Don't Be the Fool

"I will never be the fool I was before."

Some activities are more forgiving of mistakes than others. While on a recent diving trip with some friends, we were discussing how scuba diving is actually relatively forgiving. It's rare that any one mistake can get you in serious trouble. You usually have to compound one error with another (and often a third and fourth) before things go truly bad. Skydiving, we noted, does not have that feature.

Limit poker is, in this respect, more like scuba diving. You usually need to make a series of mistakes to have anything go extremely wrong. But no-limit hold'em is (in character, though not severity) more akin to skydiving – one foolish move and you're, er, dead.

I will point out some examples of this that I observed recently in online sit-and-go tournaments.

Regrettably, I recount the first case from the first person. We had gotten down to four people in a one-table sit-and-go, so we were at the bubble. The next person to bust out would be out his buy-in. The subsequent person to go out would make a one-buy-in profit (less the rake). There was $10,000 in play and I had about $1,800. Another player had perhaps $10-$20 more than I had. Then, there was the chip leader with almost $6,000. And finally, there was the guy in deep trouble with not quite $400.

The blinds were $50-$100 and both the chip leader and chip trailer folded to me in the small blind. I found K-Q suited, and thought, "I can pick up this $150. That will put me a few chips ahead of this guy and I'll be in a better position to go after the real money." My notes said that he was a thinking, aggressive player. He surely wouldn't contest the pot with the short-stack player being so low. But I was also worried that if I just raised, he might reraise me, and then I'd have to fold. So, without thinking, I … wait! "Without thinking?" What was I thinking? Well, I wasn't. Anyway, without thinking, I pushed all in, knowing that he'd almost surely fold. But then a bad thing happened. He didn't fold; he stopped and thought. Finally, he chatted, "I have to call." And he called with A-Q – probably the weakest hand with which he would have called.

The poker gods, already giddy over my stupid play, didn't do anything unexpected with the boardcards, and I was out of the tournament – for no reason whatsoever.

I did one wise thing after that: I didn't play any poker for the rest of the day. The next day, I decided that I had recovered from my temporary insanity and waded back into another sit-and-go. Apparently, I was indeed cured, but maybe I was still contagious, because the foolishness continued in other seats. On the first hand, I raised with the A Q and was called by one player, the small blind. Much to my delight, I flopped the nut flush: K 10 4. Even better, this fellow bet $100 (about the size of the pot) on the flop. So, I called. The turn was a complete blank, the 9, and he bet $450. I just called again. The river brought a bad card for me – a fourth (small) diamond. "So much for any action," I thought. The K was on the board, and I had both the ace and the queen. The best hand he could have was the third-nut flush. But, he bet $200 – about half of his remaining stack. Of course, I raised all in, and he called pretty quickly. He had Q-J offsuit (no diamonds); he had flopped a straight draw and turned the "nut" straight.

Well, there was no reason for him to get busted out on that hand. First, he never should have called the raise in the first place. There may be worse mistakes in no-limit hold'em than calling a raise from out of position with Q-J offsuit, but not many. Of course, he was unfortunate to flop the open-end straight draw, drawing completely dead. And he was even more unfortunate to turn the straight. But that fourth diamond should have saved him the rest of his chips; there was no reason to bet the river, or call my raise. Sure, it would have been tough to come back from $400, but it was a lot easier than coming back from $0.

Literally on the next hand, three players mixed it up, and there was more foolish play. After one call, a player raised the $15 blind to $75 and got four callers. Already, somebody (probably multiple bodies) was out of line. A raise of five tim es the big blind needs to be respected; four callers does not respect make. The flop was another with a single suit: Q 4 2. A guy with the singleton K bet $15 into a $300 pot. Don't ever do that; all you're doing is offering great pot odds to everybody. It turns out that another player had flopped a set of fours, and he made an even bigger mistake: He just called. If you flop a set, even with a single-suit flop, you have to put some money in the pot. In this case, a raise to the pot size would be about right. Then, the fellow who had raised preflop (with a pair of fives) called. I'm not sure if that was a good call or not, because arguably the worst card for him came on the turn: the 5.

Now, the fellow with the second-nut flush bet $150 into a pot that was about $350. This was closer to the correct size of bet, but it also demonstrates the danger of getting involved with second-nut flushes in no-limit hold'em. You want to bet enough to protect your flush, but you can't be sure you're not throwing money at the nut flush. Of course, both players with sets called. They were getting the right price for the board to pair, on the assumption that they could collect the rest of the chips from the obvious flush doing the betting.

The river paired the queen, and the flush bet $100 – another foolish bet. There was already $800 in the pot. Did he think he was betting his flush for value? What would he do if he got raised? The fours full raised to $375 – and then the fives full reraised all in ($775). What could the guy with the king-high flush possibly think he was beating? In arguably the most foolish play of the entire hand, he called his remaining $660, as did the fours full. Two more people busted out, and the player with fives full had $3,000 in chips.

As you can see, there are fools aplenty in this game, and it seems that none of us are completely immune to the occasional foolish play. So, perhaps the key to no-limit hold'em success is not totally avoiding anything foolish, but simply trying to minimize those occurrences. If you can eliminate them altogether, you have my undying respect.

"No one can ever call me Mr. Fool no more."

Lee Jones is the poker room manager for PokerStars.com, and the author of the best-selling book Winning Low Limit Hold'em. The song quotes in this column come from George Jones' Mr. Fool.