Tough Folds

So many things I was taught as a youngster have proven to be lies. Father Christmas isn’t real, neither is Jesus, and love is certainly not the answer. You can also add to this the maxim that calling with a losing hand is a mortal sin. People used to teach that calling when beaten was one of the worst things you could do at a poker table. As Amarillo ‘always was average at poker’ Slim said, ‘If you can’t fold the winning hand you can’t play.’

Then came the mathematicians and the formalised understanding of pot odds and hand ranges. Slowly the game evolved to be about the equity you have in a hand in relation to the amount of money in the middle. Subtly the correct thinking in a Hold’em hand became reversed. The mindset changed so that folding when you had enough of a chance of winning, and leaving money on the table, became the greater error. But having learnt to play Slim’s way this shift took me a while to make, and if I have a fault it’s still giving up occasionally when calling down or getting it in is better.

The problem is that it’s a fine line between making a hero call and paying off like an ATM. It’s so easy to focus on results and see poker in binary code, i.e. I lost that pot so that was a bad decision, or I won that pot so it was a good one. The real equation is very different. For instance, let’s say you make three calls of pot-sized bets on the river and win once. You’ll have broken even on the three plays but may feel like you’ve made bad decisions as you’ve lost more times than you’ve won.

Total Floater

I played a hand in my last cash game session which you can analyse below, and feel free to shout ‘payoff donkey moron’ at the page at any point.

In an NLHE six-max game I raised with Ks-Ts from the cutoff and got called by the big blind – a tricky, aggressive player who gets overly fancy sometimes and spews a bit. He’s going to three-bet me a lot from this position but also flat-call with a wide range. The flop came a distinctly unhelpful 7h-5h-2s. He checked, I bet and he check-raised me. I think c-betting this flop against an opponent who check-raises a lot is probably a mistake, but there we are, I did it anyway.

There were several options open to me. Obviously folding can’t ever be too bad as I often don’t have the best hand. However, he’d done this to me a lot and I wasn’t really in the mood to give up. I thought about three-betting him on the flop to fold out some of his weaker one-pair-and-draw hands but decided to flat-call. I figured I had the best hand enough, he’d give up on the turn enough, and I could improve enough to make it the right way to go.

The turn was the Tc so I’d produced top pair from somewhere near my back pocket. He bet again and I flat-called. I think this action is consistent with my overall thinking about playing him. I was now way ahead of his range (which includes everything he’d check-raise on the flop – draws, one-pair hands, etc) and if he was bluffing I wanted him to keep doing it rather than raising him off hands I beat, or getting shoved on when he has me crushed.

Grand Central Station

The river brought the Qd, he pretty quickly made an almost pot-sized bet and I had a decision to make. Except that I didn’t feel like I really did. The river bet is a pretty polarising spot for him. Looking at his range of possible hands there are a lot of missed draws, and he’s also capable of having complete air – clearly I was beating busted draws and air. He could have a monster of some kind, like a set or two pair, in which case I’m toast. He might do this with a rivered top pair (say Qh-Jh) but he might also check for a showdown and to bluff-catch. While if he’s good enough to value bet A-T in this spot I’m sitting in the wrong game.

I thought for a short time, then called and got shown 5-5 for a flopped set. I think my play against this opponent was completely fine, with the float on the flop being the most questionable element. But then again, maybe I’m just a station who can’t fold King-high on the flop and pays off anything with one pair on the river…