How Not to Win at Poker

My gambling day started with a $65 no-limit tournament. About one round (or five minutes) into the game, I got a fairly good hand -- an ace with a medium suited kicker. I think it was something like A-8 of diamonds, so not bad. I just limped in. One guy raised, so I called, and only one other guy (reluctantly) called.

The flop came Q(d)-3(d)-3(c). So, two diamonds. I made a large-ish semi-bluff bet (semi-bluff, by the way, means that I have some ways to make a winning hand, but I have nothing at the moment and would love to make everyone fold). The preflop reluctant caller reluctantly calls again, prompting me to wonder what he could possibly have; the preflop raiser angrily folds.

The turn is another diamond. I have the nut flush. I make a sizeable bet, which is once again called. The river is unmemorable. I move all my chips in, and he calls. I tell him the only thing that can beat me is a full house. When he flips over his cards, everyone at the table is quick to remind me that four-of-a-kind also probably beats me.

So, within about five minutes of the tournament starting, I lose everything with an ace-high flush against four threes. That is no way to start your gambling day. After an hour or so of pai gow with other early tournament losers, I unwisely joined the pot-limit game.

When I started playing poker, which I think might have been two years ago, pot-limit games were extremely rare and no-limit games didn't exist in Atlanta. I was in a weekly pot-limit game, but the buy-in was low and the skill level was lower. None of us particularly knew what we were doing, and we were all very happy with that arrangement. People who knew what they were doing were playing with much more professional looking tables, cards, and chips, and they were playing fixed limit games, in which the bet sizes are strictly pre-ordained. These days, thanks no doubt to the Travel Channel's coverage of only no-limit Texas Hold 'Em tournaments, you can actually find no-limit sidegames here. That is insane. What it means is that you can go into most card rooms here, put a couple hundred dollars in front of you, and lose it all instantly. These games are made much harder by the fact that they are populated only half by idiots, and half by people who actually know what they're doing.

Personally, I don't enjoy high-limit games (a euphamism for pot- and no-limit games). I think there's too much tension, your money doesn't last as long as it should, and luck becomes even more of a factor than in limit games. In other words, I shouldn't be playing in a pot-limit game. Furthermore, nobody should play poker after just getting their ass handed to them in a very heartbreaking way. And yet there I was.

The first sign that I was in way over my head happened when I was dealt 9-9. This may have been my first playable hand, so I raised as much as I could, and just about everybody called. Not a good sign. The flop looked good to me -- no nine, but also no straights or flushes, and the only card higher than mine was a queen. An aggressive player made a $25 bet, and another player called. I wasn't afraid of the bet, but the call scared me out.

The reason this hand put me even further on tilt is not that the river card was a 9, although it was. No, this hand put me on tilt because I didn't even need the 9. The aggressive better just had a flush draw that never came; the caller just had a pair of 8s. Had I stayed in, I would have had a huge pot. I was kicking myself like crazy.

After about three rounds, I still hadn't won a single pot. This is bad. Just on average, your cards should be able to win one pot per round, but I wasn't even getting playable cards. I immediately mucked every card that was dealt to me for one entire round. All of this served to put me even further on tilt. So, when I was finally dealt A-Q, I thought they were the best cards I'd ever seen in my life.

I think I was down to about $80 at this point (after about $120 in sidegame losses). Everyone limped in, so I managed to make a big preflop raise of maybe $15 or so. Aggressive-guy from the other hand raised it right back at me. Everyone folded, so I reraised him all in, and he called with J-J. Admittedly, pocket jacks is only a marginally better hand than A-Q. The people at Travel Channel would tell you that the jacks will win 51% of the time or so. The point is that I went all-in with a slightly inferior hand, and that is bad. Of course, the flop had both an ace and a queen, so I survived (and more than doubled up). But I should have known to quit while I was behind.

After another round, I started daydreaming that the hand I was being dealt was going to be some high pocket pair and that I'd get to make a huge preflop raise. Sure enough, I held K-K. Now, recall that I have been looking at 7-4 pretty consistently for the last few hours. I had forgotten that a deck of cards even had kings. I made my raise, and aggressive guy reraised me again. I was starting to get pretty annoyed by this guy. Another dude called, but I re-reraised, bringing to bet up into the $60 range. Aggressive guy said "I'll put you all in," not even noticing the grumbling call-dude as he quietly mucked his cards. My call made the pot size about $355.

I don't think I was playing too badly at this point, really. I'd seen Aggressive Guy go all in with J-J, and he saw me do it with A-Q. He doesn't need that much to go all in against me, and he should know that. But nobody else was particularly surprised when he turned over A-A.

Hold 'Em's very best starting hand, against its second-best, is not a particularly even match-up. The flop was rags, and I was already out of my seat, ready to leave. "Hey, you still have two outs!" said one guy, helpfully. "No he doesn't. I folded K-Q," chimed in Grumbling Call-Dude, pragmatically. "It's not coming," said I, defeated. The turn was a blank.

Everyone at the table screamed in terror when the river card turned out to be the deck's final king. Even I was horrified, perhaps as I would have been if I saw a horrible train wreck that resulted in hundreds of deaths but somehow profitted me a great deal. Nobody deserves to lose on the river with pocket aces against pocket kings, especially when a king is dead. Helpful Guy later described me as a "2% favorite."

I shook Aggressive Guy's hand and apologized for the way the hand went down. The people at the table didn't seem to understand that, especially the ones who were clearly moneygrubbing jerks. Sure, I profited, but that's no way to win at poker. Then I cashed out and left, because I had gone in with the worst hand not once, but twice. I was doing everything wrong that night. That's how not to play poker. I vow to do a better job this week.