We’ve been reviewing one of our reader’s most recent Texas Hold’em poker cash game sessions and pondering the question he posed to us… is he playing bad or running bad? That is one of poker’s most difficult questions when things aren’t going well is it the player or the game.
There is a popular saying “Don’t hate the player hate the game,” and for the most part we agree when you apply it to the small selections of hand our reader sent to us–maybe he should just hate the game. When he is busy playing bwin poker he’s doing a lot of things right. We haven’t examined game selection because he didn’t give us much insight into that, he only gave us his hands and from that he’s run into a mixture of bad luck and bad timing.
The worst two hands was when he unfortunately got no value from his AA vs. his opponents KK. Scare cards killed his action and that happens. He also ran into pocket AA with Kings of his own and the way the betting progressed he had no choice but to shove and hope he wouldn’t be called by the better hand. He did shove, and the better hand announced itself pretty quickly. Even worse for our reader it held.
It was all about getting into bad spots because of the randomness of poker and the luck of the draw so to speak. In a couple of hands it was clear that he played based on external factors rather than the game just in front of him. He flopped second pair against a player that only bets big when she has the nuts. She bet small and he opted for a passive check call strategy. A reraise or check-raise whatever the position was, would have been very effective on the flop.
Instead he watched his hand improve from second pair to two pair on the river, only to have the lady bet large. Now, he was in a spot where he almost forced himself to call. He could have folded preflop to the lady’s Under The Gun raise (huge strength, even six handed for someone as tight as her) and that would have been a solid play. He could have looked her up on the flop and discarded on the turn. He could have played the hand a myriad of ways most styles more effective than the way he did play.
Since he had the players fairly well sussed out and he acted opposite of optimal you have to figure mentally he was either fatigued for a bout of losing or he was simply playing bad. Was the game causing it or was the player causing it? In this case, superficially it was all about the player.
On the last hand of the night of any importance he was gun-shy and stopped thinking about the best play in the moment. Sure overriding bankroll concerns might have hindered his decision making process but still his failure to call after getting pot-tied to the hand is definitely leak. Not only was it a leak but it was an exploitbable one at that. His oppoenent was on an all out bluff and likely sensed the frustration in our reader and knew that he could bluff in a situation successfully that might look hopeless otherwise.
The game forces obviously put our reader on his heels but the fact other players knew he was there meant trouble for him. Not only was he enduring bad luck, not getting value for big starting hands, and getting coolered with others, he also started to let it effect his play and even worse others picked up on it. The player taking a month off, may be a little bit excessive but some time away from the game could be exactly what the doctor ordered.