Decisions

     The pleasure is to play,
     Makes no difference what you say,
     I don't share your greed,
     The only card I need is the Ace of Spades      Motorhead


 It's often been said that the way to win at poker is to make correct decisions. Every time that you play you are exposed to the element of chance and even the best hand can get busted. But if you consistently make good decisions then you will come out ahead in the long run. A good player makes money off the mistakes of others. So the goal in any game is to be the player who makes the fewest mistakes. I've been aware of this principal for a long time but I played in a hand recently that really got me thinking about  how correct some of my decisions are. It's important to remember that the most useful question to ask yourself after a hand, win or lose, is 'did I make the right decision?' Of course we are far more likely to ask ourselves this question after a losing hand rather than a winning one, which is why I've recently been thinking about this whole issue.
   The hand in question has led me to think about some of the other hands I've been involved in recently. So what follows is my analysis of some big hands that had a major influence on my progress in particular games.

   First up comes a hand I played a couple of weeks ago in my regular Friday night live tournament. This was actually the very first hand of the tournament. There were a couple of players limping in, as per usual and I had A T. I put in my standard 3xBB raise and got two callers. This was pretty much standard play for this tournament. People don't fold much. I have to say it was a dream flop for me. Laid out on the table was (something like) T 7 4, giving me top pair, top kicker. Player one checked to me and, after doing a quick assessment of the size of the pot, I put in a decent sized bet, around 2/3 of the pot. Player two called and player one folded. At this point I figured player two (B) had hit a piece of the flop or had a flush draw, as there were two suited cards out there. The turn was an Ace.  Now I had top two pair;  a very nice hand. I was first to act, so I put in another bet, about 1/2 the value of the pot. B then pushed all-in. After a brief pause, I called.

 It's not unusual for this particular player to push all-in in the face of a raise. I've seen him do it a number of times, although I haven't seen what cards he was playing very often. I have the impression that he usually does it with a reasonably strong hand. Initially I thought he'd called my flop bet with a flush draw, but the possible flush didn't come on the turn, so that now seemed unlikely. So I figured he must have something like A 7 or A 4, maybe even A T. To be fair, my call was more gut feeling

than in-depth analysis. It just felt like I had the best hand.
   I turned over my cards and B showed A 2. I was somewhat surprised. The river made no difference to B's hand (nothing could have) and I doubled my stack in the first hand of the tournament. Looking at it from B's perspective, he could have thought I was betting on the Ten and his Ace was good, except for one thing. He's played with me enough to know that I routinely raise with big hands pre-flop. So, if I had a Ten, what was my other card? A T and T T were both very bad for him. Was I raising with K T? I don't think so. So it was his mistake and a good call from me. But even if the turn and river had been 2 2 or 3 5 it would still have been a good call.

   Next comes a hand that I played a few hours later, in fact my last hand of the same tournament. With just six players at the table, the player to my right, who had more chips than me, pushed all-in. I was looking at A A, so I called. The other player turned over J J, which means that I was an 80% favourite to win and become the monster stack at the table. A Jack came on the flop, giving my opponent trips. No Ace came on later streets so I was eliminated. On the face of it this call was an absolute no-brainer and it was just bad luck that the other hand improved. However, I've left out a few important details that make this situation a little trickier than it might otherwise seem.

   This was the final table and I was on the bubble: the top five were in the money and there were six players left. The lowest payouts were two or three times the buy-in, but first and second prizes were significantly higher, with first being nearly twice as high as second. I had the second highest stack at the table and there were several quite small stacks there, some with as few as five or six big blinds left. So if I'd wanted to I probably could have folded my way into third or fourth place.
   I've come across discussions of situations where it makes sense to fold pocket Aces. This is usually a scenario where a big stack has Aces on the bubble and three other smaller stacks are already all-in. So the big stack is guaranteed to make the money by folding and might even jump two places up the prize ladder. But this is a bit different to the situation I found myself in. However, if the circumstances were slightly different, I could see myself folding. For instance, if this was a big money tournament, let's say one where I'd gained a seat by winning a satellite tournament, and I was on the edge of a big boost to my bankroll, I would almost certainly have folded. But this was just my weekly $20 tourney. Limping across the bubble would have got me $30. But doubling my stack would have put me in pole position to take out first place. And even before I saw those Jacks I knew I had about a 4-1 chance of doubling up.
   Of course, if I'd won that hand, I wouldn't be writing this. It was losing on the bubble that really kept bugging me and had me questioning the wisdom of my call. But after a lot of thought I came to the conclusion that it was indeed the right decision, and if the same situation arose again, I'd still do the same thing. For most of the 18 months or so that I've been playing in this tournament I've had one goal: to win. Not to come second, not to make the money, but to win first prize. If this means getting busted out early sometimes, or even getting busted on the bubble, then so be it. This strategy has served me well so far in this tournament, and there's really no reason to change. So, good call, bad luck.

   This next hand also took place in a live tournament. This was in the monthly Sunday game that I play in, where the standard of play is generally a bit better than in the Friday nighter. Once again, I had A T. I put in my standard raise and got two callers. Deja vu. The flop comes A J J, giving me two pair. It looked pretty good to me, as long as no-one had a Jack in their hand. I put in a bet of about 1/2 the pot. Player 1 then put in a raise and player 2 called. Now this was a definite problem. I'd played enough with player 1 (L) to know that she was a pretty solid player and I also knew that player 2 (M) was a notoriously passive calling station. So M could be calling with any Ace, or a small pocket pair, or could even have called with a Jack in hand. And I figured that L must have at least an Ace to have raised it. Even though most players will check or call if they hit trips on the flop, the more I thought about it, the more likely it seemed that L must have a Jack. If she had A J that would be a monster and she'd be sure to just call, so I was thinking maybe K J. So I folded.
   Of course, an Ace hit the flop, which would have given me full on Aces. I resisted the urge to moan out loud and bang my head on the table and watched the action. L bet the turn and M called. Then L bet the river and M called again. At showdown L turned over K J and then M showed...   A T! So M and I had the same hand but played it rather differently. Seeing L's K J was a good thing and a bad thing. Bad because I realised that I folded what was ultimately the winning hand. Good because I'd made a good read of L's likely hand on the flop and had make the right decision to fold. The fact that the Ace came on the turn is beside the point. Folding was the right decision at the time. So I made a good fold and missed out on a big pot, and M made a bad call with the same hand and raked in a lot of chips. That's the way it works.

   The last hand to consider was played online and was over pretty quickly. This also involved A A vs J J but with a different twist. This was in an online SitNGo tournament in the very early stages. With the blinds at 10/20 I was on the button With J J. There were five players limping in before it was my turn to act. With more than 100 in the pot I raised to 100 with the aim of narrowing down the number of callers to go up against my big pocket pair. Much to my surprise, one of the early limpers then re-raised all-in. I certainly didn't expect that. The obvious question was, if they had a better hand than mine, why hadn't they raised, rather than just limping in? It didn't make any sense to me, and it was way too early in the game for me to pick up any clues about this player's style of play.
    I know that players will sometimes put in a big raise when there are a lot of limpers in the pot in order to steal their blinds. But this almost always happens from the button or the blinds. I've never seen someone do that after first limping in from early position. I had to figure that they had some sort of hand, but what? What do you limp in with and then re-raise all-in with? A small pocket pair? A K? I also know that you sometimes come across players who limp in with monster hands like A A. But only rarely. In the end I refused to believe that someone had done something like that. So even though I had only committed a fraction of my stack and the tournament was in its early stages, I called. The raiser then showed A A and I was eliminated.
   In this case, I never should have called. A A, K K and Q Q were always a possibility and I had only about a 50/50 chance against A K, A Q or even K Q. More importantly, it was far too early in the tournament to be risking my entire stack on a mediocre hand. I definitely should have folded. Bad call, bad result.

   I've found this sort of hand analysis to be very useful. Having my Aces cracked has been  good for me in this case. Just as long as it doesn't happen too often. But why would it? As long as I can manage to make the right decisions the odds are in my favour. In the long run.