fundoopoker.com

Today I played a hand which made me ask this question. A bloke min-raised from BU with KK. I called from BB with Ac Jc. I flopped top pair with a J on a disconnected flop. I check, BU bets 1/2 pot, I call. Turn is a A. I check, BU bets 1/2 pot again, I raise him 3x, he shoves, I call. The river is a rag of no help to either. On getting beat, the opponent fires off a list of his choicest adjectives, followed by reasons why I should not have played AJ, how he was ahead, my odds/value/blah blah.

Did I get lucky? In a way, you can say yes because of the statistical probability of me winning based on preflop and flop stats (I'm not counting pot odds/value/equity/etc. Purely probability of AJ beating KK).
Did my opp play the hand correctly? Definitely NO!
Do the figures that opp was throwing after losing of any importance? No. These were what I was referring to as justifications.

Most poker players, after getting a bad beat or just getting drawn out on get mad at times, and start spitting these figures out. Quite often, these are true, but quite often, these are justifications of bad play. In the corporate world, typically it's the engineers who are number crunchers, and the MBAs who are responsible for managing other aspects of the project/product/etc. We, as poker players, need to fulfil both roles, and when we do so well, we end up rationalising our decisions using both, the numbers and the overall assessment of player profiles, table texture, etc. Looking at only one aspect tends to give a relatively skewed picture, and as a result, non-optimal decision making. I suspect most of us have been guilty of justifying our wrong moves (including yours truly), and I guess this is part of the learning process. But the moment we feel the need to justify, we need to stop ourselves and re-assess our own game to identify possible leaks. Personally, I have found this method to help prevent me from going on tilt, and it also helps me in identifying if I lost due to bad play or bad luck. If it's bad play, I got my work cut out for me, and by identifying a possible leak, the hand has actually helped me and not harmed me. If it's bad luck, well, so be it. It happens, and honestly, such opponents who win on luck are exactly what serious poker players want, isn't it?

On the Poker Godfather front, been having a few quiet days. For some reason, I always start the day by losing a couple of buyins. Usually these are due to getting outdrawn, though a couple of hands were badly played. Instead of being able to follow my tourney strategy I mentioned in my last post, I end up playing to recover! For the last 3 days, I have been able to finish with a net profit of about 15 euros per day. Not grand, but considering I was down half my BR on all 3 days, I can't complain about it! Of course, due to the down and up, I had to stay away from the tourneys. itching to get back to them and hope the next couple of days allows me to do that!

One hand that tempted me to begin the process of justifications:

I am BU with Ac Qs. CO limps in, I raise to 4.5x, SB folds, BB calls and CO calls. Flop is 4c 3c 6d. BB and CO check, I bet pot size. BB min-raises it, CO folds, I shove. BB calls and shows pocket 6s, for a flopped set. I was drawing for a miracle turn and river to complete my flush, without pairing the board. With a 5h and 8s, the board was no help to me and the opponent takes the pot. Before I started the process of "how can you call pocket 6s? What luck flopping the set! Blah blah" I left the table and took a break. Anyone reading this will easily identify this as bad play on my part, and I agree. Having been playing with the villain for a while, he was completely passive. Even a min-raise from him should have set off alarm bells. But I insisted on continuing. Mistake I paid for with 1 buyin! However, having identified the problem, it was easier for me to get back playing with a positive frame of mind, and go on to recover my losses.

Rationalise so that you don't lose money, justify when you have!

Cheers and good luck at the tables!