Sports Articles Johnson

There is more to poker than results

So, let me start this column off by telling you this bad beat story…Just kidding. We hate those, so I won’t waste your time. But that’s my point. Every poker player has them. They may be about some donkey who made a bad play and got rewarded or it could be how you got really unlucky. I think dwelling on them is counterproductive. All you can control is getting your money in with the best hand. If you do so and end up losing, well then, so be it.

If you get your money all in with Aces pre-flop and lose to pocket 7’s, well, you were a big favorite, so get over it. Just because you lose the hand, you shouldn’t assume you did something wrong, you need to intelligently assess how you played the hand and if your logic was sound. You can not get lose in strictly a results oriented way of thinking about poker. You can’t control whether you win, so don’t worry about that.

Lets look at a more interesting no-limit holdem hand. You have two Jacks and open for a raise. Only the big blind calls. The flop comes 8-5-3 with two clubs, and your opponent checks. You make a bet of ¾ the size of the pot, and your opponent calls. By the turn, there is $8,000 in the pot and you have $4,500 in your stack. The turn is an offsuit 8 and your opponent checks. You bet $600 and Your opponent goes all in. Should you call?

Lets say that you call, and your opponent has the As 9s. If he hits an ace or a spade on the river, does that mean you made a bad call? Of course not; thats exactly the same situation as the guy who thought he played his queens badly after he took a bad beat with them. But guess what? Just because your opponent had the A 9 in his hand doesn mean you played your hand well.

Your opponents holecards are another result, just like the river card is a result. To illustrate this point with an extreme example, lets say that your opponent misread his hand, and thought he had two aces. Would you still be congratulating yourself for having called him with the two queens? The fact is, if you read an opponent for a specific hand, and you happen to be right, that doesn prove your read was correct. Your opponent happened to have a flush draw, but would he always have a flush draw when you read him for one? Would he have one about 70 percent of the time? Maybe he would have a flush draw only 10 percent of the time, and this just turned out to be one of those times. Sorry, but if your opponent turns over the A 9, that doesn prove that you made a good call. To think so would be another case of results-oriented thinking.

So before you go and tell a bad beat story, keep this article in mind ok? It may even help you handle it better the next time you get sucked out on.

Until next time, may the chips fall your way


by Johnson