Thorn's Big Mistakes #1: Not Folding Postflop

"The opportunity to secure ourselves against defeat lies in our own hands, but the opportunity of defeating the enemy is provided by the enemy himself." - Sun Tzu

As a poker player, and definitely as a micro-stakes player, this quote is truth incarnate. The biggest advancement in my game won't come from all of the fancy, advanced bluffs that'll just go over the heads of most opponents at these limits anyways; what helps most is the ability to plug all of my own leaks, spot them in others, and take advantage of them.

And so, I've decided to start using this blog to catalog and analyze the big, huge leaks in my game that I've committed as a reminder to myself of what to watch out for both in myself and others.

First hand for analysis and my largest, repeat offender leak: Not folding premium preflop hands postflop.

Example hand from the week (sorry, I don't have access to my hand histories atm so it's gonna be story-telling style):

I'm playing 10NL on a loose table, full-ring NL cash game on PokerStars. I get AA in the big blind. There are 3 limpers, UTG+1, MP1, and SB. Heck no I don't want that many limpers in with me, so I make a standard raise to .60 (3x BB + 1 BB/limper), and everyone but the SB calls. Flop comes down 78J rainbow; looking at a straight drawy flop like that in a 4-way pot, I bet about 2/3 the pot to price drawers out and, with the loose way the table's been, I'd expect to get a hand like AJ, KJ, QJ, JT, Jx to call despite my obvious representation of AJ or an overpair. The pot is $3.10 at this point... and then UTG+1 suddenly shoves to make it an extra $8.20 for me to call a $12.50 pot.

I definitely should have folded, but here's where my mind gets all crazy, like it does, and tricks itself into believing it still has the best hand despite all the obvious signs. It's a fast table, so I have 30 secs to think, and all I can think of is:

"He can't have the straight. No way he limp/call/shoved T9 from UTG+1. First, he's been pretty tight preflop so T9o is NOT in his range. Not to mention, it's a weak, mostly disjointed board. Maybe he has AJ or JT. I've got pot odds of about 4:3, so I can't be off by that much. Heck, I'm probably ahead, right?" Running out of time but pleased with my analysis, I call with a second left on the timer, and mentally bitch slap myself.

I was partially right, he didn't have the straight. But he didn't have AJ or JT, either. He limp/call/shoved the far more logical 88 for bottom set. The problem there was I only thought the hand half through. Why didn't I consider the set when he limp/call/shoved on a straight drawy board? It fits the action perfectly for a set-miner on the micros when someone (me) clearly has a big hand like aces. The problem isn't that I'm not capable of the analysis (I've sometimes caught myself and laid down big pocket pairs), it's that when I see Aces or Kings and a ragged flop, I get too excited. I'm too used to winning the hand and thinking "Goddamn, I've got a premium pair. Of course I deserve to win, I'm practically invincible!" It's an emotional response now. Too bad emotional response doesn't account for the chance of the villain with a lower pocket pair getting a set, two pair, or a straight. Emotional response, paired with my concern at the time running down (I hate getting auto-folded) and my literally half-assed analysis led to my donkey call, losing me 82 big blinds that I really shouldn't have. On the other hand, I ran really, really well the rest of that session getting KK, QQ, JJ, TT, and 55 in about 60 hands (hooray!), and I ended finishing up 12 BB. If only I hadn't donked away 82 of them on that one hand!

I'm working on plugging that leak, but I've got a good way to go. It's kind of like an addiction; I know I have a problem, but I can't stop. The ironic part is that I can spot the tendency in others pretty well, but I can't always catch myself doing it. Oh well. The first step to recovery is knowing you have a problem.

Stay tuned for my next big mistake... here's hoping it's later rather than sooner (Hah, yeah right)!