Head Games: D’oh! Even The Pros Have Made Dumb Mistakes At the Table

The Pros: Leif Force, Isaac Baron, Brian Hastings, and Steve Tripp

Craig Tapscott: What are a couple of the dumbest things you have ever done at a poker table during a cash game or tournament?

Leif Force: On a few different occasions, I have been playing pot-limit Omaha (PLO) and PLO eight-or-better tourneys on PokerStars and, after maybe an hour, I realized that I had been playing the wrong version. Some pots were being spilt when I should be scooping or pots were being scooped when I knew I had the best low. I even did it once in a live cash game in Cincinnati. I made a huge river call with seven-high hoping to get half and everyone started laughing at me (most of them my friends). I learned that everyone should play PLO, because, even when you don’t know what kind of PLO you’re playing, you have a good chance at winning due to everybody else’s lack of skills.

My stupidest mistake ever was probably folding pocket kings during a tourney on PokerStars. It was my first time back in a few months and I was excited to play the Sunday grind. I wake up, get an email that says my account is suspended for folding kings when I should never have folded. I timed out, lost the hand, and got suspended all because I was making a sandwich. Lesson learned.  

Isaac Baron: The dumbest thing I can remember doing is not knowing all the specific rules, and it ended up costing me big time. This summer at the World Series of Poker, a player raised, the small blind reraised, and I was in the big blind with kings. Before I could act on my hand, the original raiser moved all-in. Not knowing the rule, when the floor told me the action was on me, I went all-in, and the original raiser tank-folded queens, and the other raiser folded as well. Had I been aware of the rule. I would have known that if I just called the small blind’s raise, the other player’s action would stand and he would be forced to go all-in.  

Brian Hastings: One time in a WSOP tourney, I was short-stacked with around eight big blinds (BBs) or so. I was in the small blind and looked down at Q-6 offsuit. When the action came to me, I announced that I was all-in. Then I realized that the pot had already been opened in front of me, something I was oblivious to when I moved in. He made the easy call with A-J, and I flopped a pair and ended up staying alive in the tournament. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to win or lose the hand, as winning the pot and enduring the ensuing conversation was rather embarrassing.

Another time, in the $50,000 Poker Players Championship at the WSOP, I sat down for day three and stacked my chips. I started the day with about 200,000. On one of the first hands, we were playing no-limit hold’em and I decided to raise under the gun with A-J offsuit. The blinds were 2,500-5,000, so I reached for two 1,000 chips and two 5,000 chips to make it 12,000. However, when I dropped the chips in the pot, I realized that I actually grabbed a 25,000 chip by mistake and raised to 32,000. The ever-opportunistic Ben Lamb three-bet me from a few seats behind, and when the action got back to me, I decided it was best to just cut my losses and folded my hand.

These experiences taught me that paying attention to details is probably something that’s in my best interest to do. Coming from an online background, I wasn’t used to having to worry about these kinds of things, since the information is all right in front of me when it’s my turn to act. But yeah, in live poker, paying attention is kind of important.
Steve Tripp: Whether you’re an amateur or a professional poker player, everyone does something dumb at the poker table. The important thing is to learn from it and not do it again.

The dumbest thing I have ever done at a poker table was in a live tournament in the Bahamas. I was talking to someone and wasn’t really paying attention to the action. It folded to me in the small blind, and I had about 30 big blinds (BBs) and shoved vs. the big blind, who had around 10-15 BBs. The player in the big blind folds and I go to muck my cards before someone stops me from doing so. It turns out the under the gun player had opened and I three-bet shoved for 30 BBs effective, as the guy had me covered. It was the final two tables of a $2,000 super KO tournament and, luckily, I did happen to have Q-Q. The guy ended up folding, but I assumed if he called it probably would’ve looked like I was trying to angle him, but it was really just a lazy mistake which I have never made again.

Another mistake that I’m sure that almost everyone has done at some point or another, is misreading your hand. I personally have done it once or twice live and have even done it once online. Live is more common, as your hand isn’t visible at all times to you, so it’s easy to forget at times. The thing to learn here is it’s not showing weakness if you double check your cards mid-hand. It’s okay to make sure you have exactly what you think you have. With big money on the line, it’s better to be safe than sorry.

Craig Tapscott: What is the dumbest thing you have ever seen during a poker game?

Leif Force: It’s a close call, but the dumbest thing I have ever seen was at a PokerStars Caribbean Adventure event. I was sitting with this rich Indian dude in a $5,000 PLO event. He was playing decently for the first few hours, getting lucky, and scooping a handful of pots. Then, he gets in a huge hand with this guy and the board runs 10-3-3-10-8 and they put in like six bets on the river and he turns over a weak ten thinking he has tens full of treys. Nope. Both cards have to play.

That’s actually not so bad. The first time I played the $10,000 PLO event at the PCA, a guy three-bet on the river and, after getting called, stands up, throws his cards down, and says, “ship it.” Unfortunately for him, he didn’t realize you needed to use two cards from your hand. Then the next day, there’s a $5,000 turbo PLO event, and, what do you know? I get to play with the Indian dude again. He’s playing better than he did the day before and, after a few hours, he has a ton of chips. But then he gets into a massive pot with another chip leader and, again, the board runs out J-8-8-J-4, and after another five or six bets on the river, the opponent shows J-8. And what do you know? The Indian dude flips over a weak jack thinking he has jacks full also. Oops.    

Isaac Baron: Recently in a tournament, I saw a guy in a three-way pot just call someone’s river bet, and then proceed to table quads while there was still a player left to act behind him. Needless to say, the guy still to act didn’t call. Wow. That was a pretty interesting one.

Brian Hastings: Recently, I played a tournament at Seminole Coconut Creek in Florida. A hand unfolded in which a local pro raised and got a few callers, he check-called a bet on the flop, check-called again on the turn, and led out big when a backdoor flush hit on the river. His opponent, clearly a recreational player, made the call, was shown a flush, and angrily mucked his hand. The recreational player made a comment along the lines of, “How did you know the flush was going to hit?” The pro responded, “I just knew that if it did hit, you were going to pay me off.” The pro then proceeded to talk down to the recreational player with questions like, “Is this your first tournament? Sure seems like it.”

Unfortunately, stories like this are far too common in poker. Whether it’s just a simple comment after someone makes a bad play and gets lucky or a series of comments like in this story, far too many poker players feel a need to assert their superiority and talk down to recreational players. We want recreational players to enjoy their experience playing the game, win or lose, and that’s far less likely to be the case if they are insulted by pros who think they are superior just because they are better at playing a card game. This type of behavior is the dumbest thing I see at the poker table.

Steve Tripp: One I see often is the mistake of throwing in the wrong colored chips and betting more or less than you planned. The easy solution is to announce your bet size out loud before you put chips in. It’s tough to make a mistake if you say your bet size out loud. That is, if you are not piss drunk and know what’s going on.

This January, while at the Bahamas for the PCA, I witnessed one of the dumbest things I’ve ever seen and it was by a friend who was, in fact, piss drunk. A friend, Jesse Johnston, and I were playing a $5-$10 cash game together and he eventually got so drunk he forgot he was playing a cash game, and mistakenly thought he was playing a sit-and-go or a tournament, I’m not exactly sure. Whenever it would get to him, he would just say $1,500, or $1,800. He claims that, at the time, he thought the blinds were 250-500. So, at a $5-$10 cash table, players would limp to him and he would effectively shove most of the table all-in, as he had a monster stack. Once someone called off $300 with 9 8 and won with nine-high. We tried to convince him to leave, but he wouldn’t budge. After an orbit or so of him doing this, we finally convinced the floor man to kick him off the table, as we didn’t want him to lose the $3,000 he had on the table as a result of him being too drunk to know what was going on. That was one of the dumbest and most entertaining things I’ve ever witnessed at a poker table. ♠

Leif Force is a professional poker player who loves mangos, dancing, and disc golf. He won his first WSOP bracelet in 2012 in the heads-up no-limit hold’em/pot-limit Omaha event for $207,000. Force has more than $2.5 million in career tournament cashes.

Isaac Baron recently captured third place for $1.2 million at the European Poker Tour Season 10 PokerStars Caribbean Adventure main event. In 2010, he won the PokerStars.com EPT Grand Final. Baron has combined online and live cashes of more than $4.3 million.

Brian Hastings is a 26-year-old professional poker player residing in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. He is an instructor for CardRunners.com, a member of Team ShareMyPair, and a self-confessed daily fantasy sports addict. Follow him on Twitter @brianchastings

Steve Tripp has more than $2.4 million in career and online tournament cashes. In 2013, he won the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure $2,000 No Limit Turbo event for $133,000. Online, he is known as Betrthanphil.