He Had What?!?!

This hand drove me crazy the other night. A typical example of why my friends say I pay too much attention to the results of a single session and an example why I think short term results are so important. It won’t stop me from playing but hopefully little things like this will help my game.

This is a $0.05/$0.10 No Limit Hold’em table at Bodog. I am sitting at seat 5 with $22.11. MikE_aVeLi is seated at seat 8 with $52.48. We are the two big stacks at the table.

For a bit of history, I had been card dead for quite a while and probably hadn’t raised preflop in 20 or 30 hands. Mike probably had played every single one of those 20-30 hands. I took him to be a really loose but talented player. Loose since he played every hand and talented because I had been sitting with this guy for quite some time and had watched him play every hand without doing anything stupid or going broke.

I’m feeling a little feisty, look down at Js10h and raise to $0.40. 4 times the big blind. I am obviously hoping that my tight image will help me out a bit.

Mike, continuing with playing every hand, calls. The big blind calls as does the player who limped under the gun.

The flop is 7h7c5d. Not the flop I want but it is checked to me so I fire out a continuation bet. The pot is $1.65 so I bet $0.80. Mike calls and the other two fold.

This is good. Mike plays every hand but he normally looks for weakness and then puts in a big bet. So if I don’t show weakness I should do fine. He doesn’t have a 7. Call it intuition but I know at this point that he doesn’t.

The turn is 10d. Money card. I now have top 2 pair. I think if I bet, I only need to dodge an overcard as Mike probably has high-low. Something like K-3. Mike will call probably anything less than a pot size bet here hoping a scare card comes out on the river. However, continuing to act like I do every other hand that’s heads up, I bet roughly half the pot. $1.50 into a $3.25 pot.

The river is Qd. Perfect. I know exactly how the hand is going to play out now. There was the scare card. If I bet, chances are Mike will reraise me smelling weakness. Alternatively, if I check, Mike is going to toss out a ¾ pot to pot-size bet thinking I’m scared of the overcard and completed flush. It is 50-50 that Mike hit the Q or is on a total bluff. I’ll live with that. I check and Mike does exactly what I expect. He bets the pot, $6.25. I call immediately. My read was perfect and he did exactly what I expected.

He turns over K-6. No queen. No 7. Got him. Damn I’m good. Big ass pot too. Wait. Why do I have only $13 and Mike now has $60? 6dKd!!! What the hell? Runner-runner flush.

Needless to stay I started to tilt and quit within 10 more hands. Just long enough to realize I wasn’t going to be playing good poker for the rest of the night. I couldn’t get past the fact that everything happened exactly like I thought it would and I failed to overlook the possible flush.

I went through the four stages. Anger at the donk for calling my measly flop bet with only 1 over card and no draws. Anger at myself for calling with second pair at the river. Anger at the luck gods for screwing me over yet again. Then reluctant acceptance to look over the hand and see where I made mistakes and how I could have played it better.

The first thing I notice is that while I could have chosen to not play J-10 offsuit from middle position, I really find nothing wrong with what happened until the turn. However on the turn I have a problem. First, I was giving Mike credit for being a good player yet I failed to factor in my tight image to his decision. I bet a little too small but if he had nothing he probably would have given me the benefit of the doubt. So I gave him the correct pot odds and failed to reevaluate his possible hands, continuing with my original read. Then on the river, if I had bet out, he may have been forced to make a defensive call in case I hit a full house. He also may have reraised me big and I would have folded figuring my read was off. Either way I’m saving myself money because I wouldn’t be making a pot size bet in that situation.

Those mistakes are all minor against the donks I mainly play against but when butting heads with good players, they are the types of things that will give them long term +EV against me. Good thing I spotted them now instead of when I make the mistake for $100 instead of $10.

Finally, this is a perfect example of why good players like playing deep stack poker. You draw from behind with correct pot odds and then when you hit on the river, you toss in an extra bet which is pure profit. If we checked it down, Mike would be making at least even money because I gave him the correct pot odds. If he missed completely, he would check fold. If he hit the scare card, he would bluff but probably be making even money at least because of the donks that would be weak and fold to it. Finally, if he hit he gets to make his bet and everything he makes on River Street is pure gravy.