you should fold. If there is less than that calling is +EV.

So depending on how confident you are in your reads it may not have been such a mistake. It seems that you were well over 90% confident so calling is pretty bad in this spot.

[Mayhap]

[ QUOTE ]
I would have felt like a complete chump if he had flipped over something else

[/ QUOTE ]
If you eat a chump sandwich for lunch, you can order something sweet and tasty for dessert.
Thanks for a good post. It furthered my education.
/M

[tek]

[ QUOTE ]
Villian is very tight and has played very few pots, only with starting hands on the all too familiar charts.

[/ QUOTE ]

I think that said it all...

[JFB37]

No question at all this was not an EV play. That's why I posted in the psychology section, not a strategy session. I know I played the hand wrong. I knew it at the time. What I was trying to explore is why I would do something like that. If others have ever done something like this and made the proper adjustment it would be interesting to hear about it.

Thank you all for the useful and intelligent comments, as always.

-- Jack

[jdl22]

I think it was simply a lack of confidence issue. When I'm playing and I am feeling a little shaky what I tend to do far too often is make loose calls. You made your read and then you questioned whether you could be wrong.

I think there's another component to this as well. Not only did you think that you could be wrong but of course you wanted to be wrong as well. I'd be interested in hearing more from Dr. Al et al on this but it seems like when I'm not playing well I'm likely to convince myself that I have the best hand, not because I do but because I wish I did. This doesn't seem to be a problem when I'm playing my "A" game. Maybe when I'm losing I feel the deck owes me so the other guy should have some ridiculous implausible holding? Not sure.

[Leroy Soesman]

Lesson well learned. I'm just glad I'm learning these exact same lessons for a lot less money right now!!! Then again, maybe you have to learn em all over again as you move up in stakes.

[Nick_Foxx]

great post
i also find myself making calls for large #s of chips in the face of overwhelming physical evidence that i am beat (in your case, the villain obviously had aa, kk or qq)

i think it is a quality inherent in human nature, especially that of the gambler... the gambler possesses two personality traits that are contradictory... eternal hope/optimism plus self-destructiveness... when you make a call like you did, you do it because a) hey what the hell, i already put in a tremendous amount of chips [the self-destructive part] plus b) i could still win/he could be bluffing(?) [the eternal hope part]

i have an advanced degree in psychology but i still can't control these urges in myself - basically, you can't change your nature... if you are a gambler, you will gamble (if not in a casino, you will end up playing stocks, fantasy football, whatever - you will find some outlet for it)... the only thing you can do is try to master these tendencies and use them rather than have them dominate you...

btw, bobby baldwin has mentioned just such an idea in his "Tales From Tulsa" columns.

mike