Why you should protect yourself from your ego ...if you want to play pro poker
WINNING DOESN’T MAKE YOU A WINNER! Sometimes luck can come along and make your decisions look like they’re a hell of a lot better than they actually are. You need more than good fortune to make a fortune. A lot of players will at some point throw logic and reasoning aside and go with a gut feeling. It can certainly pay dividends, but will not be the approach that makes you a winner in the long run. Preferably it should be a combination of studying the ‘pot odds’ and your assessment of the hand and your opponent that leads to your decisions. The two examples below both assume the flop comes down Queen of Spades, Ten of Diamonds and the Two of Clubs. Your hand in both examples is King of Diamonds and Jack of Hearts. You have an open ended straight draw.
THE GUT FEELING You’re at a table of six players and you are in the big blind. You have been called pre-flop, no raise. After the flop the small blind checks, you check and seat 3 bets the pot (he is also the large stack at the table), seats 4, 5, 6 & the small blind fold. This should be the point at which you fold your hand for two main reasons: 1. Your pot odds are not great (a low percentage return against a high percentage investment). 2. If you do not hit your card on the turn it is likely seat 3 will place a large bet whether his hand has improved or not, thus reducing your pot odds further and costing you more to hit your card on the river. If you go with that ‘gut feeling’ all the way to the river and hit your card, then good luck to you, but without a doubt it is not an approach that will make you a winner in the long run. If you are having a great run of luck then go with it and call these hands, but when the luck runs out then rather obviously so will your winning streak.
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PLAYING TO WIN IN THE LONG RUN Now imagine the same table of six players, but this time a small raise pre-flop has been called by all six players. The small blind bets fifty percent of the pot on the flop, you call, so do two other players. At this point you should be able to see you are in pretty good shape in the hand even though you are still on a draw. Unlike the first example, you are not battling heads-up against the big stack and your pot odds are greater than the first example. Obviously you are still at the mercy of lady luck, but assuming you hit your card and come out as the winner, your investment in the hand has been smaller to see the river card and the pot will be larger than in the earlier example. It will cost you less and will help you make more money in the long run.
