Own Your Poker Mistakes – Prologue
We were in the payout range of one of the World Championship of Online Poker events with a buy-in of $215. The blinds were 1,500-3,000, and the table folded to the button, who opened to raise to 6,000. I was sure he had a very wide range when he made this play, and with only 82,000 chips left in his stack, I thought I could put some pressure on him with a small reraise – the first of my mistakes started here.
With some overconfidence in my hand, a T2o, I reraised to 15,000. The big blind folded and the button quickly called. This was obviously not what I wanted, but there was still hope. At least he hadn't shoved all-in, and the quick call suggested he hadn't even thought about it, so I didn't put him on a very strong hand.
The flop came :Ks :7s :2c , with more hope for my hand. I bet 16,000 into a pot of 36,000. To be honest, I didn't have much of an idea of what I was going to do next, I just knew that betting was better than checking and that I would figure it out later.
My opponent raised to 36,000, a small raise relative to the size of the pot, although it was half his stack. We were playing a game of tag. I knew he had started with a medium hand, and I knew he knew the same was true of my hand. Whoever blinked first got caught! Besides, if he had a king, wouldn't he just want to call if he thought I was bluffing?
I put him all-in only to get an instant call from K5o. I couldn't recover, and I felt defeated, as if I had been outplayed by an opponent who was always one step ahead of me. I was right about his hand being weak early in the game, but wrong in thinking he would fold to my reraise. He cleverly baited me into the bluff by playing a king in a way I wouldn't have expected.
“Sixth Street”
Your goal at the poker table should always be to make the most profitable decision possible at any given moment. This applies to more than just decisions about how you play your cards, but also to what goes on inside your head and what you allow to come out of your mouth. Tommy Angelo called this post-hand dynamic “sixth street.”
Many times in live games, I've seen players, usually already red-faced with anger, start to want to explain their mistakes after they've made them. I usually see three variations of this type of behavior, and they're all problematic.
The first is self-flagellation. It’s harmful enough to beat yourself up over your mistakes in your head. Your mind needs to focus more on how to play the two cards in front of you, not on how you wish you had played the previous hand.
Worse still, many players decide to put on a show and do it in a loud voice, as if to tell their opponents: “I know I made a mistake. I don’t normally play like that. Seriously, I’m a good player, don’t judge me based on this hand alone.”
Sometimes this comes in the form of a reprimand to his opponent. In these situations, the player who made the mistake will explain why his bad play was actually masterful, and that it is his opponent’s fault for playing stupidly poorly. The message he wants to convey to the rest of the table is the same: “Don’t think badly of my play.”
Finally, there may be a straightforward excuse. He, again, wants to make sure that you don't think he's a bad player just because of what you've just seen. He feels the need to explain his logic in detail so that you can see that there was actually a brilliant strategy behind his bad bluff and the mistakes he made.
Adapt to thrive
The central problem with all of these behaviors is that you shouldn't care what your opponents think of your play. In fact, you should want them to think you play badly.
When you deviate from a pattern of good plays and make a very bad one, your opponents will have misinformation about your game and what to expect from you in the future. You have probably paid a high price compared to the value of misleading them. However, the price has already been paid, and all you have to do is make the most of the situation.
Instead of ruining this positive by trying to correct your mistakes and give your opponents more accurate information about your game, use your energy to think about how what just happened will affect your table image going forward. This also has the added benefit of reducing tilt by giving your mind something to think about instead of wishing you had played differently.
There is a school of thought that says that a player who has been caught out on a bad bluff is less likely to bluff again, and the same goes for a bad call. In reality, it is a guessing game to try to predict how someone will change their play based on the outcome of a hand. I usually find, however, that I make better guesses when the player in question is kind enough to tell me what the thought process was that led them to play that way, as well as their thoughts now that they can think about the hand more calmly.
There are a few adjustments to make beyond the obvious ones. For example, if you show a hand with a bad call and don’t expect big bluffs from your opponents in the future, you may end up making correct folds at key moments, but you may also start calling more liberally on early streets with hands that can’t hold up. You can either show your hand cheaply or confidently fold if your opponent keeps betting, without fearing that you’ve been bluffed.
If you were caught in a bluff, in addition to not bluffing for a while, you may want to value bet more often, ideally in a way that mimics the bluff you showed.
Epilogue
At blind levels 2,000-4,000, the same player opened from UTG to 8,000. I was next to act and shoved 50,000 with pocket jacks. He called with A6o and doubled me up.
Then at levels 2,500-5,000 he opened for 10,000 from the small blind. I was in the BB with 66 and I put him all-in for a total of 80,000. He called with A3o and almost doubled me up again.
In the end, both calls made me more money than I had lost on the initial bluff. Of course, I was somewhat lucky to have been able to play this way, and I won't even try to argue that this bluff was actually a smart investment in my image, it wasn't. I was glad, however, that I didn't publicly express my regret for risking so many chips on such a bad hand, and that I decided to keep my decision not to do it again private, since it clearly had some influence on my opponent's future actions.
Article translated and adapted from the original: Poker Strategy With Andrew Brokos: Own Your Bad Play
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