I Desired It The Most

Every time you sit down to play poker, you can choose one of two options.

1. Take what the cards give you, and have that be the main factor in determining your results.
2. Milk the cards, squeeze the cards, caress the cards. Do whatever you can, shoot any angle, open up your entire playbook to create winning situations for yourself.

Today, and really, the past few weeks, have been all about #2 for me. What about you?

Results will vary, but you know what, they always will. So put that aside for a minute.

You know exactly how much #1 and #2 you've played. You know, and only you really know, but you KNOW. So, when you aren't doing #2, I invite you to ask yourself one question. Why?

Please refrain from offering excuses, justifications, villainizations, or anything of the sort. Sure, suckouts happen, bad beats happen. Short-term and long-term variance happen.

I take it from your silence that you don't a "reason" yet. Take your time. We can come back to it.

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Following is a quick chronology of the final table, and one hand discussed in particular. I don't have any screenshots before that, I'm not sure I ever had over 3000 chips until the first hand below.

Called a raise in the SB with A2, and it just got better. The 7000 I collect makes my stack size, oh, 8500. Huge hand, taking me from the "12th of 14" neighboorhood where I had been hanging around, and gave me some real walking-around money to work with.

I successfully navigated razz, up to 4th place now. Here, we see me move up the ladder as K high outdraws rolled 4s. 444 will show up again later.

Here I got busted trying to "presteal" the antes. If the J folds, and he was a solid/tighter player, I get a lot of chips for free. And the bring-in on our left, which would consider doubting the J raise, will never doubt me. (Coupon good once a tourney, usually). Anyways, after raising, I pair my door card, and he decides to shove all in anyways. Simultaneous-resuck-reresuck on 7.

Here, I ship 2/3 of my stack. After the previous shenanigans, I get KQK and raise like before. This time he has wired TT and reraises, and I 3-bet to tell him, "no, I actually have it this time." He doesn't believe me, or whatever, which is fine on his part.

Then I bet 4th (call). Then I get a T on 5, and bet again. Now here's where he gets optimistic, and stubborn. He thinks for a long time, then chooses to risk his tournament chasing this hand down.

Well, here's the catch. When he catches on 6, he has to check, because he knows I have something. I check behind. On the river, value-betting TT33 is again -EV, because you won't get a lot of calls behind, compared to calls ahead and raises ahead. He does check, and takes the pot.

So, he made the wrong read, but got lucky. Even so, he couldn't get paid. A T was his money card, and folding is not just about who has the best hand or who can outdraw the other. It also matters who gets paid.

If you need to catch a pair in Stud to pull ahead, consider this. If your pair ends up showing (33 here), then you are OOP for the rest of the hand. And everyone knows it's there, so they have a great idea where they stand.


Here, I'm predicting my own future. That comment in the chatbox is actually referencing the previous hand, where I started AA3 as the bring-in, and ended up making AA33559 and chopping with 87632QK.

Yet even as I utter it, I'm all in on 5th against this guy's wired AA. Well, so much for AA...


Okay, I meant two hands to discuss. Here, I just call the raise as bring-in, and then raise the perfect 4th street. One thing about split games is that they have freerolls. There is no insurance policy for your tournament life as reliable as a freeroll. I'm not there yet, but I basically have to catch perfect-wrong (KT9, for instance) to get scooped here.

(Chat update: Yes, the last hand I chopped, freerolling as well. I had a low on 6, and bet 7th as well. He did call and win high with AKQ-high vs my AK-and-low. Ah well. 4000 chips, I'm sure he had "pot odds". )


Fast-forward to the river. I hit 7 good cards, and despite what he "can" make, it's very important for us to value bet here. We cannot check just because both of our hands are vulnerable. It's just too hard for him to have us beat BOTH ways. Having a both-way hand on the river is almost always worth a bet, unless you suspect real trouble. Here he raised a 9 on 3rd, so I'm not too worried. Please scoop, please....


SCOOP. Look at how big that bet is, now we're at 60/40/19 instead of 56/40/23. So big, in terms of plays we can make against 2nd AND 3rd place. And we made it with almost zero fear, because 97% of the time at least half will come back. Split games are won by scooping pots. Chops just pay the bills in-between.

Last hand. I had a good time playing heads up, considering I did all the work to take out 3rd place. Starting 4:1, the outcome was never in doubt, at least in my mind. And despite the loose calls earlier in Stud, I can also say that the 2nd-best player at the table got 2nd.

All is warm and fuzzy with my world.