Monday, March 26, 2012

How to Lose With a Set of Aces

My first thought was to name this post, “I am the worst poker player ever,” because that’s what I feel like right now.  But it’s arguably possible that my incredible stupidity may have actually saved me some money.  I don’t know.  I’ll let you decide.

I know I’ve picked up some new readers thanks to Poker Grump’s linking to my post about the importance of protecting your hand.  His post is here and my post about this topic should be directly below this one, or you can find it here. Thanks, Mr. Grump, for the link.  That said, after you read how I butchered this hand today, you may never read my blog again, and may be tempted to remove your link.
So, for those new readers who may not be aware, I have played almost exclusively low limit (2/4, 3/6, 4/8) Hold ‘Em until very recently.  Now I am trying to learn how to play no limit, with mixed results (stories about this all over this blog).  But I swear I know better than to play a hand like I did just now.  Honest.
Playing 1/2 No Limit, I bought in for $200 and was down to about $130.  I was totally card dead, except for one oddity.  I kept getting pocket Aces.  Aside from them, I had pretty much nothing.  And the Aces never paid off.  I saw a flop with them only once.  Raised twice, once no call, once folded on my continuation bet.  I 3-bet them once, the lady who raised asked me, when she folded to my re-raise (pre-flop), “How big was your pocket pair, mine was under 10”.
So my image was rather tight, to say the least.  At one point I was able to loosen up and I did raise pre-flop with J8 offsuit and won on a continuation bet.  But opportunities to do that again disappeared when a guy started making big pre-flop raises every hand….just before he took off, as it turned out.  This hand happened a few minutes after he left, and featured the guy who took his place.
For the fourth time in less than 90 minutes, I looked down at AA, this time in early position.  I raised to $12, a reasonable raise for the table.  A brand new player on the button called.  He had only played a few hands prior and couldn’t have known about my tight image, keep that in mind.  He seemed to know the dealers so he may have been a regular in this room.  Big Blind also called.  He was a pretty bad player from my observation, had called down with very weak holdings, and I wasn’t at all worried about him.
Flop is A-10-3, two diamonds.  Yes, the diamonds should have set off alarm bells for me.  So should the A-10 for the straight draw.  But dammit, I hadn’t won much with my Aces three times before, and now I not only saw a flop with them but hit my top set, I was gonna win some money here, come hell or high water.
BB checked, I checked and button bet $5.  Yeah, a whole $5.  Into a pot of over $30. That was a very strange bet, which the BB called and it gave me a chance to make up for my error of checking.  I could spring a nice check-raise here and take down the pot before a diamond or another straight card hit.  Did I do that?  No.  Why?  Because I’m an idiot, that would be my guess.
I just called.  When a Jack hit on the turn, I got scared.  Scared enough to make a big bet?  No.  I was still greedy and stupid.  I figured this was my chance for the check-raise, so I checked after BB also had checked.  But the button fooled me by checking too!  Boy did I feel stupid.
I didn’t feel any smarter when the river was a Queen.  Neither the Jack nor the Queen was a diamond, but anyone holding a King had Broadway (Ace-high straight).  People don’t like keeping Kings in Hold ‘Em do they?  No, not at all.
If you think I can’t get any stupider, wait.  BB now leads out with a $20 bet.  For no logical reason that I can think of now—or then, either, for that matter—I call!  Button counts out a lot of chips and puts in $80.  That is more than BB has so BB calls all-in.  Now, I wasn’t quite stupid enough to call that bet, not with two people betting and only one of them needing a King to beat my set, so finally, finally, I folded without losing any more.
BB had King-rag (not diamonds) and played it really stupid but was rewarded with half the pot.  Button showed not one King but two!  Wow.  I was so mad at myself I knew I would never recover fast enough mentally to have a chance of doing well at this table.  I got up and left before I could do any more damage to my psyche or my bankroll.
I was beating myself all kinds of ways as I walked around and cashed out.  But then I started thinking more and more about the guy on the button, the new player.  Very interesting, I thought, that he didn’t 3 bet me with his pocket Kings, wasn’t it?  Most players would.  And I repeat, he had only seen me 3 or 4 hands at most, and didn’t know me from Adam until 10 minutes ago, so he couldn’t know I was a really tight player (he also didn’t see me raise pre-flop with J8 off, but then nobody did, since I didn’t have to show).  So I found that interesting.
Made me wonder how he would have reacted if I bet out on the flop as I should have.  Would he have called with his cowboys?  With an Ace on the board.  With me having raised in early position pre-flop?  I’ll never know, but I think he might have.  He might have put me on a lower pocket pair (or just high cards) and thought I was just making a continuation bet.  I have no evaluation of his play but his call pre-flop with those Kings smells of a trap, and he might have been willing to call a flop bet, even with the Ace on there.  So I am trying to comfort myself—just a little—with the thought that I might have lost more money if I played it smarter.
Even if that’s true—and it probably isn’t—believe me, I know, I know, I know I played it or horrifically, and will really try to learn from it.  So I’m not taking any lessons from this except a lesson in what not to do.
Anybody think he would have called a pot-sized bet on the flop?  Anybody?

24 comments:

  1. No. My experience with players who don't raise or reraise preflop with KK is that they are positively terrified of an ace on the flop. They know it's coming, and that it will beat them when it does, which is why they don't want to get much money in pre. If you had bet that flop, he would have sighed, showed his kings to his neighbor as he folded, and maybe said something about them being ace magnets.

    But losing with a flopped set of aces reminds me of the most painful ten minutes of poker I ever played. Hell, maybe the most painful ten minutes of poker ANYBODY has ever played:

    http://pokergrump.blogspot.com/2007/08/irony-poker-story-in-4-parts-non-grumpy.html

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    1. Thanks for the feedback, Grump. I'll take the link you left as bedtime reading.

      And while you're almost definitely right about the KK guy, the other player was so bad that I think he might have called me on the flop, and then the turn (with his gutshot). I had him covered, so it wouldn't have cost me my entire stack, but based on what I saw of his play (and the fact that he called my preflop raise with such crap), I'm not sure I could have ever made him go away.

      Still....lesson learned...I HOPE.

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    2. That was some bit of bad luck in that post of yours, Mr. Grump. Wow, losing twice with a flopped set of Aces to a straight and a flush. Yikes. How do you keep playing poker after that?

      Reminds me when I was a mere babe in the woods, pokerwise, one of my first sessions was the very first time I played in the BSC many years ago. Very first hand I ever played there, I get Aces, remember to raise, get a bunch of callers cuz it's 2/4. Bet on the flop and turn and still have one caller, who hits a flush on the river! Grrrr.

      But what will be more interesting to you is that tonite for the first time ever I won with "the Grump", the mighty Deuce Four. Limped with it suited, called a small preflop raise, flopped Ace-3 (not my suit), called a fairly small bet and then turned a 5 for the wheel. River was inconsequential. Not a big pot, but does show the power of the Deuce-Four.

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  2. I think that the important thing is to learn from the hand. You definitely want to make people pay to draw, and a lot of players who see you raise preflop and then check the ace on the flop will probably feel that you are trying to trap them anyway, so you might as well charge them to draw. You have to keep in mind that saying that aces are good for winning small pots and losing big ones, and remember that they are nothing more than just the best STARTING hand. Good luck at the tables!

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    1. Thanks for commenting....the best thing I could learn is never to play poker again, but I'm way too dumb for that. But hopefully I won't do anything quite this stupid again.

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  3. In your last post you mentioned protecting your hand. Also protect your sets sir. Betting and raising are not banned.

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    1. Yeah, rub it in. I know....I know. Even as I was doing it, I knew it was wrong. But I did it anyway. I have no excuse. I wasn't even being distracted by cleavage.

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  4. I managed to lose with quad threes one night at the Plaza. Call me when you top that :)

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    1. Duck, I sure hope they had a badbeat jackpot there.

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    2. They did! It was $25. And I only lost $150 on the hand :)

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    3. Why bother with a bad beat jackpot that small? Sorry for your pain. But if you have quads and get beat you really "should" lose all the money in front of you.

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  5. Yeah you blew that one big time.. I think you have to call the 20 maybe.. because nobody seemed to want the pot at all... and the fold to the 80 was smart too...

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    1. Thanks Waffles. I dunno about the $20 call, but that if it was wrong, it was one of the least wrong things I did with that hand. Ugh.

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  6. I love your blog and think you are a great poker player. Thanks for the well written and entertaining posts.

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    1. Thanks. I appreciate the compliments on the blog but no one who knows anything about poker would call me a "great poker player." But I'm usually not as bad a player as I was for this hand. But I suppose it was worth it for the blog post.

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  7. He prob folds flop but he deff folds I your turn bet because you are also betting turn right? Right? Right!

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    1. Vook, if I bet the flop and have any callers, I shove on the turn. But both players have gutshots by then, so would they fold?

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  8. As has been mentioned, the important part is learning from mistakes. We can't ask for much more unless we are perfect.

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    1. Yeah. So tonite I had pocket 9's, flopped a set, but there were two diamonds on the board. I led out $15--about the size of the pot. Got re-raised to $50. I made it $150 and the guy tanked and then folded. So I guess I am capable of learning.

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  9. vook ive never seen u with a google account, did u just open it?

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    1. nah.. it's old. I think i finally just added a photo to it so you noticed. I really want to take the time to actually take a solo pic of myself. Can get a nice one since I wear a suit almost every day but i'm in no hurry as it might shatter my degen image.

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    2. Vook,I won't repeat it but there was a discussion about soccer last night at the 1/2 game that you would NOT have appreciated, and though I didn't defend the sport, I did think of you.

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    3. ha... I might've agreed with some of the conversation.

      I actually prefer watching American football (Go Hokies and Go Redskins!) However, despite playing both sports in high school I love playing soccer so much more. And if it was a discussion of how boring it is I ask the dejectors to go watch an indoor soccer game (that's what I play).

      regardless I think it has more to do with what you grew up watching.

      PS. If I was there I would've quietly taken all of their money and then stood up and shouted "GOAL!!!!!!!!!" when I racked up!!

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    4. That would have been a great reaction. But they were making some rather judgmental and bigoted comments about the type of guys who play the game, which is clearly inaccurate. I'm sure they were just kidding around.

      BTW, I find it tough to watch myself, but I'm sure it would be fun to play.

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