Beware the easy excuse.
Beware the easy excuse.
For some time now, I’ve been analysing my game in a way which I thought, most poker players do. I have since come to the realisation however, that they really don’t. Every time I lose a decent pot in a cash game, get knocked out of a tournament, whatever it is, I look to criticise myself first, and my opponent second. Obviously, there are spots where I’ve just been dry bummed by a monkey with a mouse at his disposal but, often, when I replay the hand from my opponent’s point of view I can usually defend their play, or at least see what I could have done to prevent the inevitable car crash that occurred.
I would guess that you’ve all read the chat abuse that you get from faceless moron’s online, and have probably overheard the whispering slander on the rail of a live game. What I’m trying to say, is don’t let that person be you. Suck it up and try and appreciate the lesson that you should have just learned. I’ll try and give you an example to show you what I mean.
I recently played in a local £10 tournament for a bit of fun after a day on the ale. Due to the incredible bender I had just taken part in, I was still compos mentus but was slightly more aggressive than usual. I must say though, it was working with dramatic effect and during the evening I picked up on a couple of things about my play that I hadn’t realised before. Anyway, to set the scene, I must say that usually I’m slightly positionally aware but in this game I was literally abusing the button. I had two or three players to my right who were continually limping in from any position between UTG and the CO. I therefore decided to continually make a decent raise pre flop and was taking the all dead money. I was occasionally getting a caller but would then always take down the pot on the flop with a decent C Bet. Now, I’m not saying that this is anything, clever, it’s actually, extremely basic strategy but after four or five of these situations I had a big chip lead due to the blind and stack sizes we were playing with and it happened yet again.
I get two limps to my right despite the fact that they probably had about 10 BB’s left each. I make it about 5/6BB’s to go with something like J5o, one calls for half his stack and the other folds. The flop comes K5x, he check’s I bet about 2/3 pot to take it down or have him call to hit and he painfully pushes for just a little more, forcing me to call I call knowing I’m behind with outs. He shows K6 off suit and I stand to lose about 15% of my stack tops. I turn the Jack and send my opponent to the rail moaning to his mates about how I got all these chips by being lucky. He had failed to notice that he should never have been in the pot in the first place, or at least shouldn’t have given me the opportunity to push him around. Yes I was lucky, but at least I knew what I was doing. He on the other hand, didn’t have the first clue where he was at any point during the hand.
So in summary, next time I suck out on you at the table there’s a reason for it remember!! In all seriousness though, rather than moan and abuse people next time you lose an important pot, I would suggest you look inwards, rather than outwards. Hopefully you’ll be surprised at what you find.
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