Shaking off the Rust (in a mostly unsuccessful way)

Lessons learned. I'm good at remembering them but often learn them through trial and error rather than a more abstract approach, like watching someone else fail.

I’ve been getting in more play recently, after a few months of nothing and my inactivity has showed, as my play has been erratic and my decisions questionable. As always, I try to take away something from each game and making mistakes, in some cases huge blunders, always sears those scenarios into my head for future reference.

A few games and hands worthy of mention because they feature a couple of mistakes I made, one because I didn’t consider all the options and one because I did:

I played in a home game a few weeks back, 1-2 NL, $300 min buy in, rotating two rounds of NLHE with one round of Pot Limit Omaha. I tried to play tight/aggressive but in retrospect I played mostly tight, content to take down pots when ahead instead of milking them. Until the following boneheaded play, that is.

Hovering around even, I folded A,7 o/s in the face of a raise and a call and watched as the other three aces hit on the flop and turn. The pot was small as the two remaining players tread cautiously (pocket Js and suited connectors I believe) but my tightness cost me money and left me watching from the side. The very next hand, however, I pick up As9s and call a preflop raise. The flop comes 10,9,4 rainbow and I bet out and the preflop raiser comes over the top with another raise. Red flag, right? Right? Well, unfortunately my flagman had taken a coffee break. I call. The turn brought another nine, giving me a set and I make the worst possible play and move all in. In this instance I can only be called by hands that have me crushed. Everything else will fold under this bet and I will not make any additional money. Of course I am immediately called and he turns over pocket 10s for the top full house. Just an awful play on my part. I never thought about the bet, didn’t take the extra ten or fifteen seconds to think about the scenarios in which I could most make or most lose my money, just fired blindly. Attribute it to rust, poor decision-making or just stupidity, any way I slice it it is still an awful play. Lesson learned. Think.

The second hand that I want to recount was in Atlantic City. Got into a 1-2 NLHE game at the Tropicana with $300 and again was hovering around even but this time feeling pretty good about my play. I had lost a couple races against smaller all-in stacks where my hands and the pots dictated calls but then won it back by opening up a little and catching some big hands when I got in the mix with lower connectors and made good value bets. The hand that was the crucial one of the day unsurprisingly was when I looked down at pocket aces from the big blind. It was folded around to the old guy directly across from me who made it $22 to go and everyone folded to me. I popped it to $60 and he made a quick call, no hesitation. He was tight and I put him on a big pair. Flop comes J,7,2 rainbow and I led out for $50. He immediately goes all in and I go into the tank. I stare at him, which elicits some joking comments from the table but they give me the time to make my decision. I ask him if he has pocket jacks and he tells me that he will show me if I fold. I tell him that if I fold, I don’t want to see what he has. I’m 80% sure he has the jacks. He’s got me covered, it’s another (roughly) $190 to call into the pot, which is now at around $410 and ultimately, this is what did me in, that I figured I was getting better than 2 to 1 on my call and that I’ve got the edge on any hand he can probably be playing other than pocket jacks. And ultimately, I should have listened to my instincts because I called and he showed the pocket jacks and I didn’t catch my two outer. Again, lesson learned. Think, but trust instinct.

The one thing both of these cases had in common that I seem to have ignored is the strength of the hands my opponent was holding and telling me that they held, by the post-flop reraises. I got married to both hands and couldn't get away, wanting to believe that I was ahead and talking myself into it. But talking myself into it is not the same as actually being ahead, and I plunged ahead with my losing hands, instead of seeking a divorce, ended up busted.

(Well, only kind of, actually. As a postscript to both of these stories, I rebought and began grinding and ended up nullifying my losses by more than half. Not how I envisioned the two sessions but still better than a total washout.)