A Completely Misplayed Live NL HE Hand

As I mentioned in an earlier article, I went Wednesday night looking for a game at the O Club and found the place gone. I've sent out some emails looking for information, but some Internet searches indicated that there have probably been another round of busts.

I went to the E. Club, which isn't that far away (at least for a non-New-Yorker; most New Yorkers would probably be appalled at what I consider close, but the are both below of 14th street, anyway), instead. I'll post a review soon, but the E Club is quite small. I arrived to find an 8-handed NL HE tournament in progress and no cash game.

I convinced a cocky young player to begin playing heads up to build the game. If I didn't know better, I would have said he played on Ultimate Bet, because his "tight weak, overplay one pair" style was classic of what's found there. I won $50 from him quickly by bluffing and value betting middle pair correctly, and a third player, who had returned from a "tilt walk" after busting from the tournament, joined us to make a three handed game.

This third player was a fellow I knew well. At the old R Club (before it closed and reopened elsewhere), I had played with him a few times. He's a kind and friendly hasidic Jewish fellow. He understands the very basics of the game reasonably well, but like Big John at River Street, he calls down with draws and no odds too often, and cannot give up top pair easily. The advantage, however, is that reading him is very straightforward. If only I had remembered this and paid attention, I'd be $500 richer.

The game went well three-handed and as more players busted and one cash game player showed up, our game doubled in size. Because of my preference for short-handed games online, I have gotten very comfortable with such games. And, this one moved from that tight-weak style to very loose quite quickly. A few real gamblers joined the game and there were some chips moving from some crazy preflop all-ins (I'll have more about this in a future post).

But, having only brought $500 with me (the maximum buy-in in this $1/$2 NL game), my night would end early. My hand of doom had me beating myself up for 24 hours; there was no reason I needed to lose a dime on the hand, and on nearly ever street, I had an opportunity to make a better play that would have saved me money. ( I give a full play-by-play of my stupidity. )

There are some lessons to be learned from my horrible mistake. The most frustrating thing is that I already knew some of these rules and ignored them temporarily:

• When you get a "little too much" action with flopped open trips from a passive player, you are almost always beat. Give it up quickly and easily, only thing hard about whether it is good if you have the nut kicker. (I made this "golden rule" up a long time ago, and used to follow it well, but not so well this week.)
• Classic loose-passive players basically don't bluff, and they often don't value-bet enough. If there is only two choices, namely "they are either crushing you or drawing thin to beat you", you can check streets out of position and not fear being blown out of the pot when you are winning. (Indeed, a check-and-call strategy in this spot, I probably would have paid merely the $25 on the turn and another $75 at most on the river, instead of my whole $500 stack. Plus, I might have been more inclinded to read his strength better if I wasn't focused on value-betting myself.)
• Tells from weak players aren't nuanced. I convinced myself that the strength was a hand similar but just weaker than mine, rather than a monster. He was shedding more tells on this hand than he had all night. He had a monster, and it's obvious when I review it.
• Even weak players know when they are a little bit vulnerable. When weak, loose-passive players make a pot-sized raise on the river, it's not a bluff. You have to be really strong.