Joe The Pro

The real downside of being unlucky

Losing money in the hand isn't the worst part of being unlucky. The worst part is any time I have a losing session, I cut myself off from playing for quite some time. Then if I have a losing session again, I will wait longer before I play and it compounds on and on.

I lose as much money from NOT playing as I do from the badbeats themselves. It's like a double whammy. I lose money from the badbeat and then I take a long break because I want to feel motivated, happy and on my A-game when I play. The time recouping my confidence is time not making money.

Here is a hand that I put a lot of thought into, even though it looks easy (I have the nuts) and nearly put me on tilt.

$0.5/$1 No Limit Holdem
6 players

Stacks:

UTG		($124.55)
UTG+1		($134.15)
CO		($98.50)
Hero		($59.25)
SB		($112.50)
BB		($100.00)

Pre-flop: ($1.5, 6 players) Hero is BTN

UTG calls $1, 2 folds, Hero raises to $4.5, 2 folds, UTG calls $3.5

Flop: ($10.5, 2 players)
UTG checks, Hero bets $3, UTG calls $3

If I have pocket TTs or KKs, imo, both are the nuts. I have never seen anyone limp UTG/call with KK. So even though BOTH are the nuts, in this situation, I would play them totally differently.

If I have KK and there is a king already on the board, that severely diminishes the chance that villian has a K. Also, villian had fold to cbet number of 60%. If he doesn't have a flush draw, he is folding everything. Ignoring the flush draw, this board cannot be any dryer or scarier except if it was an ace instead of a king.

How is trip tens different? He is 3x more likely to have a king in his hand as there are 3x more kings in the deck. I don't mind if I bet and he folds here because the chance that he has a King and pays me off all the way to the river makes betting on all street worth it.

If a heart shows up I'll reevaluate and play a smaller pot, but otherwise, I'm going to play big on the turn. My play would be optimal if he was aggressive (induce check raises, induce turn donks), but his agr numbers were very small, so I didn't not expect him to check raise me.

UPDATE: I forgot to mention the stack size. I only have 60BBs, so I can play all funky like this and still have a reasonable chance to get most of my stack in by river. If I was 125BB++ I would not play this way. In that case I might OVERbet the pot.

Turn: ($16.5, 2 players)
UTG goes all-in $117.05, Hero calls $51.75

He went all in on me while I'm holding the stone cold nuts. I was totally shocked b/c of his agr numbers, but my weak line induced it from him.


River: ($185.3, 2 players)

Final Pot: $120
UTG shows:
Hero shows:

UTG wins $182.3 ( won +$57.75 )
Hero lost -$59.25

The gap in my EV and actual value continues to diverge. I will post the final EV graph at the end of the weekend b/c I expect to put in some hours this weekend.

posted by joe | permalink | 2 comments