Always the bridesmaid

So I am ahead, head's up, and I'm thinking this time I am going to win the Friday night game. I've played well enough. S, my opponent, is one of the better players but has played poorly, getting lucky several times to get this far. He has been all in six times, three with me, five times with the worst of it, and each time bar the last he has escaped. On the last, I pushed all in with AA and he called with JT. That put me ahead.

Earlier in the night, J, new to our game, had pushed and I looked down at 99. I passed but I kicked myself when he showed A6s. Who would have guessed though that with no pressure a guy would push with such a weak hand? Crediting my opponents with more ability than they have is a weakness of mine. (What makes it worse is that he and the other guy in the hand rabbithunted and a 9 came on the flop.) But he got busted with that kind of play later, although not by me.

So S pushes and I look down at JT and call. This is tilt. I know not to call all ins with JT but S has been whining about being tired and that is why he has been pushing so hard with crap. But I have 30x the BB and don't need to call. I just think, right, get it over with. Stupid. He has just made the exact same call and I know he was dumb to do it, so what do I do?

By a quirk of fate, which I'm sure will tickle boots, he shows AA, and of course I lose the hand. I bust on the next hand.

So I'm disappointed. I threw away a good position. I knew the guy would not let me play poker and would push at every chance, but I could and should have picked my spot. I am not kicking myself too hard though. I have cashed again and my game is getting better. Ironically, what puts me in the money so often is an unwillingness to make loose calls. W, the host, talking to me after the game says, well, sometimes you'll throw out a quite big bet and then you'll always fold to the raise. I say, I don't always fold to the raise (because I don't, of course) but this is what it is, one time the other guy had made a smallish bet at the flop. He'd been doing it all night and stealing quite a lot of flops. About 70% of the time I'd say, he was stealing with nothing much. The rest of the time, the small bet was a suck bet, looking for action. So on this hand, with about 1600 already in the pot, he'd put in 500. The flop is showing JJ8r. I have ace high. This looks like a probe bet, so I come over the top for 1500. I'm betting 1500 to win 2100. You don't need to be a maths genius to work out that I'm figuring the odds at 2100/1500 on a 7/3 shot. If he has nothing, he'll fold. If he has something, he'll push all in. I reckon he's unlikely to bluff all in because I raised PF and can all too easily have something like AJ or a decent pocket pair. I haven't been caught out of line, although I have raised light during the evening. He pushes all in. This is an easy fold. W may well have called but it's not a good play to throw good money after bad. I could easily afford the bet (otherwise, I would not have made it) and I was happy with that play. It's pretty standard. That W doesn't understand that explains why he is losing money on Friday nights.

Concepts such as revenge, or any personal feeling, don't have any place in poker, but it is still sweet to turn the tables. On another hand, I'm in the BB with 52. R, who had called me down with fuck all the other week, and rivered a huge suckout, had the big stack, having hit some very good flops. The flop came A4x, giving me a gutshot draw. R made a bet that I interpreted as saying he had a pair, maybe not the ace (I can't remember what the other card was, a queen maybe, something high enough to feel like a big pair though, and he could reasonably take it no one had an ace because there had been no PF raise). I called. In limit, this would be a loose call, because the pot was only paying maybe 3 to 1. But sometimes in NL, it's worth calling a small bet to try to hit a gutshot. If you don't make it and you are bet at again, you can just fold. The turn was a 3, making my straight. I checked, he bet, I called. The river was a 9 or J or something similar, lower than his pair, but the kind of card that I might have paired. I went all in. He called with his pair. That's a terrible call. A pair is not a great hand in NL. I don't think he'd even seen the straight.

It's easy to think I was just lucky. But everyone gets lucky at least on one hand in a night. Two things matter. First, you have to make the most of your luck and second, you have to make sure you don't piss your luck away on hands in which you're not so lucky. T, another new player, wasted nearly all his chips with AK, flopping it ace high and running scared when his opponent called a big flop bet and then led out at the turn. He did two things wrong. First, he did not ensure seeing all five cards with AK, which is a mistake if you're going to play it. Second, his fold was terrible. What more can you want with AK than to flop an A or K? It's a top pair hand and you have top pair. I'm pushing right there. If someone wants to call with their shitty ace, let them. If you're beat, you're beat.

I woke up with AK on two hands. The first, some guy raised, I pushed all in. He called. He had a pair of fives. Terrible call but he happened to be ahead. This is a coinflip though: if you have AK vs a pair that doesn't have an A or K, the pair is 54/46 ahead (my AK was suited, which makes it 52/48). I flopped a K and he didn't suck out on me, so I doubled up. I don't mind that play. In a single-table tourney, you have to take a risk or two. Pushing with AK is a risk because you trail pairs (although a solid player won't likely raise a pair of fives with eight other players in the hand; I certainly wouldn't), but you are beating the range that will have raised. Most players will raise a decent (or not so decent) ace, and you see that often, or KQ/KJ, even KT, all of which you're dominating. (M senior, a reasonably tight player, has this failing, which is the downfall of his game (or one of them): he will raise with pairs and make big pots with them, and then feel wedded to the hand when it goes pearshaped. Now I think of it, this is not as bad as going too far with weak hands, which he also does.)

The other AK, the same guy raised (he had a bigger stack than me both times). I pushed. He called. He showed AJ. I don't like his call. I was playing fairly tight, certainly not getting out of line with raises, so a thinking player would put me on a decent hand. But this guy is of a type. He was very aggressive, stealing a lot of pots (this is the same guy I mentioned earlier), bluffing a lot (it's funny, you know when guys are bluffing a lot, even if they don't show their hands -- how? Because they are in a lot of hands and win most of them. No one runs that hot.) and using aggression to win more than his share. That's good but guys like him just don't get that it's only one element of a complex game. Much more important is to work your opponents out and play them. If I am playing Dr Zen, and he pushes all in with a nearly full table and no pressure on him from a short stack, I'm putting him on something that beats AJ easily and I fold.

posted by Dr Zen @ 8:14 am