No Limit is Rough

Last night I made the classic no limit huge mistake. Whenever someone talks about no limit verses limit holdem I always say I prefer limit holdem because you can't make that one huge mistake that will cost you everything. I don't really believe I have enough poker experience to play no limit holdem and be a consistent winner. However, most home games around here are no limit so that's what I play. I do believe, for the most part, I can play better then enough people at the table to not get destroyed every session and pick up some more experience. I usually try to target the guys I feel are weaker then me and play as many pots as possible with them. Which leads me to my big mistake last night.

I'm dealt J7 of diamonds in late position, maybe even on the button. I have 700 in front of me from a 290 buy-in. Lady 2 seats behind me with about a 200 stack makes it 13 to go (average size raise at this table). Guy right next to me calls the 13 with about 400 behind. I call on the button because everyone in so far are people I want to play pots against. A couple of limpers fold and the 3 of us head to the flop. Flop comes: Ad Kd 10h. Original raiser bets out 45 which is about the size of the pot. Guy next to her thinks for awhile and calls. I call too thinking my straight and diamond draws are probably both good. The turn is the 10 of diamonds. Check, check to me. This of course is where everything starts to unravel, I bet 100, slightly more then half the pot. I really believed at this point I had the best hand and wanted a call from worse hands. I also thought they were the kind of players that would make the call with 2 pair and straights after checking on the turn to me. I didn't figure they would check a flopped set or 10's full on a board which now made a lot of big hands. I think that was my first big mistake, believing they wouldn't check a full house. I wouldn't check a full house. On that board I'm trying to get as much money as I think they'll call in the pot on the turn and river. Anyway I bet 100 and the original raiser lady thinks for a long time, has the clock called on her by the other guy in the hand, and ultimately moves all-in for slightly more then my 100 bet. The whole time she's thinking I'm watching the other guy in the hand. He was counting out his chips and was just real jittery. After she finally moved all-in he almost immediately moved all-in for a total bet to me of 218 on top of my 100. I made a comment to him about how he was itching to get his money in there and after thinking a really long time I made the huge mistake to call. Some how I deduced that I probably didn't, but may, have the original raising lady beat but had the re-raising guy beat and the pot was to big to give up on.

If I would of followed some simple and usually correct concepts and some significant table information this should of been an easy fold.

1. check raising usually means a big hand
2. big all-in bets usually mean big hands
3. flushes on paired boards loose a lot of value
4. a lot of action in multi-way pots usually means big hands
5. the guy visibly wanted to get his money in as soon as I made the 100 bet. that alone should of easily swayed my decision to fold. I've never seen anyone so eager to get their money in the pot.

I made my decisions on ideas that were a lot less credible and just totally backwards.

1. The lady and guy were boy friend/ girl friend and I thought there was a possibility I was getting squeezed. I should of dismissed this idea quickly because I hadn't seen anything that would confirm they would do something like that.
2 . I knew they thought I was bluffing a lot that night and thought he might be trying to pick off a bluff by me.
3. I thought they were both weak enough to put a lot of money in with bad hands but at the same time didn't think they were weak enough to check a big hand on the turn. Weak players would check the turn with a big hand because they wouldn't want to scare anyone off. Stronger players would bet knowing that the big payoff would come from someone with a second best big hand.

Going from a 700 stack to the felt is pretty shitty especially because of one misplayed hand but hopefully next time I'll remember to concentrate on the concrete information and dismiss the less credible stuff.

hummm

for some odd reason i was watching some high stakes, 25-50, PLO action on Full Tilt. i saw Brian Townson go from 17000 to 15000, in an uneventful hand, which didn't seem like a big deal to me, at all. then i put 2k into perspective by applying it to my life.....and it became much more significant.

ps....when i read and hear about people, tracking thier play, reading new books, or following forums i wonder why i continually play poker against them. i'm knowingly entering a possible -ev situation.

Dead Even

There is something weird about cashing out at the end of the night dead even. That's what happened to me last night. I stood up right before the big blind hit me believing I had 320 in front of me. It felt pretty good to be honest. I took a couple hits early and was down to about 100 for a couple hands. Then I added on a buck fifty so I was in the game for 350. At one point I came back and had about 400, but by the end of the night I had dropped back down to 320. Leaving down 30 bucks felt like a moral victory to me. I had some set backs but I played some poker and managed to make almost all of it back, nice job.

That's until the house counted my chips and told me I had a couple extra chips on top of my hundo stacks and I actually had 350 in front of me. The following conversation took place in my head. "That sucks.....why did I bother coming out tonight. I sat here for hours and now I'm gonna leave with exactly the same amount as I walked in the door with. All I accomplished was making myself tired all day long tomorrow. I should of stayed home and got some sleep."

On the subject of being even unbelievably I'm one buy-in short of being even for the period between last Nov. and now.