Wednesday, August 22, 2007

How NOT to play 2 pair

Caesar's $1/$3 game; was playing more like a 2/5 game (average preflop raise was $15) with a $500 max buy in. Fairly aggressive, but were still a number of limped pots.

Setup:
I had played the day before with Villain, who was an OK player, but had a tendency to misread player's hands (which is why I was able to win a big pot from him with AJ vs his A10 when 2 aces hit the flop). He had backed down to my reraise twice (I re-raised so seldom I don't think anyone called my re-raises). I know he remembered all this because he mentioned bits and pieces of these during the few hours we played on Sunday. Villain is in the BB

When no one shows any aggression off the bat, the table became very limp friendly, so I thought nothing at all of limping on the button with 45s. 5 to the flop:

A 4 5 rainbow.

SB checks
Villain bets $10
folds to me, I pop it to $40.
Fold to Villain
after a slight consideration, he pops it to $100.

I'm confused, as while he could have 23 in the limped pot, I would guess he'd want to keep me around to the turn & would call then push the turn. I take a lot of time on this, talk to him a bit, and he says "big blind special."

I call.
editorial: this is by far and away the worst thing I could have done. At this point, I have bottom two pair in a limped pot and only $43 invested. I really have only two options here: I fold and take the loss, or I push my two pair. Calling is awful because unless another 4 or 5 falls on the turn I'm going to be in the same predicament, only with more money invested. My only other option would be to not have re-raised his initial bet.

Turn: Qc
Villain announces all-in.

THIS, of course, is the problem with calling the large bet on the flop. I didn't have a plan when I called that bet; if a 4 or 5 fell on the turn, then obviously I'm good, but what about a blank? Calling that flop raise gave him the license to represent any number of hands.

What happened was that I invested one small bet in hopes of flopping big; when I flopped big but got played back at I made an incorrect decision: calling his re-raise was wrong. I ended up folding, and thus losing almost $150 on a 45s.

I wish the story ended there....

After he announced all-in, I was trying to pick up something from him; I even flipped my cards over in order to try to get something from him; I was so caught up in the adrenaline that my typically rock-solid observation skills were shot. After I folded and the pot was pushed to him, he showed me his hand:

45o.

Now, I can understand that to an extent -- if he wanted to put me on tilt a bit, then that was a perfect way to do so. Thing is, immediately after collecting that pot, he racked up his chips and left the table. As he was racking the chips I even said to him, "Dude, that was like rubbing salt into the wound, I wish you hadn't shown me what you had." He responded, almost in anger, that he had told me he got a BB special and he couldn't put me on the hand that I had.

No kidding. I played tight enough that no one would be able to put me on that type of hand (though I did play them and took down pots with them but not needing to show the hands).

Lessons learned:
1. don't call with that type of hand in that position with that flop action, as the turn will rarely bring about a "good card," as there are so few left in the deck. Some may think I should have folded after the re-raise on the flop, but I'm still of the opinion that pushing here was the right move. I bet we would have chopped the pot, and moved on.
2. always have a plan with a hand: if you're playing 64s and flop an OESD know what you're going to do or how far you're willing to go with it on the flop; if you have ATC and flop two pair have a plan of what you're going to do when you flop a draw, flop just one pair, etc etc.

Always go into a hand with a plan
. Sure, the plan can change on the fly with the cards in play and action in front of you, but you've got to have some sort of plan. And tell the consistent story.

Poorly played hand, and I still wish that dude hadn't shown me his hand -- he had no reason in the world to except to rub-in the fact that he outplayed me. And as I said, since he was leaving the table it wasn't even a tactical move on his part to tilt me: he's not going to benefit from me being on tilt after he leaves. He was, basically, being a dick. I guess you'll find that at the poker tables at times.

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