Feb 15 2010
Shoulda, Coulda, Woulda
Lately I’ve been playing pretty tight at the tables. I’ve hit a pretty bad run of cards and if I’m being honest with myself have begun to play a bit scared. Never a good feeling. I try not to watch hands where I’ve already folded but I simply cannot do it. I watch every hand and find myself (more often than not) saying “Man, I wish I would have stayed in for one more street.” Here are just a couple of examples from a recent game:
Hand #1
The under the gun player folds and the next player raises to $400 early in the tournament. I look down and see a nice looking King Ten suited and think for quite a while before throwing my hand away. I figure that against an early position raiser I’m most certainly behind – potentially crippled. Of course, the flop comes out with three clubs including the Ace. I could only sit and watch as the pot was pushed to someone else after I’d laid down my nut flush pre flop.
Hand #2
The second time I had the deal I look down and see those beautiful bullets. It’s music to my ears when the under the gun player raises. It’s folded around to me and I make a decent size raise which he calls. At this point I put him on a middle pair or AK.
AA on button, raise, called by one player. The flop comes 224 and he moves all in. I fold. This is a pathetic play and I realize it even before he turns over QQ. Playing scared sucks.
I’m happy to say that the next time I sat down at the table I did NOT play nearly this scared. It’s very important to look at your game objectively. Gotta plug those leaks whenever you can!
See you after the flop.
Talk about a beautiful flop for a pair of tens. I put in a standard continuation bet hoping he’s got something like A9 and was just calling on the button with position.
That card potentially made a straight but it’s highly unlikely that he was playing 58 to a raise (even with position). I make another bet and he raises. I think for a minute and then call. I’m scared that maybe he’s got a set but it still feels like an unpaired ace.
I’ve got an overpair to the board with my pair of tens and I was raised on the turn. This card actually scared me a bit cause after getting raised on the turn I started thinking about a possibility of being up against a set and he very likely would have called my pre flop raise with a small pair like threes. Even with that thought going through my head, I figure that the 3 on the river didn’t help him so if I was beat before I’m still beat and if I was ahead before I’m a winner. The raise on the turn really scared me so I decided to check and see if I couldn’t win at showdown or call a smallish bet on the end. He made a small enough bet that I was getting pot odds to call and he rolled over pocket aces to take a nice size pot.