Evaluating Your Play: Part VI

This series of columns has emphasized evaluating your plays. One of the most important routes to improving is to evaluate your performance. The purpose of this is to uncover things that you have done wrong, and correct those things in the future. Unfortunately there is nothing harder than making an unbiased analysis, especially of hands that have resulted in a big win or big loss. We all make what has been called by psychologists “the fundamental attribution error.” The poker player makes this error by crediting his good results to his own skill and his bad results to bad luck. In order to escape this trap, you have to learn to separate good and bad plays from good and bad results. Most of the hands I have discussed so far were hands I played in recent Vegas cash games. Since it is very hard to perform unbiased evaluations of your own play, I thought it might be instructive to look at some hands played by the best players in the world. Even in these top level confrontations, there are situations where one or both players take some actions that were not very successful, but this doesn’t necessarily mean they were wrong. I also want to emphasize the fact that they almost never make an irrational play. There is always a reason why they did what they did.

The first expert hand comes from Season 7 of “Poker After Dark.” For the first episodes, they held a six-player, $100,000 buy-in sit-n-go. Thus the winner will net half a million dollars. The tournament kicked off with blinds of 500-1,000. John Juanda (JJ) had already won three of the first four hands, although they were tiny pots. Phil Ivey raised under the gun with A 3 to 2,500. JJ was next, and called with K Q. Everyone else folded. The flop was A 10 5. Phil checked and JJ bet 5,000 and Phil called. The turn was the 6. Phil checked again, JJ now bet 14,500 into a pot of 16,500, and Phil called. The river brought the 3. Phil checked, JJ fired a third bullet of 24,500. and Phil called. Now it is up to you to evaluate their plays. Try giving each play a rating from 0 (horrendous) to 9 (great or at least automatic). You have to evaluate Phil’s initial raise, then his three check/calls. For JJ, you have to evaluate his initial call, and then his three bets. Take some time to think about each play, and what the player was trying to accomplish when you make your ratings.

First Phil’s plays. Ivey is an exponent of the “small ball” style in tournaments. He makes a lot of mini-raises, and stabs at a lot of pots. Making a small raise under-the-gun (UTG) (remember this was a six handed table so UTG is equivalent to middle position at a full table) with A-3 suited is in keeping with this style. The other choice would be to fold. I can’t say that I hate this play, but it will definitely lead to situations where he will have to figure out exactly what is happening. I’d rate this play a 6.

He checked the flop instead of making a standard continuation bet. I think this was a great play. Betting was unlikely to get better hands to fold or worse hands to call. His check (with the intention of calling) controlled the pot size and might induce a bluff from his opponent. Rating: 9! His check on the turn was designed to accomplish the same goals. Even though his opponent is showing a lot of strength by betting twice, Phil has only shown weakness, which might cause JJ to keep betting a worse hand like middle pair or even bluffing. As a general rule, when you have shown weakness, but have medium strength, tend to call. Likewise, if you have shown strength, but are relatively weak, tend to fold. Rating: 9.

On the river Phil makes a second pair. He now has to make two tough decisions. He could bet, hoping that JJ reads him for a missed draw and calls with one pair. Or he could check with the intention of raising. Instead he check/calls a third time. Here, checking allows your opponent to continue bluffing. But it also allows him to show down a hand like A-Q or J-T without losing any more money. Flat calling avoids a disaster if you opponent has made a higher two pair or a set. Rating 7.

Now John’s plays: In general, I dislike calling a UTG raiser, even shorthanded, with K-Q offsuit. This is a trouble hand. Any of the four great players behind might try a squeeze play, and force you to fold. However at these televised tables, players often make an opening raise with a wide range, so there is some excuse for calling. I’d rate this 4.

Your opponent checks the flop. He might have a small pair or complete air. But why didn’t he make a continuation bet to steal the pot? You have a gutshot and backdoor-flush draw. You decide to take a stab at the pot. I’d rate this 6. Your opponent checks the turn. His flop call might have been an out of position float, hoping to take back the lead later, but I think it is best to check here and decide if you want to fire again on the river. Betting king-high a second time seems a little too aggressive, but certainly not irrational. I’d rate it as a 3.

On the river, your opponent checks again. He has already check/called twice. If he had a draw like Q J, you will win the showdown. On the other hand, having represented strength, firing the third bullet might get him to fold most one-pair hands. Even aces with a bad kicker will face a tough decision. I would have preferred to check the turn, but since I didn’t it can’t be clearly wrong to fire a third bullet. Rating: 6.

Unfortunately for JJ, Phil had an easy call and won a very large pot. I always tell students that firing a first bullet is often good. But when you fire the second, you might shoot yourself in the foot. And when you fire the third, you might fire it directly into your brain. However, I also tell them that if all their bluffs work, they aren’t bluffing enough. Even though I was critical of John’s plays, they were all had a specific goal. It would have been interesting to see if Phil would have called the river had he not hit the second pair. I should also note that John has consistently outplayed me when we’ve been at the same table so perhaps I should be learning not criticizing. ♠

Steve ‘Zee’ Zolotow, aka The Bald Eagle, is a successful gamesplayer. He has been a full-time gambler for over 35 years. With 2 WSOP bracelets and few million in tournament cashes, he is easing into retirement. He currently devotes most of his time to poker. He can be found at some major tournaments and playing in cash games in Vegas. When escaping from poker, he hangs out in his bars on Avenue A in New York City -The Library near Houston and Doc Holliday’s on 9th St. are his favorites.