Serious poker players spend a lot of time figuring out what their hourly rate is. It’s $X/hour or Y BB/hour or Z BB/100. I try to avoid that sort of thinking because it doesn’t make me a better poker player. Furthermore, I have no control over that number.
What I do concentrate on is making the best possible decisions, and when I make a suboptimal decision, I review it, and learn how to avoid that mistake the next time. Fortunately, I have a really good method for doing this – I turn the mistake into an article in the PokerCoaching blog, and put it out there for the entire poker Internet to read. The process of relating the narrative cements the story in my head – it will be easier to remember when a similar situation arises. Also, it’s not particularly fun sharing my errors with a few hundred readers, so it’s good motivation to get the spot right the next time. This lesson is about acting too fast.
A good start to a hand
I was sitting in a $2/$3 NLHE game in northern California when a player in early position opens to $40. Yep, $40 in a $3 big blind game, and no, there was no straddle on. This player frequently talks strategy at the table, which usually suggests that they talk a better game than they play.
Anyway, I’d seen him open to $15 or $20, so this said to me that he had a hand that he “needed” to play, but he didn’t want any argument over the pot. Which was fine – I was in the small blind, and would quickly fold whatever trash I had, he’d win his $5, and we could move onto the next hand.
That’s when I look down at pocket kings.
Well, now I really do care about his range. I felt that my read was accurate – my man has a “mandatory open” hand, but he’s fearful of actually having to play a pot with it. The two poster children for such a hand: ace-king and pocket jacks. You’re legally obligated to open them, but we all know that many flops will treat either of those hands cruelly.
StratTalker had started with $500, and I covered him. I decided to 3-bet to $175. That would put $350 in the pot, leaving $325 – less than a pot-size bet – behind. It would be easy enough to get the rest post-flop.
I announced a raise to $175, and StratTalker’s calling chips beat me into the pot. This was a glorious sign. If he’d had aces, he would have stopped to decide if he wanted to just put the rest in right now. My gut told me that aces were unlikely, since I’d have expected his initial raise to be smaller, but this snap-call of my 3-bet assured me that I had way the best of it.
At this point, I really did decide that his range was jacks and AK. I mean, maybe a whisper of TT, QQ, and AQ, but you get the idea. “I have a good hand, I’m in position, and I’m not folding yet.”
A favorable flop, an unfavorable decision
With $350 in the pot, the flop came 8-4-2 with two spades. This was a glorious flop – nothing to scare away JJ, no ace, queen, or jack. I had the best hand, almost always.
I was so proud of myself for crafting the SPR to less than one, that I stopped thinking. And that’s why you’re reading this article. I can’t really say that I “reasoned” anything at this point – I just through poker strategy out the window and ripped in the remaining $325, and waited for him to call.
And waited. And waited.
He talked to me, he talked to the table, he talked to himself. Finally, he said, “I don’t think you’re doing this with ace-king,” and folded pocket queens face-up.
15 seconds. All I needed was 15 seconds
Had I paused – had I given myself 15 seconds to make my decision, I would have found the right play.
I could have bet $75 into the $350 pot, which he couldn’t have refused with his overpair. Now, at the very worst, I’d have gotten an extra $75 from him, had he folded the turn. But consider this: had he called a $75 bet on the flop, there would have been $500 in the pot, with $250 behind. Assuming the turn wasn’t something awful, he’d be getting 3:1 to call a shove, and holding a solid overpair. I would have very likely gotten the rest.
An alternative play on the flop would be to check, adding AK squarely in my poker range. Maybe he’d bet his queens, maybe he’d check back. But if he checked back, then my turn bet would look less credible, and I could get the money in two bites on turn and river.
In short, there were a lot of good ways to play the hand – it’s hard to misplay kings against queens on an 8-high board with an SPR of 1. But boy, I found a way to do it.
Haste makes waste
I knew the right play, and I’ve made similar correct plays many times. I wish I could tell you why I lit that $325 on fire. But there it sat, in his stack, when it should have been in mine.
Just think – if I’d taken the 15 seconds to think through my decision, and gotten the extra $325, that would have been an hourly rate of $78,000/hour or 26,000 BB/hour.
And you wonder why I don’t keep track of my hourly earnings.
