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

[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.