"MUB" stands for "Monsters Under the Bed," and relates to the childhood fear that when alone in the dark, somehow there may be monsters hiding under the bed. In poker, it refers to players who constantly give their opponents credit for having a huge hand, or at least play as if they might.
Of course, in poker, there are times when there actually are monsters under the bed, and your opponents do in fact hold something terrible in store for you. Luckily, the consequences are not all that bad; you just lose some money. Nevertheless, many players play as if there were monsters under every bed, and therefore proceed with excessive timidity, calling or folding to every raise and checking whenever a scare card hits the board.
In no-limit hold'em, a monster can bust you, and you do need to tread somewhat carefully, but in limit, MUB fear is the enemy of winning. Limit hold'em players make money by volume. If you will win in a certain situation more than half the time, you should bet (as a generalization). Of course, since poker is a game of incomplete information, you cannot be sure exactly what the current conditions are, or whether you will win or lose (unless, of course, you have the nuts).
Risk/reward is the name of the game. You cannot expect substantial rewards if you are unwilling to assume the risks. In a $20-$40 game, you may bet hundreds of dollars per hour in an attempt to win $40. If you decline a number of positive expected value (+EV) situations because you may lose, or your opponent may raise, or he may hold the nuts, you cannot expect to prosper. Sure, you may win a bit, but you are limiting your winnings by fearing defeat.
There are two elements working against you. The first is Prospect Theory, about which I co-authored with Dr. Rachel Croson (those columns are available at CardPlayer.com). Among other things, those columns stated that for most people, the pain of a loss is greater (typically by two to two and a half times) than the joy of an equivalent gain. If you bet and lose, the pain you feel is much worse than the happiness you feel if you bet and win. This emotion, which is admittedly difficult to conquer, prevents many people from playing properly.
The second element is a related fear of looking and/or feeling foolish. For some reason, players who bet and lose, especially in position when they could have checked but instead reopened the betting, feel like they must have made an error. Subsequently, they check more often to avoid this embarrassment, but just because they lost does not mean they were wrong to bet. It just means that this time was one of the times they lost. If in the same circumstance they were likely to win 60 percent of the time, the fact that this was one of the 40 percent of the time is nothing more than happenstance. If you know when you bet that you could lose sometimes, and you do lose, it should not be a jolt, nor convince you to soften your approach to the game.
Let's look at some examples.
Example No. 1: This is a hand without MUB. You hold the the A
K
and open-raise from middle position. Only the big blind calls. The flop is K
J
7
. He checks, you bet, he calls. The turn is the 10
. Check, bet, call. Now, the 9
comes on the river, and your opponent bets. Should you ignore the possibility that he has the Q
because it would be a MUB? No. You should just call and hope for the best. While he may not have the Q
, he really cannot call a raise with any other hand, and if he does have the Q
, he will reraise. You gain nothing by raising here.
Example No. 2: Let's look at an apparently similar but quite different situation. You open-raise from the cutoff with the A
7
, and only the big blind calls. The flop is A
K
9
, and you are called after the big blind checks and you bet. On the turn of the 5
, the action again goes check, bet, call. Now, the river is the 10
, and the big blind bets. Should you call because he may have made the straight flush? No, that would be a MUB action. You must raise here, even though it is possible that he does have the Q
J
and will reraise. There are many more hands that would bet here, including A-10, any other Q-J, K-10, and even A-8, hoping the flush possibility will keep you from raising with a better ace but possibly getting a crying call if you have K-Q and were planning to check. Not only must you raise, but there is an excellent chance that you will be called by a lesser hand, unlike example No. 1.
Example No. 3: Let's look at a turn play from my forum at www.barrytanenbaum.com. This hand, posted by WindyCityJ, is from a loose $5-$10 limit hold'em game. You are in the big blind with the 7
7
. After the first player folds, the next one open-raises and gets five callers to you, and you also call. The flop is J
7
2
, giving you middle set on a scary board. You decide to bet, the preflop raiser calls, the next player raises, there are two cold-calls, the button three-bets, and you decide to cap it. Five of you see the turn of the Q
, and you check. The betting goes bet, raise, fold, call to you. In the worst case, you are up against a flush, and some hand like the Q
J
, and even the 2
2
, so you have only one out. However, assuming such a disastrous series of holdings would be a first-order MUB. You may have all 10 outs, especially in a game this loose. You must grit your teeth and call to the river, and bet if the board pairs. The pot is quite large, and you cannot give up now.
Conclusion: One of the keys to winning in the long term is the ability to forgive yourself, even if you were wrong, but particularly if you just happened to lose. Many players fear the MUB because they kick themselves for "mistakes" that are really proper plays.
You call a bet on the end by a player who bluffs a bit too often. He has a hand, and wins. Were you wrong? Should you have saved this bet? Probably not, but you need to put it in perspective: You made a good call, and it did not work this time. Next time, it may (or may not). Your opponent may have a great hand, a good hand, or a weak hand. Great hands are rare, and if you play as if they are always present, your fears are cheating your bankroll out of substantial profits.
Barry Tanenbaum is the author of Advanced Limit Hold'em Strategy, and a collaborator on Limit Hold'em: Winning Short-handed Strategies, both available at www.CardPlayer.com. Barry offers private lessons tailored to the individual student. Please see his website, www.barrytanenbaum.com, or write to him at [email protected].
