Hands that can change your poker life forever....

This isn't a post regarding a strategical question, it's more of a discussion about hands that have changed the outcome of your poker career.


I don't know if anyone has encountered this; but i have. I can recall a stint this summer where i was running horrible.
Anyways, things changed dramatically with one hand. 5-10 NL game and I get it all in pre-flop with KK against AA, and I flop a set and win an enormous pot. When my opponent flipped up aces, it just punctuated what I had dealt with in the previous two months, second best hands, concsistently. I had stretched my bankroll too thin, and had sat with too much than I should have in this particular game (in hindsight). Anyways, this one pot had a huge impact on my poker career. Not to mention the fact that it gave a much needed cushion to my bankroll. If I hadn't won this pot, I wouldnt have been funded to play in the same game the next day, which turned out to be one of my best sessions ever, which added up to a weekend that wiped out two months of bad beats and second best hands. I wonder where I would be playing limit wise if I didnt win that hand? It started a snowball effect, so to speak.

That hand is miniscule compared to others that I've seen at the WSOP.

I wonder if anyone would remember Greg Raymer if he didnt turn the nut flush against Mike Matusow in the '04 WSOP?

Or when David Williams made a runner runner flush to beat the set of jacks of Mike McClaine.....

Same thing applies to many players, and I found it interesting and almost confounding how one hand can have such a huge impact on your poker career. One thing leads to another, and this certainly applies in poker. Sometimes I think that poker and life run parallel courses in the events that transpire, and the similarities that our game displays as far as people are concerned.

Can anyone relate to what I'm saying? Has anyone here been on the brink and won a hand that swung things in the entire other direction?

[LarsVegas]

I think I've played a few of those hands, but lost all of them. [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

lars

[Rolen]

One springs to mind. Playing 50/100 NL HU with my whole bankroll and doubling up was pretty vital in my continued presence in the world of poker.

[DcifrThs]

you so readily prove nobel prize winners' claims on utility theory. specifically marginal utility of lotteries and gaming relative to current total wealth.

-Barron

I'm assuming you're specifically referring to the Expected Utility Theory? The dominoe theory is more appropriate. One small change of outcome causes another, and so it progreses in a linear sequence.

I think that any undeterminable outcome with a random probability is marginal at best; but that's why we love it, no?

[BigEndian]

Now that's risk tolerance!

- Jim

[Jdanz]

well, that's wrong

edit: i didn't even read the stuff on domino, but your misunderstanding of the previous post.

well, that's wrong

[phish]

This may be the best argument for playing limit. Your 'life' doesn't swing with the turn of a card or one hand or even one session.

[DcifrThs]

[ QUOTE ]
I'm assuming you're specifically referring to the Expected Utility Theory? The dominoe theory is more appropriate. One small change of outcome causes another, and so it progreses in a linear sequence.

I think that any undeterminable outcome with a random probability is marginal at best; but that's why we love it, no?

[/ QUOTE ]

you clearly dont get it.

if you look at people's propensity to gamble with respect to both total wealth and expectation, you'll find that people are risk loving when it comes to losses but risk averse with respect to gains. Further, when people have less money and the payoff for risking the last amount of money (for average people) is decent, they will take worse odds than when that money is abundant (for average people)

these utility curves change for gamblers who are risk loving in general. Risk aversion is around 3 for average people.

Barron

[geardaddy]

I'll never forget the hand that changed my poker life. I was playing 5-10 NL and had my whole bank roll in with A's when some jack ass snapped me off with K's. Wait a second....was that you....you son of..............