Online Poker Forum - My two week old poker lesson

dumwaldo · Posted: Fri Jun 16, 2006 7:00 pm Post subject: My two week old poker lesson

I wrote this on sunday, June 4 but had problems being able to post on the forum for a few weeks. Since I seem to be able to post without errors now I thought i would share this...

So I am sitting is Caesers in Atlantic city playing in the saturday, 1pm, $100 + $20 NL Hold Em tournament. The button is on seat 2 and i am in seat 5, making me the first to act. It is very early in the game and the blinds are only 100/200. I check my cards and see Ad 10d. I am sometimes an agressive player and decide to make it 600 to go. It goes muck, muck to seat 8 who calls and seat 9 mucks. Now here is where it gets crazy. The player at seat 10 is away from the table so his hand should have been out of play when the last card dealt hit the dealer button but that is not what happened.

After seat 9 folded the player in seat 1 went to muck her cards but the dealer put his hand down on the players hand and cards and pushed them back at the player saying "hold on a moment". During play the dealer saw the player from seat 10 returning across the poker room so he called out to the player to hurry back to act.

Now my wheels start spinning at a thousand miles per hour here. What do I do? If I speak up and say the guy is folded I make my hand look weak and lets face it, Ace 10, even suited is marginal to begin with. My mind is racing through scenarios and real time is slipping by. Before I knew it player 10 called, player 1 folded and player 2 called from on the button.

CRAP! This guy should not be in the hand but now I have 2 other callers to be concerned about. If I speak up I pretty much assure that at least one of those players will recognize that my hand is not very strong and try to pull a power move on me. Both blinds fold and my head is still spinning as the flop hits the board. The flop comes 10, rag, rag.

I am first to act. The pot has about 2500 in it and my hopes of pulling in that pot were starting to look good. sitting on top pair with top kicker after the flop I made the poor decision to keep gambling on this ill fated hand. I stared at the flop for a good minute pondering the right bet to make. I thought a pot sized bet on such a tepid flop might look like i am trying to steal or it would make the pot odds right for someone and that would end up in a caller. I thought a half pot sized bet would be to easy to call and I really did not want any callers. I finally decided on a 1600 chip bet.

Seat 8 quickly folds putting the action on seat 10. The guy thinks for a while, alternating between staring at the board cards and staring at me. In retrospect I realize now how good the acting skills were. Acting as if it pained him to do it, player 10 calls the 1600. With a quick fold from the button it is just me and the guy that shouldn't have even been in the hand. In hindsight, maybe I should have just taken that as a sign.

Fourth street comes as a blank, leaving my tens as top pair. There is almost 6000 in chips in the pot and it is going to take an all in just to make a pot sized bet. I have top pair with top kicker and there are no flush draws and any straight draws seem like a real long shot to have called the previous bets. I am playing out of position against a player that should have been mucked pre flop and he was slow to call on the last bet.

It did flash through my head for a moment that I might be getting trapped so I check to see if player 10 is going to bet. He did not act super fast but he did check within a few seconds of my check. The free river card drops and it is yet another card under 10.

Without a moment of hesitation, I call all in. I slide my chips forward but only a little bit. Betting close to your cards represents strength so I only put my chips far onto the table when I really want a caller. I was fealing about 75% certain that I had the best hand, but, I really just wanted him to fold and let me collect my pot.

Of course player 10 calls and asks me what I have. I rolled over my cards to show top pair with top kicker and he nods as he flips His cards to show the pocket queens. I had been played for a fool by a guy that never sould have seen his cards and it happened because I didn't speak up and I let it happen. I ended up having a few chips left when everything was counted out but my game was destroyed and I was far beyond tilt. I let the dealer know that he made a mistake in what he did before the flop. I aknowledged that I can not blame him for anything since I made the choice to go ahead and play the guy and it was my playing that lost the chips. I still spoke up afterwards because I think it sucks that I was put in that position by a dealer that was trying to be so accomodating to one single player he was willing to delay the entire game and disregard the rules to wait for the player to walk back to the table.

I made several mistakes in playing that hand but the most important mistake I made was to not speak up. I left the casino so extrodinarily disappointed, but I was not disapointed in the casino. I have come to expect lack luster levels of competence from casino dealers. The crushing disapointment ALL fell squarely on my own shoulders. It took me several hours to shake the disapointment off enough to reflect clearly and see all of my mistakes. My first mistake was to not stop the dealer and demand the absent player be mucked. My next mistake was betting a hand as weak as 10's, even if it was top pair. I should have waited till, at least, the turn card before betting. All i did by betting the flop was hand out information about my hand, and allow someone to make me feel pot committed. Had I checked the flop the other player probably would have bet and tiped me off, allowing me to get away without dumping any more chips. My next mistake was pushing my chips all in. The pot was already the biggest pot seen in the game so far. Pushing all in was just stupid and amatuer. My final mistake was going completely on tilt after that. I actually survived this tremendous series of mistakes and I pissed away my second chance by being pissed off.

I decided to write this down and share it on the forum because someone once said a smart man learns from his mistakes, a wise man learns from the mistakes of others. I didn't play "MY GAME". I am a loudmouth and there is no way I would have let this happen in any of my regular home games. In more familiar surroundsing I definately would have stoped the game and had the player mucked for being away from his seat for the deal.

peace out,
dumwaldo

drcossack · Posted: Fri Jun 16, 2006 9:56 pm Post subject:

Ouch, that sucks.

I don't like the A-10 raise, but I'll ignore that for the purpose of my reply.

Seat 10's hand should've been automucked if he was that far away from the table (if he was two or 3 feet away from the table, well, ok, fine.)

DJ Ninjah · Posted: Wed Jun 21, 2006 1:57 pm Post subject:

The A-T suited raise was fine, as was the post-flop bet (Although, you may have bet too much. If your oppenent was a good enough player to recognize a pot sized bet as a steal, then he his probably good enough to know a probe or continuation bet here might be a steal as well). The problem here is one, yes you should have told the dealer to muck the button's cards. You made way too much about it being a sign of weakness. Even so, say he was at his seat and called anyway, you forgot the #1 live tell. Players act weak when they are strong, and strong when they are weak. His acting like he was tormented as per whether or not to call mean that he was probably holding an overpair and you will need to counter his decision to slow play by taking all the free cards you can get.

FatStacks06 · Royal Flush Joined: 26 Jan 2006 Posts: 736

Well, if you are raising with a weak hand in early position early in a tournament, you aren't risking that many chips to be concerned about people thinking you have a weak hand. No one wants 4 way action with any hand, so you might be sending the message that you have a strong hand, by getting an extra hand to fold. Your goal is to win the hand when you enter a pot, and by not doing everything you could to win the hand you made a big mistake. Its too early to be stealing the blinds, and when you only have TPTK with a pair of 10's, that's not the kind of hand for you to make a stand with. After you were called on the flop, I would have check folded. If he's calling pre-flop, and then calling a big bet on the flop that only has 10 high and no draws, chances are he has a hand. Speak up at the table and don't play weak hands out of position.
It's good that you've gone over this situation and know where you made your mistakes though.

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