Sometimes You Just Get it Wrong

Smart people sometimes do very stupid things; at least that's what I tell myself when I do something very stupid. But, perhaps there is something wrong with my underlying premise! The fact is that no matter how well you play or how many millions of hands you play, sometimes you just read a situation wrong and go off for chips that you shouldn't have.

I had just sat down in a $30-$60 limit hold'em game and posted behind the button, even before my chips arrived. I wasn't really settled in or mentally focused and ready to play. On the second hand, I was dealt the 10 10. A player I had never played with before opened with a raise two to my right, and the player between us folded. All I knew about my raising opponent was that he had raised on the first hand I had played and mucked when bet into on the flop.

Generally, when I first sit down and am unfamiliar with the game situation, I tend to play on the conservative side, waiting to get a "feel" for my opponents before making any creative plays or building big pots with marginal hands with which I may be forced to make tough decisions in large-pot situations. But with this hand, I had position with most likely the best hand, and it also was vulnerable to overcards. I didn't want to give the blinds a cheap shot to outdraw my tens with weak overcards, so I raised to three bets.

The button and the small blind folded. Beatrice, an attractive young lady from Austria, called the three bets out of the big blind, as did the initial raiser. We took the flop threehanded.

The flop came A 8 4, both players checked to me, and I fired $30 into the pot, unsure if I had the best hand. I didn't want to give a free card to any holding that contained a king, queen, or jack. Beatrice check-raised me, and the initial raiser folded.

I pondered. Beatrice had come to town and won herself a brand-new Lotus at The Venetian cardroom-opening tournament, besting a bunch of local pros, including me. Since then, she had been banging away at the Vegas games daily. A highly aggressive player who plays a wide range of hands from many different positions, she is tough to read. In this situation, I didn't necessarily have to have the worst hand. I called the raise.

The turn was the 5. Beatrice bet, and I flat-called again. It's not a call I always make; it's a feel thing - knowing the players and their propensity to play a given way, versus the value of winning the pot. With Beatrice, her inclination to bluff, her highly aggressive nature, and the wide range of hands that she might hold made me believe a call was correct.

The river was the A, reducing the likelihood of Beatrice possessing an ace. To my surprise, she checked to me. I thought a moment about my hand. Part of the problem with playing a loose-aggressive style like Beatrice's is that it makes the opponents' range of hands wider, as they tend to call with more hands based both on pot size and the increased likelihood of their hand being good. Therefore, they are much harder to read, the pot is generally bigger, and you must pay them off more liberally. Beatrice knows this, so I bet more liberally against her, which she also knows, so she pays me off more liberally. I fired $60, believing that I had the best hand.

To my surprise, Beatrice check-raised me. Damn, I thought, isn't Beatrice just full of surprises? All I could beat was a bluff. When considering these types of situations, I always think about my opponent's propensity to make the play, and if there are any reasons that my opponent would think such a play might work.

Since I'd hesitated before betting (though I do that both with and without a hand), I thought she believed that I didn't have an ace and therefore a bluff might work. Check-raise bluffing at a big pot is a play that not many can make. But, I knew Beatrice could do it. I unenthusiastically tossed another bet into the pot. Beatrice smiled and turned over A-K for three aces. I pitched my hand into the muck, feeling like I had just gotten reeled into the boat!

How the hell did I lose so much with that hand on that board? I pondered the reasons. Lack of intelligence? I definitely could make the case for it!

There are different ways to play the hand, whereby I could have either defined her hand earlier or gotten away from it much cheaper. Part of the problem was that by rushing into the game, I wasn't mentally prepared to play. I didn't have a good feel for Beatrice, where she was mentally and emotionally, and whether she was winning or losing. Players often vary their play based on their emotions at the time, and it's difficult to assess them in one hand. Also, it's tough to read opponents who bang away at you with a wide range of hands. It's correct to put in more action with such opponents, but the downside is that you can't help getting trapped into losing a lot of chips when they have you crushed.

Sometimes you're just going to get it wrong. You're going to make bad plays, misread situations, and get your money in bad. That's the nature of a game of incomplete information. When you find yourself having done that, don't beat yourself up. Analyze what your opponent did right and you did wrong, so that the next time around, you'll have the value of that experience. Just as when you take a bad beat, when you make a bad play, get yourself mentally right to play the next hand.

Roy Cooke has played more than 60,000 hours of pro poker and has been part of the I-poker industry since its beginnings. His longtime collaborator, John Bond, is a freelance writer in South Florida. Bond's poker mystery T-Bird is featured in the Best American Mystery Stories of 2007. How to Think About Poker is available at www.conjelco.com.