Ebb and Flow Like the Tide

by Roy Cooke | Published: Apr 12, 2002

Sometimes when I play poker I feel like I am in the zone. My decisions all seem to be correct. The scenarios I envision play out as if I had scripted them. It is as if I have a crystal ball and can foresee the future. Other times, I feel lost. No reads seem to be correct. Hellish river cards come as if the deck held a personal grudge against me. This ebb and flow of the game is just part of poker, and life, for that matter. You take the good with the bad and try to make logical sense out of it all, even though sometimes there seems to be no rhyme nor reason to it. Still, it is where things rest over time – the average, like the mean high tide – that counts. The cycle of highs and lows never ends, but just as time and the tide inexorably continue on, so do life and the game.

I had limped in from up front in a $30-$60 hold'em game with the J 10. Two action calling stations came in behind me. The small blind threw his hand away, the big blind checked, and we took the flop off fourhanded. The dealer turned A-Q-4 rainbow, not the most favorable of flops for my hand. However, I did have a gutshot to make the nuts. It was checked to me. I checked also, hoping for a free card.

My opponents were not cooperative. The player to my immediate left bet, the other preflop caller called, the big blind folded, and it was up to me. I thought through the situation. The pot was laying me 6.67-1 on an 11-1 shot, not a good enough price to make the bet an overlay. But the true price a pot is laying you is not what is in the pot at the moment you make a call. The real price of a play is what profit you can make on a hand if you connect, incorporating all of the future action you may receive, the money that is currently in the pot (including your own), and the chance that you may lose the pot if you do make your hand. That equation denotes the real price that a play is laying your hand.

Many factors go into determining the real price of a play. Since your opponents' exact holdings are generally in doubt, a reasonable estimate is the best that even world-class players can expect. Estimating future action depends on many factors: How well do your opponents play? Can they read your hand if you make it? Will they give you action if you make your hand? Will your opponent(s) bet if you catch your card, so that you can raise or check-raise? Will they fold if you do raise? What is your position? How does the pot play out in future betting rounds incorporating that position? What is the chance that if you make your hand, you will lose the pot to a better hand?

In my situation, both of my opponents were calling stations. Neither one was the sort to lay any kind of a hand down. I believed that the player who had bet probably had an ace and would bet the turn. I was not sure what the other player had, although he had taken many previous hands to the river. If I made my hand on the turn and checked, and the same opponent bet and the other opponent called, I would be able to check-raise. If I acquired two additional large bets on the hand after I check-raised, the pot would be laying me 14.67-1 on an 11-1 shot. I believed that the potential for an overlay was likely and called the $30 bet, knowing that no one could raise behind me with the position I held. I knew the call was marginal, but when I am playing weak opposition and the call is close, I lean heavily toward making it. It can have strong psychological implications on hands later in the game. This is particularly true if one or more of my opponents are the type to get easily frustrated by losing, and have tilt potential; I thought that to be the case here.

The turn card was the K, putting a two-flush on the board but giving me a straight, the nuts at that point. I checked, planning a check-raise. The same opponent who had bet the flop led once again, the other opponent called, and I check-raised them. They both called the extra $60. I was feeling pretty good about my call on the flop. Things were going pretty well, as I had caught my perfect card and was getting an abundance of action. My life was in the midst of a good moment.

Usually, when I start feeling full of myself life sets me straight very quickly. This pot proved to be no exception. The river brought the 8. I fired and both players called. I turned over my straight, confident that I had the pot won. The overcaller turned over the 7 4. He had flopped a pair of fours and backdoored a heart flush, beating my ace-high straight. My good moment dissolved.

Yes, I lost the pot, and I lost $210 more than if I had just folded on the flop. But the decision I made to call the flop based on the implied price I was receiving in that situation was marginal. And because of my table presence, among other things, my decision to chase the gutshot on the flop was correct. I knew when I made the call that in some cases I would make my hand and lose the pot. This scenario just happened to play out that way.

In poker, as in life, we make our decisions by making judgments about what might happen in the future. The benefit of hindsight often changes the complexion of those decisions. But you cannot punish yourself because the results did not break your way. When the flow of the game beats you up, analyze your questionable decisions after the fact to see if they made sense based on the information available at the time. If they still appear to be logical and based on sound judgment, accept the results and move on to the next hand.

As I looked back at the hand, I knew I would have made every decision the same way, although I would have preferred getting the chips. My life has been much the same. The ebb and flow of good and bad has left me with a fine mean. The cycles of tide and time have treated me well; the mean of my life and poker results have been favorable.