Good Plays With Bad Results … and Bad Plays With Good Results

I once had a student who insisted that every time he lost a hand, he had misplayed it. Conversely, whenever he won a hand, he always claimed to have made the best decision possible on every street. To a beginner, this may seem like a solid approach to analysis, but, in fact, it’s not only wrong, it’s downright hazardous to a player’s development. I’ve often written about avoiding results-oriented thinking, but it’s not always obvious how to do this. Sometimes you’ve made a good play even when you get your money in while drawing dead, and a bad play even when you get it in with the best hand. I’ll show you what I mean through two examples.

In a recent $1,000 buy-in shorthanded tournament at the Borgata in Atlantic City, I called a raise from the under-the-gun player (at a six-handed table) when I was in the cutoff, and everyone else folded. We took the flop heads up, and it came 9-4-2, all hearts. My opponent looked back at his holecards, staring at them intently. I was pretty confident that I knew what this meant. I read him for having one heart that was not very good, possibly with a pair and possibly not. He checked, and I bet about half the pot. He thought for a little while, and called. There was now 9,000 in the pot.

The turn brought the 7♥, and my opponent led out for 7,000, staring angrily at me as he did so. I don’t often get extremely strong reads at the table, but I had one here. I was all but certain that he had a smallish heart, and was trying to get me to fold a bigger one. Acting on this read, I made it 16,000 total. He thought for a long time. He eventually threw all of his chips in. It was 300 more for me to call, and I knew that my opponent didn’t have very much. It was a pretty easy call, getting 138-1, right? The problem was, I had two black fives in my hand, and was almost assuredly drawing dead. I thought for a while, and decided that because there was some chance my opponent had misread his hand, and because I could gain some information from seeing his two holecards, and because I plan on never in my life folding when getting 138-1, I threw in the last 300. He tabled the A♠ 5♥, and I was drawing dead.

So, did I play the hand badly? A results-oriented analysis would say that I did. Not only did I lose the hand, I got my money in with 0 percent equity. I tried to bluff someone who appears to have been non-bluffable, and I should’ve known better than to try, right? Well, maybe not. This condemnation of my play is predicated on knowing the result of the hand in advance. A better analysis considers only the information I had at the time that I made the play, which was: (1) My opponent had been at the table for only a few orbits, and had been playing tight; and (2) I read him for having a low or medium heart, and I was as sure about that (90%? 95%?) as I’ve ever been about a read. Based on this information, why should I think my opponent would call for essentially all of his chips? I’m risking 16,000 to win 16,000 (I raised to 16,000 to win the 9,000 already in the pot, plus my opponent’s 7,000 bet), so I need the play to work more than half the time to be profitable. If my read is right, I expect the play to work well more than half the time. If I ever get a read like that again, I’ll make the same play in a heartbeat.

I lost that big pot when making a good play, but I’ve also won big pots when making bad plays — and sometimes I even had the best hand! In a recent online tournament, I reraised a late-position raiser while holding two deuces on the button. We were almost exactly on the bubble. The original raiser four-bet small, leaving me just enough room to set him all in if I wanted to. I decided that he’d think I’d move in on the bubble with only a huge hand, so I moved in on him. He called me immediately with A-K. My deuces, a slight favorite over his A-K, won the hand, but my play was bad.

Let’s examine the flaws in my thinking: (1) I was offering my opponent better than 2-1 to call me. Most opponents don’t fold when getting better than 2-1 preflop. (2) My opponent had me covered, so I risked busting out on the bubble in a big online tournament. The difference between bubbling and cashing for the minimum was the same as the difference between cashing for the minimum and cashing 600 spots higher. (3) My opponent could’ve decided to move me in, knowing that I couldn’t call him on the bubble without a monster, but he didn’t. That should’ve told me that he had a big hand!

The proper analysis, not just in hindsight but at the time I made the play, should’ve been that my opponent wanted me to move in, and I should fold. Whether he was right to be trapping with A-K is completely irrelevant to the analysis, as is the fact that he happened to have A-K. I didn’t know what he had when I was deciding what to do against his four-bet, but I should’ve concluded that he was unlikely to fold. I got all of my chips in with the best hand and won, but I played the hand poorly.

My student struggled mightily with the concept of separating results from analysis. Indeed, it’s a counterintuitive idea, but once you wrap your mind around it, you might find yourself improving your game a lot faster than you ever thought you could. ♠

Matt Matros is the author of The Making of a Poker Player. He is also a featured coach for cardrunners.com.