'Doc, It Hurts When I Do This'

If it isn't the oldest bad doctor joke in history, it's probably close: A guy goes to the doctor, moves his arm in a funky way, and says, "Doc, it hurts when I do this."

"Don't do that," the doctor inevitably answers.

Because many a truth is spoken in jest, this weak joke survives because it's good advice for many non-threatening medical conditions. It turns out that it offers good advice for a number of important poker situations, too.

Although most of our friends run for cover when we start telling bad-beat stories, many of us would do well to listen to our own bad-beat stories, and see if there are either any useful recurring themes over a series of stories or pearls of wisdom with an individual tale.

As an example of one of those single-tale pearls, suppose you walk away from a table (be it money or tournament) and catch yourself muttering, "King-jack, king-jack, I lose a fortune on that stupid hand, it must hate me; I can't believe the number of big pots I have lost with king-jack."

Because it's pretty clear that K-J doesn't "hate" you, we have to look for other explanations. While it's possible that you have short-term memory problems and have forgotten many nice pots you've won with K-J, let's assume your memory is fine, and that the hand has indeed cost you a fortune. Why might that be?

If you haven't been catching many cards for a while, a hand like K-J can look like two aces. After all, there are two cards in the playing zone, and given how much many players like hands such as J-10 and Q-J, you stand a decent chance of flopping top pair, top kicker if a jack comes. You even pick up a number of pots from people who play cards like K-7 suited; they play the hand hoping to flop a flush or flush draw, but find themselves unable to resist playing on when the flop comes K-10-6 rainbow … ignoring the very strong probability that their top pair is no good if they get any action.

You often scoff when you take their money with your K-J, saying to yourself, "Doesn't he know that when K-7 flops a king, it either wins a small pot or loses a big one?"

Physician, heal thyself … because you've just identified one of the main problems with your K-J hand. If a jack flops, you may be OK, although you run into big trouble against A-J and the two-pair hands (on flops like J-10-5 or J-9-7, because so many players will give J-10 and J-9 a shot).

At the most basic level, you might be able to solve your problems with K-J by employing the doctor joke. It hurts when you play K-J as often as you do, so don't do that: The hand probably isn't as strong as you think, but even more important, you probably aren't playing it ideally. So, rather than a simplistic "don't do that" approach, take some time, either by yourself or with a competent advisor, to figure out why you might be encountering trouble.

The bigger problems with K-J come up when a king flops, because your kicker trouble is so dire. In addition to getting crushed by often-played hands like A-K and K-Q (and who else is going to give you a lot of action with a king flopping? K-10 or K-9?), you can run into danger when you get what appears to be an ideal flop, K-J-8. Wow! Top two! Send the money! Well, maybe not yet. Of course, you should win nice pots against A-K and probably against K-Q, but anytime you flop two pair with two cards in the playing zone, there is a decent chance that someone has a reasonable draw against you.

In this particular example, you're quite vulnerable to Q-10 and 10-9 (the two open-end straight draws), and somewhat vulnerable to hands like A-K and K-Q, each of which need spike only one card to beat you. Because players are often unwilling to abandon "two in the playing zone" hands quickly, you probably still face danger (although quite profitable danger) from hands like A-Q, where optimists will take a card off at the single-bet level in order to spike a 10.

I call this "profitable danger" because your A-Q opponents don't spike the 10 nearly often enough to make up for the money they are throwing away, and because they will lose even more if an ace comes, as their one pair is still trailing your two.

Nonetheless, your hand is still at risk, and even more at risk with flops like A-K-J, mostly because you could be getting crushed by A-K or A-J, but also in part because the straight can be there already, or because another ace counterfeits you, or because anyone holding A-Q, K-Q, Q-J, A-10, K-10, J-10, or K-10 (as well as oddball holdings like Q-8 suited) is one card away from making the straight. You're almost forced to slow down if the fourth card to the straight comes, and as a result, even if no one has it, you won't maximize your winnings.

Your complaint about how many big pots you have lost with K-J has, in other words, put out an alert: You are probably overplaying your K-J against dangerous boards, and hence losing big pots while winning little ones.

Not every such complaint is valid, of course: How many of us have not heard someone say, "Every time I have pocket kings, an ace flops!" Obviously, this isn't true, and even when an ace does flop, it doesn't mean that K-K isn't leading anymore.

Even in this situation, though, it is possible that the complaint could alert you to a problem with your playing style. Nothing in your style will change the percentage of times that an ace will flop (although I suppose if you never raised preflop with K-K, that would mean you are seeing more flops, and hence seeing a few more aces than you would if you always raised with the hand), but your style can have a huge impact on the number of players holding aces who play.

For example, if you usually limp with K-K, in part because you like to trap people, and in part because you hate winning just the blinds with such a strong hand, you make it much easier for people who hold A-5 suited to play; you even make it easier for people who hold A-6 offsuit to limp in (they are making a mistake to do so, but in passive games, people will limp with an astonishing assortment of hands).

If you usually/always raise with your K-K, you probably would be driving out a lot of the ace-rag hands that can snap you off when an ace flops. So even here, with a complaint that can't possibly be true, you might learn something that can help your results.

Not every complaint will lead you to some hitherto undiscovered truth, and I would advise against complaining just because it can lead to wisdom: Players who whine and complain are that much closer to going on tilt, and are virtually announcing to the table that they have not been running well and can probably be pushed around.

Furthermore, you won't always be able to figure out how the matter you're complaining about is hurting you. If you didn't know, before you read my analysis, about the inherent weaknesses of K-J, you probably weren't going to be able to figure them all out. You might get some of them, because it's amazing how often we can figure out the solution once we know there is a problem, but probably not all of them. This is when you either hit the books or (much easier) approach your poker-playing friends to ask if they have any theories about why you are encountering a problem with a particular hand.

Nonetheless, if you spend some time listening to yourself, you may not only discover that you are handing valuable information over to your opponents, but you also may discover the key to unlocking the secret of an important weakness. You don't have to voice your complaints to benefit from them; indeed, voicing them can give your opponents more information than is ideal. Try keeping your oaths of despair to yourself. If you listen to what you aren't saying, you'll probably soon find that you have no need to utter that oath to anyone.