A Terrible Bluff With a Marginal Hand

[shipitfish]

When I originally posted about last weekend's losses, I mentioned there were a number of hands where I clearly played badly (unlike this hand, where there is actual useful discussion to consider). This post is about a hand that I just played horribly from the flop and thereafter.

The hand started at 13:57 EST on Sunday 2006-03-12 on Ultimate Bet at a six-handed $1/$2 NL table with a $200 maximum buy-in. A player named stealerste with $100 called $2 UTG. I had $166 and received K Q. I decided to make a small raise. Small raises on Ultimate Bet, because the players are often so tight-weak, generally clear the field pretty easily. My goal was to end up heads-up with stealerste. If he didn't limp-reraise, I thought, I probably would go to the flop with the better hand.

A player called fuerte with $364 in the big blind called the $3 cold, and stealerste called. We saw the flop three handed, with $16 in the pot, and I was in position. I didn't really have a good idea of what fuerte had, but felt I had stealerste beat.

The flop came 3 K A . They checked to me, and I made a feeler bet of almost the pot size ($12). This is a pretty standard and profitable play that I make as the preflop raiser with position when checked to on a board with serious draw possibilities — tight-weak players almost always bet out with top pair on boards with draw possibilities.

fuerte check-raised for the minimum. I didn't like this situation, and figured he had a reasonable ace. There is almost no point to call here. At the time, I felt that I could call and represent a flush if the draw came, but that was a stupid move against a weak player. I called, making the pot $64.

The draw got there on the turn with the 4. fuerte made a defensive bet of $15, and I made it $40 to go, hoping to represent a flush. fuerte called rather quickly.

Now, what was the point here of making this raise? At the time, I thought it was a reasonable bluff (and maybe a semi-bluff, since I now had a second-nut flush draw of my own). But, making these sort of turn bluffs against weak players is totally pointless. I was not thinking straight, believing I could run over the table post flop in the way that I do preflop in these games. Yet, the whole reason I play these games is that the players are too tight-weak preflop and can rarely fold top pair on the flop when it hits. Representing that I hit a draw is pointless; I need the actual flush to get paid well, and bluffing is just a waste. At the time, I thought I could make some quick money bluffing, but that was just a mistake of trying to recover legitimate losses earlier that weekend too quickly. It was the very definition of tilt. No matter what lies we tell ourselves, we are all prone to it sometimes.

fuerte quickly called, and I then put him on specifically the A. The way he called instantly really indicated that he was drawing to beat the flush I was representing. Even weak players think twice before calling so quickly with just top pair if they aren't also drawing to beat the likely made hand.

The river came 9 and fuerte bet $40 into the $144 pot. I knew this was some sort of defensive bet with the A, but I had no clue what his kicker was. Looking back, I should have cut my losses right here and let his defensive bet win. But, it was too enticing — knowing that he almost surely didn't hold a made flush — that I pushed for $97 total.

What a terrible play on my part! I'm offering about 1-to-1.75 when he has already shown that he's somewhat skeptical that I made a flush. I thought at that moment that he'd play like I would — another common terrible mistake. In the moment, I believed I was making some “amazing” read on his defensive bet that he would fold.

The truth is, I couldn't eliminate a made flush on his part here, anyway. This could be a bet specifically designed to entice me to do what I'd just done — push and try to bluff him off the naked A when he actually held the nuts. Indeed, the way the hand played out, the street-by-street action could easily indicate something like A 10! Instead, I put him on the one hand that I had a chance of bluffing and threw my chips away.

fuerte called with A 4. Of course, he should have thrown away two pair there and certainly shouldn't have check-raised the flop (I deeply wish he'd bet out, of course, because I would have folded), but my play is substantially worse than his.

I have to remember I'm in these games because people do terrible stuff like this and I have a real opportunity to make big scores (and do, regularly, when playing my best game), when I don't get tilt-induced fancy play syndrome and make very stupid plays.

Those of you who think you are immune to this, no matter what stakes you play at, don't continue to fool yourselves. Despite adequate bankroll, overconfidence and that desire to end the weekend “up”, mixed with some reasonable but useless reads can get the best of the best of us.

Comments

So why

[salvelinus.livejournal.com]

did you think that you could represent the made flush to this guy? He holds Ac, with the Kc on the flop (you didn't know that at the time, but you did know that you don't have it). What could you conceivably be raising pre-flop with that would make your flush on the turn? QcJc? QcTc? You didn't state your position in the hand (only that it was at least 2 past the BB). I know that it is 6 handed and raising requirements are lower, but you seemed to forget to consider your action pre-flop in post-flop play.

Also, what's the evidence that this particular player is tight-weak? Throughout your post, you characterize all of the players on UB $1/2 nl as weak, but give no evidence that this particular player is so. At least you realize that you played that hand terribly, and that your feeling of superiority got to your head and that you forgot to think about the fundamentals. Always thinking about players in generalities and not treating them individually is harmful, as you found out.

Re: So why

[shipitfish.livejournal.com]

Indeed, it was a terrible play. You're quite right that the story of my hand doesn't add up at all. QJs is a possible raising hand from the cutoff seat (to answer that question), but you're right that it seems unlikely I'd do so after limpers. I didn't consider the preflop action relating to what I was representing. I also didn't even know if this fellow was capable of putting me on a hand; I hadn't seen him make any specific read-based plays or say anything in the chat box that he was putting people on hands.

I'd seen this player play probably 40-50 hands and he seemed to fit the typical player profile on UB. But, I surely didn't know enough about him to make an unorthodox play; solid poker is best when your best information is still more or less a generality. Poker Tracker was showing him as passive, tight and taking only 15% of hands that saw a flop to the river, but that wasn't enough to go on here.

As to why I thought (incorrectly) I could bluff him: I felt in the moment that he was unlikely to to call an all-in with one pair. He probably was unlikely to do so, but this was pointless risk, because I had no way of knowing with reasonable certainty that all he had was the naked A (indeed, he did have that key card but a paired kicker to go with it, and his hand story even added up to the nuts as well as many other holdings that the average player is likely to call with). I made a number of classic bluffing mistakes, including overconfidence, not having my hand's story add up, and picking a player I didn't know well enough. I make no excuses for my terrible play; I only post it to learn from it by discussion.

[http://users.livejournal.com/i_o_/]

that suck, when you realize that ppl like that, who play A4 os, no position, check-reraising the top-pair on flop - are ending up getting the most of it. }:|

[shipitfish.livejournal.com]

Of course he's a terrible player. But I played it worse.

[roryk.livejournal.com]

over and over in your hands you lose a lot of money doing the same thing where you lose a ton of money trying to make a fancy play. you have fancy play syndrome big time. some of the words in your post are also indicative of it. i think using adjectives like "weak" is another problem. i also see you playing way too loose postflop-- this hand you actually have a good hand, but there are posts where you are involved with hands you shouldn't be involved with preflop because you think your opponents are so bad you can play really bad hands against them and then you get into trouble postflop and you try to outplay them once you're in the hand and you get stacked.

[shipitfish.livejournal.com]

Rory, this is an amazing set of comments and some wonderful advice. I appreciate it. This is precisely why I try to post these bad hands; to get help from people like you. I agree it's meta-game stuff. I have a lot more to say, but I want to digest more of what you've said. Watch for a fresh post referencing your comments here sometime early next week. (I'm pretty busy at work the rest of this week.)

[roryk.livejournal.com]

i guess you did a great job analyzing your own play in your post, i'm just kind of reiterating it because it is not an isolated incident, it is a major leak in your game and i think it is the reason why you are not winning a lot more money than you should be. why do you think you are not absolutely killing the games? do you think it is because you do not have a good grasp of the strategy? i dont think that is true, i think you have a very good grasp of the strategy. do you think it is because you are getting run over or something like that? i don't think that is true either. i think what happens is once a night, or once very couple sessions, you do something like this where you get stacked making a really really bad play and essentially blow back all of the profit you made playing well your previous few sessions.

i mean, i played with you in limit hold em and no limit hold em and i would not voluntarily play in a game full of you's-- it would be pretty much a waste of my time. except for the fact that, eventually, i think you would crack somehow. get impatient or somehow break down. i really think that is the only thing keeping you from murdering the games. not really strategy or anything like that, just these kinds of blow ups. in no limit you would kill me of course. in limit we would be evenly matched if we had like four of me and four of you playing each other until the four of you kind of had a meltdown.

i love that you are starting to recognize that after it happens.that is the first step. now you have to start preventing it. do you have any idea why it happens? you started a little bit to get into it-- you wanted to be up for the weekend. so, do you have any pre-game ritual you do, to make sure you are playing for the right reasons? i only get to play for 3 hours a day, if that, during the weekdays, and for maybe 4 hours a day during the weekends. so i do not have the luxury to sit there and fuck around and waste time losing money. so i am really good at making sure when i sit down im in the right frame of mind to play.

i have always felt that you would be an awesome player because you had a great blend of being really aggravating and the type of person people just kind of want to "get" naturally which makes people go on extreme tilt against you really easy, a really great hand reader, and you are sharp and courageous and bold which are some qualities i really lack as a player. you just could never get your emotions in check when you were playing which was your downfall. ive wanted to see you blossom into a killer player for a long time and this is the last thing that has to fall into place for you to really be a total menace at the table. so i read your journal and post in it a lot because i want to see you posting that you are murdering games.

[roryk.livejournal.com]

anyway, before you play, you need to check yourself to make sure you are ready. it's like.. dedicate yourself to playing your best, like i talked about earlier in a message here. fuck the money. who cares about strategy. about all that. just focus on sitting there and every time it is your turn making the best possible decision you can. pressing the button with the most concentration you can or putting your chips in the pot with the most concentration. watching everyone with the most amount of concentration you can. folding your cards really gently, with care. everything with care. don't let your mind wander. be present and aware of what you are doing. do everything like it is really important. sip your drink like it is important. everything with care. each decision, even folding 27o preflop for a raise, do that carefully. a raise from a passive player, fold your cards carefully. everything respectfully. and you will play so so so so so much better. you will play the best you possibly can and you will learn the most from each session you possibly can and you will enjoy it so much more. and you will notice, in yourself, when you are tilting, and you will get up and leave. if you get upset, you will leave. if you get angry, you leave. any disturbance that makes it so you cannot do things respectfully and carefully, you leave. even if it means you are only there for five minutes. and that is how you kind of cultivate this really powerful, really deliberate, steady, constant way of playing that makes it so you are playing the best you can when you play so you don't blow back the money you win as often. it's so important to learn how to do this.

[roryk.livejournal.com]

like.. instead of paying attention to everyone else at the table, watching what they are doing and whatever. try spending a session paying attention only to yourself. after every hand write notes on yourself. how you felt after every hand, at each bet. when each card came out. if your mind was here or if it was racing off in all directions. if you were calm or not. if you were all over the place or going slow and being deliberate. if you were in control or not. if you were happy or not. upset or not. if you felt heat or angry or frustrated or if you wanted to cry or whatever. write all that down. ignore everyone else, write notes on yourself. if you are playing live, don't look for tells on everyone else, just pay attention to how you feel instead the entire time. see if you get upset at some point. try to figure out what sets you off. see if your play changes at any point. see if your head feels funny. if you get dizzy or you feel weird or you feel kind of out of control or out of touch. try testing if you are tired. look at your watch and time yourself counting backwards by 3 from 100 at the beginning of the session when you are fresh and then later on, midway through the session when you still feel fresh, backwards by 3 from 100. then right after you take a bad beat and you "calm down". try it then, see how long it takes. are you still concentrating as well? later on in the night, try it then. how well are you concentrating then? figure out how you work.

"Know the enemy and know yourself; in a hundred battles you will never be in peril. When you are ignorant of the enemy, but know yourself, your chances of winning or losing are equal. If ignorant both of your enemy and yourself, you are certain in every battle to be in peril." - Sun Tzu

[roryk.livejournal.com]

At this point you play poker 90% as well as you are ever going to play. Do you think you are going to learn some magic concept that you are missing that all the great players know that you don't that makes you an awesome player? I don't. The thing that all the great players do that you don't is they consistently play well, day in and day out. Every decision they make. That is the magic concept that is holding you back. But you spend some of your time playing poker about 60% as well as you can play it. It is worth your while to make sure you never play poker at 60% capacity ever again. Then you can work on bumping that 90% up to 91%, 92%, 93%, 94%. But right now, the difference between 90% and 93% isn't as important as eliminating the 60% times from your game. You know? If you want to look at EV decisions, it is ++++EV for you to not focus your time and energy on strategy and instead focus it on your psyche and emotional state to try to dismantle the apparatus that causes you to occasionally make extremely bad, extremely expensive mistakes. Those aren't strategy mistakes-- they are emotional mistakes.

[dankhank.livejournal.com]

part of it is that you can think about no limit ring games in a complex enough way where it becomes exasperating always trying to play your best game and push every little edge. i think bradley has always tried to play this way. i used to play this way, but at some point while playing limit holdem i realized how much easier the game is on a day-to-day basis when you play a simple but strong style where you just sort of poke around and play good and wait for the weaker players to do their thing. so then i applied the same thing to no limit and had good results. so i do that every day. i play a snug style and when i sit down i don't dread having to play my best because it is really no sweat at all. not because i am doing some brain dead strategy, but because i pulled it off the day before, and the day before that also, and i know i can do it. you would be surprised at how long you can go in a no limit ring game without making a major mistake. i think when you are only 90% sure of your game and you are in a tough spot, you can subconsciously allow yourself to make a mistake because you realize you are only 90% there. it is sort of like the amateur who calls a lot of allins in the WSOP because deep down he knows he can't outplay people postflop. whereas a person who has 98% game would get really upset with themselves for making some of these mistakes. because the 98% player knows he's capable of playing without them, whereas bradley has never done that. so he makes them.

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[(Anonymous)]

i have a problem with my internal HDD. When this all happened, i was playing a game online. I got a Virus Worm and i shut down my computer and reformatted my HDD and put windows back on. I had a secondary HDD in for back-up purposes. so got windows in and put everything back, but i then noticed that my computers performance went down drastically with my main HDD, I could not copy anything i had onto the back-up drive and once i did it was so slow to copy the file. Once i had all the files on the back-up drive, i decided to start from the back-up drive with windows. Same applied. It was really slow with the reading-and-writing. i decided to take the secondary back-up drive out and boot from the main HDD. Everything seemed to be running smoothly i checked the main HDD Temperature with HD tune. The drives temp was 37 degrees Celsius, and the drive went to normal temperature of 43-44 degrees Celsius. I then decided to plug in the secondary HDD and leave it on for a day. the temperature went from 43-44 degrees to 47-48 degrees Celsius. So my guess is that the HDD drives are getting way to hot, and i am getting what seems like bad sectors in the drive, but it has never done this before. I have always had my back-up drive in ever since i got my main HDD. I can't place my finger on what is wrong with my drives. Once the main HDD is lower temperatures the drive seems to be performing better. but its normal temperature is 43-44 degrees Celsius and i still have some problems with reading and writing then. Can someone tell me what has happened please. I dont know if it was from the worm virus or if the temperatures are getting too hot (but has never done this before) can someone tell me what to do. I have changed the line leading into the motherboard as well, and that seems to have no effect. i even swapped the board lines between the CD drives and the HDD drives, no effect on that either. can someone tell me what is going on, i have ran out of options.
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