Feeling bad about a good pot

Ever have one of those hands where you drag a big pot, but you feel bad doing so? I just had one yesterday.

But first, yesterday was one of those horrendous days at the tables where nothing seems to go right. I was losing, and losing big, no matter what I played or where I played. A lot of people will say that's just the way the cards fall sometimes, but I think that kind of thinking is for suckers, and I would rather take personal responsibility for my bad play. If I were to just ascribe my misfortune to the whims of fate, then I would have no incentive to become a better player. Yes, luck does play a role and sometimes the cards run cold. But I believe the mark of a good player is the ability to minimize luck, so that losing sessions are small and winning sessions are large, and yesterday I was not a very good player. I have my share of bad beat stories I could share, but I choose not to be a victim, wallowing at the injustice of my fortune. I know full well that the day would not been nearly as bad if I hadn't been so loose with my starting hands, if I had given up losers sooner and if I had given potential winners the chance to develop. Hopefully, yesterday will be a lesson that will steer me back on the correct path.

Anyway, I had been taking the worst of it playing 5/10 and 3/6 limit yesterday, losing about $600. My bankroll took such a hit that I could no longer afford to play at those levels, and I headed down to the .25/.50 no-limit tables. As an aside, when it comes to playing the micro-limit games, you better play no-limit. If you're going to play the limit tables at that level, you might as well head for the slot machines, because every hand will have at least six players staying until the very end.

Anyway, I'm playing the .25/.50 NL game and absolutely punishing the players there. I'm playing like my old self, minimizing losses and maximizing profits, and I'm up $13 at a table where the maximum you can bring is $25. Things are feeling good when the following hand comes up. I'm dealt K10s in the big blind and call a minimum raise.

The flop is an AAK rainbow and I'm quite understandably concerned about the A being out there, or at the very least that there's another K that has me outkicked. There are three of us in the pot, with me acting first, and I check. The next guy checks and the button, who raised preflop, makes the minimum bet. I can't put much of a read on this bet, because it seems too small to be the A, but anyone with the A would want to build the pot some and not scare anyone off. I decide to call and see what happens. The guy behind me also calls.

The turn is a small club, putting two clubs on the board. Again I check, the next guy checks and the button bets the minimum once again. This screams weakness to me, but I'm feeling pretty weak myself. I put him on a K or maybe a draw of some sort and call. The other guy just calls as well. Now my concern is starting to shift toward the other guy. I'm starting to feel like he might be slow-playing the set.

The river brings the Kc, and I've got the low full house. I'm honestly ambivalent about this card, because it has given me a hand that might be good enough to win, but is also just good enough for me to lose a lot more with. Again, i check, but instead of checking, the next guy pushes all-in, nearly $20. The button folds and now it's up to me, and I'm an utter mess. I am honestly puzzled about how to interpret this. One, it could be that he also has a K, but I figure that to be the least likely scenario. Two, it could be that he has slow-played the A this whole time, but then again, this bet makes no sense in that context. If he had been slow-playing, he would either have checked to try to get another bet out of the button and another call from me before raising, or he would have bet a smaller amount in order to get a call from anyone holding a K. It could be that he sensed weakness from me and the button and was making an outright bluff, but I didn't place too much credence in that. I was starting to lean toward believing he did have the A, when I looked at the board again and saw that the river had put three clubs on the board. Did this guy actually move all-in with a flush when there were two pair on the board? Surely not.

I cannot tell you why I called this bet. Everything about this bet screamed that it did not want a call, but my hand also screamed that it did not want to call. I was ready to automatically fold as soon as I saw the size of the bet, but I hesitated and considered the possibilities and still wanted to fold, but I called anyway.

The guy turns over his flush. I scoop the pot with my sucker's boat.

I left shortly after that hand and spent about the next 15 minutes in total awe of the sheer stupidity he displayed in moving all-in with a flush, when there were two pair on the board. But later, I started feeling like I exhibited the same level of stupidity in making that call. Sure, I had won the pot, but I felt like I had lost by making that call. I had invested a total of $1.25 in the pot, so it wasn't like I was committed to it. And calling $20 to win $25 is exactly proper pot odds when you're holding the bottom end of a boat.

Anyway, I'm hoping somebody will eventually read this blog and offer their ideas on this hand. I don't really feel justified in making that call, but maybe I'm being a wimp. It did feel good to grow a pair and not have them slap me in the face, kind of like Stu Ungar's famous "I have Q high and I will call" hand, but I just can't get over feeling I got the right result from making the wrong decision. And to get where I want to be in the long run, I need to do a better job of making good decisions.

Introduction

I suppose now is as good a time to start this as any. The big turkey day is over, so I have a little extra time now, plus I am really steamed over a horrific beating I've taken the past couple of days. I can't really lose any money while I'm writing.

Getting started is a little difficult. After all, I'm just your Average Joe poker player who got inspired to play watching Rounders and the World Poker Tour. And, I suppose like everybody else, I have dreams of one day making it big with my card playing skills. Of course, days like today make me wonder what skill I really do have.

First, a little about me. I'm a 35-year-old media professional in Kentucky. I'm married (12 years now) and have two rambunctious boys, ages 6 and 10. And, I like to play poker.

I've been playing seriously for about 18 months now. Before that, I had only played like most people -- every now and then. But in mid-2003, the bug hit me real hard. That was about the time I first watched WPT on the Travel Channel. Now, a lot of people, obviously, have enjoyed that show or the WSOP on ESPN, or any of the other shows that now blanket the airwaves. But I really got caught up in it. I enjoyed the drama that came with each card on the board. I liked getting to know the personalities and hearing some of the old stories. In short, I enjoyed every aspect of the game.

But there was something else, as well, that just sort of clicked for me, something that told me that maybe I could play the game. Again, a lot of people have obviously felt that way, given the explosion in poker the past couple of years, but something about poker just felt right for me. I suppose it's just my disposition. I am mathematically inclined, plus I'm an extremely competitive person. All in all, poker just felt right to me, like it was something that just fit my nature.

So, I decided to give online poker a try. I spent a couple of weeks at the play money tables and then plopped down $20 to give it a whirl, already making plans for how I was going to spend the thousands, probably millions, of dollars I was going to win with that $20.

It lasted maybe 10 minutes. I don't think I made it a full orbit before my $20 was in somebody else's bankroll, but it was my first lesson and it didn't cost too much.

The next time I decided to make a deposit, I did pretty well and ran my $20 to somewhere around $300 over the course of an evening. This was more like it! I was obviously the victim of some sort of fluke the first time, but now I was going to make start pulling in some serious dough.

... right ...

The smartest thing I did after that rush was cash most of it out and take my family on a little weekend getaway to Cincinnati. The rest just flew away. And, for the next six months, so did everything else I deposited. I made a plan of just depositing $20 on payday, or maybe $40 or $60 if I felt I could spare it. If I was lucky, it would last me almost until the next payday, so that I could continue playing.

Note: I know talking about risking, at most, $60 isn't exactly breathtaking, but that's the way it is when you're raising a family.

Early in Jan. 2004, after I had taken a break from poker during the holidays, I decided to give it another go, this time depositing a whopping $40. Now, however, I had more experience, had read a few books about poker and had the benefit of a couple of good friends who were just as addicted to poker I could bounce ideas off of. Within a month, that $40 had grown to over $1,000, and I was feeling really good about my game. I made $600 more the next month and things were looking good. But then I had a setback the next month and by May, my bankroll had been cut in half.

Then, on Mother's Day weekend, after taking even more beats, I entered a $30 multi-table tournament on a whim and ended up winning the thing to make over $1,300. That was a huge rush, but it was probably the worst thing to happen to my game. Afterwards, I would sit at a table and lose $100 and think, "Who cares? I just won $1,300!" Well, I cashed out some of that and lost a bunch more before I finally settled again. I started making money again and eventually built my bankroll to over $2,000. Pretty good for a $40 investment.

But, alas, it wasn't meant to last. I took a couple of bad beats playing $5/10 one night, went on the worst tilt of my life and pissed away $900 in a single evening. After that, I went into panic mode and, over the next few weeks, I ended up losing everything. Well, not entirely everything. I had, after all, managed to cash out around $750, which is still pretty good for a $40 investment, but that's little consolation when your hard-earned bankroll has disappeared, and you have no one to blame but yourself.

Since then, it's been more of the same. I start doing really well, then I crash and burn. I can't seem to isolate the cause, other than when I start winning, I get more confident, which helps my game. Then when I start doing even better, I get cocky and and make stupid decisions, thinking I'm invincible. Then when I pay the price for that, I panic and try too hard to win.

Well, I think that is enough of an introduction for now. I know it's a pretty dry and dull history, but I figured I would have to put it in there at some point, so I might as well get it over with. I could have gone into far more detail, but that would have just been abusive. In summary, this has been a positive poker year for me. I actually have gambling earnings to report on my taxes this year!

But one last point: I consider myself an apprentice poker player with ambitions. And, as it says in the subtitle, I have given myself five years to graduate from my apprenticeship. For me, this means that I would like to be able to make my living solely from playing poker. I know this is a tall order, but I think I can make it happen if I am dedicated to studying the game and improving my play. For the sake of convenience, I am starting my countdown on Jan. 1, 2005, meaning I hope to be a professional poker player by Jan. 1, 2010. By that, I don't mean to imply that I could be another Brunson, Hellmuth, Lederer or Negreanu by that point. I simply would like to be able to earn my living from cards by that point, which, for me, would be a minimum of $75,000 a year. That will have to mean a huge improvement over my current year take of around $1,500, but everybody has to start somewhere.

If this introduction hasn't been too boring, I hope you'll check in from time to time to see how I'm doing. Along the way, we'll share stories and news from the world of poker, and maybe we can learn some things from each other.

Until next time, keep making good decisions at the tables ...

Pre-introduction

This is a really bad time for me to be starting a blog, but the urge came over me to go ahead and get it set up. Work is brutal this week, with the holiday and everything, so I don't expect to be able to get started at this seriously for a couple of days yet. This is merely a note to let anyone who happens to stumble across it know that there will be something on here soon.