Wired fives

What is difficult is deciding whether I was right to call while knowing he was so wrong to bet. He goes all-in with wired fives. The flop is low but shows a flush draw. Two hearts and another small card. But I have 67s in hearts. So I call him.

And afterwards he is saying, well, there is no big overcard on the table. And I’m like, what a crazy thing to go all-in on, because there is an overcard and they don’t need to be big or small so long as they are over and a flush draw. Okay, he can gamboool on the flush because what are the odds I have two hearts? But he is giving me the odds I have a bigger pocket pair and didn’t raise it up or that I hit the one that’s there already, or the two to come, or a straight because there are pieces of a straight there.

So the flush draw, pair up either the 6 or 7, hit the backdoor straight. I am about even money. And tonight the turn is a 3 and the river a J, so I score nothing and he cleans it up. I am shaking his hand and saying, well played, man, but I’m thinking, you do that every time we are heads up and I will take your money.

I learned my lesson from a fortnight before. My tight game serves me well in this company and if I play cards I’m comfortable with and muck rubbish, I win pots. I’m not in for the big pots, but I survive to the last three without needing to take risks.

At one point, I outscore a guy who has a full house. I had to bet it, he said, I had full boat. But he was beaten all the way. Not knowing that is why he left his money on the table. There were two Qs on the board. He had Q7. I knew I had him beat. I had QJ and the other card was a J. What the fuck. Did he not notice I was playing tight? I knew he would play anything he thought would put him in the hand. I am learning to love players like that. At first, if you’re playing TAG, it’s hard to play the fish, because your game’s geared to playing people who have a clue. But you slowly realise that the solid game will also beat fuckwits. You just have to trust it.

The guy who came third had been second in a bigger tournament the week before. So he was the form guy but he was a nothing player. It’s encouraging for me. He was willing to play bad cards and played them badly. He played wired sevens against a Broadway board and handed his money over (sadly not to me).

So how did I lose? (Because although I won money, I still felt I had lost.) I’ve never played heads up in the flesh, so I wasn’t sure what strategy to pursue. I didn’t catch any cards – and I mean no cards, I was playing rags – and I found myself calling a lot in the small blind. My instincts told me raise or fold, of course, and a bit of reading after the game tells me that this is where I lost out: I gave up the aggression when heads up. I let the other guy read my hand and never had a handle on his. The value of raising is that it lets you know whether others are serious. Okay, you pay a few bets when you lose but you win overall because in cards, as in life, knowledge is power.

Oh and yes, I was wrong in theory, right in practice to call.. He bet nothing preflop and the best he could have hit was a crap pair. But I wasn’t to know that he hadn’t sat on pocket 8s, 9s. I get about four to one to hit the flush and some odds for my backdoor straight and the pot odds are (obviously) a bit better than two to one. I’m a dog and should chuck them. Instinct told me he was bullshitting, because I know that he has been buying the blinds by going all-in with marginal hands (no-limit poker is not all about the maths; psychology has a part to play), so I wasn’t surprised to see how poor his holding was.

He deserved to lose. I could have had anything. He was leading out, hadn’t even heard me bet. I could have hit trip 3s (the low card on the board). He gambled on a bad hand. You know, I don’t mind losing that one. Because most times, I’ll win. And I’ll play him a lot of times. Last Friday, I called and I lost. But most Fridays, I’ll call and beat him. I’ve learned my game is better than his or anyone else’s there. It’s worth paying 40 dollars to learn that.

posted by Dr Zen @ 2:16 pm