Recently, I went to the casino and played some poker. I played from roughly 9pm to 1am, and ran my buyin of $500 up to $1380 at a $1/$3 table. I did some prep work in the days prior, which I think paid off–I think I mostly played pretty well. However, the most interesting hands are the ones in which I made mistakes, so I would like to share them here.

Big win :D
Big win :D

This was my second time playing in a casino ever, so I was a little bit clumsy at the table–I had trouble counting chips, and one time I tried calling a bet by tossing in a single chip, in a situation where I apparently was supposed to count out the exact number of chips. Luckily for me, the table seemed to mistake this to mean that I was both new to the casino and new to poker, which is definitely not true. The table was actually really nice and polite about it too–for example, when the dealer changed and I did something clumsy, people would explain to the new dealer that I was brand new to the game. I didn’t intentionally do anything I wouldn’t normally do to try to trick people into thinking that I was new, but I certainly didn’t correct anybody who was mistaken.

Blunder 1

Ironically, this hand was my biggest pot of the night.

x = check
b = bet
r = raise

LJ (decent reg who has been ISO-ing fish all night, probs the second best player at the table. Second best cuz I’m the best) opens to $15. BU (Hero) 3bets to $45 with ATs, LJ calls.

flop 762r (~$90): Villian x, Hero b $50, V r $150, H c

  • During the hand, I decided to call because I thought that since villain was decent, he could be xr-ing with a fairly wide range as it’s almost impossible for me to have an extremely strong hand on this flop–best I could have is an overpair. I thought that if I hit an A or a T, my hand would probably be best most of the time, and I had a backdoor flush draw that can give me extra playability and nut potential. Looking back, this is almost certainly a mistake. Since villain is decent and thinks that I’m a new player, my range actually probably appears to be a lot of overpairs, which new players are not capable of folding. Which means that this is almost certainly not a bluff and I should just fold.

turn A (~$390): Villian b $100, Hero c

  • Pretty standard here. The A is a pretty bad card for villain’s range because now a lot of hands that he might xr on the flop such as 7x and small overpairs are losing to my Ax. Also, the nuts have changed to AA, which I have every combo of and he has no combos of. During the hand, I noted the small size, decided there wasn’t really any value in raising, and made a pretty standard call with top pair.

river brick (~$590): Villain b $100, Hero r $350, V snap folds and shows 22 and says “you have AA”.

  • Yeah. He folded bottom set. LFG! I really dodged a bullet here. And my image as a new player really saved me here. He’s getting like 1:13 odds here, so he needed be really sure that I’m never doing this with AK or bluffing ever.
  • During the hand, I was really suspicious of the tiny bet. So I started thinking about what types of hands would size down on the turn and then size down again on the river. And what I landed on was hands like Ax which were bluffing on the flop and started to size down on the turn and river to get value from hands like KK and QQ which can’t call bigger bets. Which got me extremely concerned because I actually might call and lose to hands like AJ and AQ, which the LJ range probably contains a decent number of. I thought that he would fold those hands 100% of the time when I bluff raise as I’d have so many combos of AK, and it’s a spot where most players would ever find a bluff because the pot odds are so outrageous. So I turned my top pair into a bluff, and got him to snap fold a set.

Definitely got quite lucky in this hand with the A on the turn and my image bailing me out from a pretty atrocious flop call. I also think the fold from him is actually really sharp given his read on me. I’m guessing he expected me to fold all non-pairs on the flop, so I’d have to be capable of turning an underpair into a bluff, or else my range is just 100% AA.

Blunder 2

Blunder 2 and 3 are really interesting because they are so similar, but in each I deviated in the wrong direction.

BU (nitty middle aged tech dude who has been distracted on his phone for the last hour) opens to $15. SB (fishy calling station) calls, BB (Hero) 3bets to $60 with JJ, both BU and SB call.

  • First mistake of the hand: I should just smooth call here. I know from studying preflop that as BB vs BU open, JJ can optionally 3bet or just call. However, I decided to 3bet with the rationale that I want to fold out the SB’s equity. There are two thing wrong with this. First, knocking out equity is far less important than BU’s player type. BU is a nit which means his opening range here is probably very very strong, and I should proceed with caution. Second, if I wanted SB to fold, I needed to 3bet to a much larger size. I ended up making the play that accomplished neither goal of equity denial nor caution.

flop Txx (~$180): SB, Hero b $60, BU c, SB f.

  • Flop comes pretty good. Small mistake here. I should be respecting the BU range and x-ing to him. Given his OMC profile, I expect him to be probably flat a lot with hands like AA and KK.

turn Q (~$240): Hero instantly x, BU instantly b $150, Hero tanks and calls.

  • Huge mistake here. At this point, I was already really concerned because I was realizing that BU could have so many strong hands here like AA KK QQ AQ. I honestly don’t know why I called. Tilt? I think part of it was how he took no time to think before betting, which made me think that his hand strength didn’t change much on the Q turn. So I thought that polarized his range to AA KK and AK, against which I’m still doing okay against.

river A (~$550): Hero x, BU bets $300 (with ~$200) behind. Hero folds. BU shows AA.

  • Yeah… finally I play a street correctly. I made the wrong play preflop, on the flop, and on the turn. Really there’s no other option on this river, even without any reads.

Blunder 3

Blunder 3 is almost identical to blunder 2, just in the opposite direction.

LJ (fishy calling station) opens to $15, SB (the same fish calling station from blunder 2) calls, BB (Hero) calls with QQ.

  • First mistake of the hand: I should definitely definitely 3bet here. I knew the charts say QQ is an optional 3bet or call against LJ, but this opponent is VPIPing so much wider than GTO that QQ should be a no brainer value 3bet. Unfortunately, I was a little emotional since blunder 2 had happened only one orbit prior, so I just called.

flop 752r (~$45): SB x, Hero x, LJ b $25, SB c, H c

  • Second mistake of the hand: now that I played preflop passively, I have to turn up the aggression on the flop! QQ is so strong on this board against these opponents–I need to be piling in money here. Either via a donk or with a xr. But I prefer xr. Let villains put money in with junk like overcards first, and then build a bigger pot. But sadly I just called.

turn K (~$120): SB x, Hero x, LJ b $75, SB instantly c, H f

  • When the K comes on the turn, I still felt pretty okay about my hand. Some hands in villians’ ranges improve, but my hand is still best really often. And then SB calls. Instantly. Without thinking. In retrospect, I should have actually read this to not have been a K. Because if he had a K, he would have at least thought a little since his hand strength changed. But seeing two villains confidently put money in the pot made me think that at least one of them gotta have a K, so I folded.

river 5 (~$270): SB x, LJ b $100, SB instantly c. SB had A7o, LJ had 78o. :(

  • And I sat there feeling crushed, watching SB scoop a massive pot that could have went my way. On the bright side, I think I did a pretty good job of keeping my poker face and not revealing that I made a big fold. I also think I did a good job of untilting and calming myself down, because the rest of the night was smooth sailing.

Conclusions

So, what did I learn? The biggest lessons come from hand 2 and 3, I think.

  1. When choosing between raise or call preflop, I should consider whether villains’ ranges are wider or tighter than GTO.
  2. If I chose a passive option with a strong hand on an earlier street (e.g. preflop), strongly consider amping up the aggression on the next street (e.g. on the flop).
  3. Just fold man… he’s never bluffing there. Actually, I heard Uri Peleg describe this pretty neatly. Something along the lines of: poker is a game where optimal play involves doing a lot of things to deceive the opponent. At low stakes, your opponents are not going to be deceptive enough. Generally, you can just assume big aggression = big hands, passivity = weak hands.