Wednesday, August 08, 2007

Be careful what you wish for

We all look for tables that are full of people that see tons of flops and call down to the river looking for whatever they can find... Be careful for what you wish for as they will hit their hands occasionally or in my case most of the time.

There is a key stat for me when it comes to Poker Tracker at least playing Limit poker. That is W$SD which translates to Won $ at Showdown. In other words, if means what percent of the time that you go all the way to showdown are you winning. I think a rule of thumb is to see this number greater than 50% but more ideally above 55%. My W$SD after a little over 100 hands last night was 9.25%. Just think, I was complaining when this number was in 30% range over the past week. 9.25% is just insane.

I won't go into details on the beats; but one really stood out to me as typical of the way things have been going. I get KK in the BB. It is raised and reraised before me. Let me backup and say that the table was a good table on average seeing 40% of the flops with only 8% raises. Anyway, I of course pop it three times and the original raiser caps it. Flop comes all low cards and all hearts. I bet out (I don't have a heart). Original raiser raises and next guy pops it again. I just shake my head and fold my Kings. Nothing too exciting on turn and river. Any ideas what original raiser and capper had? Yep, Q6 of hearts. Be careful what you wish for.

Another hand AK.. I continue to raise and bet out. T on the river and Mr QT decides to call down all of my betting. Be Careful what you wish for.

Inside Straights. Oh yeah, more of those... to the tune of 3 of them hit on the river. Be Careful what you wish for.

Flushes. Wouldn't want to miss those. They don't bother me too much as there are too many people that will call down with flush draws and open enders. That is just the nature of the beast in limit poker. But dang, it would be nice to hit flush draws with the frequency of the people that draw out their flush draws.

2nd Nuts. Yep, 3 times the 2nd nut straights not good enough.

2outers, 3 outers... etc... etc... I'm sure that you get the point.

Oh yeah, I did suck out once last night. I had that terrible hand of AA but unbeknownst to me, I was behind his 95o who called all of my raises and turned 2 pair; but I four flushed him on the river.

This post was obviously just to blow some steam and hope that by posting it things will turn around as they do when you post good results which ultimately causes a downswing.

So, be careful what you wish for in your opponents as they will hit.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Yeah, bad beats are tough but a night when they keep happening with an almost impossible regularity is sheer agony. You made a great laydown with the kings so I’m wondering if you made a lot of crying calls on the river out of frustration or were you honestly surprised 9 times out of 10?

The good news is that especially in limit cash games, over time the immutable laws of expected value will ultimately reward the sound player at the expense of the occasionally lucky donkey. In other words, the idiots who picked your pocket and made your session a living hell will eventually return your money with interest.

I say this to myself as much as to you: You can only control better and smarter; you can't control luckier. Hang in there and I hope to see you at the September home game!

WillWonka said...

Yo Professor, I hope to be there for the home game and am looking forward to the draft.

Most/Alot of them are crying calls with you know the flush card came on river and he is raising you; but at that point you pretty much have to call depending on what I am holding. Inside straights are a little harder to detect so I am surprised at those that there are still so many people that do it.

Oh well. thanks for reading

jamyhawk said...

Will. If I look back at your old posts, you seem to be very analytical and very detailed about using fundamentals in your poker play.

Your more recent posts do not have the same feel.

Are you playing the same starting hands? Are you raising in the same positions? I'm sure you can use poker tracker to see. I just know you are a better player than 9% W$SD. Even with variance factored in. There surely must be something there you are not seeing.

"In an effort to improve our poker playing, I believe everybody should be reviewing their play to find their strengths and more importantly, their weaknesses...."
Great advice I once read from you!

Stay patient...

Jordan said...

You, sir, have horrible luck. Forget about looking back at hands and analyzing your play. The way I see it, you have two options:

1) Sacrifice your best goat at Satan's altar

OR

2) Kill god.

Either away, good luck with that.

EN09 said...

Never mind killing God but the goat thing might be doable. Perhaps swinging a dead cat overhead in a cemetary at midnight after sippin' a bit of stumpwater might get the Universe back into alignment.

Laying K's down sucks big time. Lately the MonoFlop Bug has been hitting me unmercifully as well when holding big pairs.

Keep the faith. You'll get it back plus more.

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