Running Bad or Playing Bad?

The astute readers amongst you may have noticed that I have not posted a review of May, well frankly there wasn’t much to report on and I don’t intend to post a monthly review as I think that would make for a boring blog. Suffice to say I ran pretty dry, not getting many good hands, hardly flopping a set and when I had a hand I was getting little action, when I tried to make a move I was frequently getting played back at. Destacker, Lugfest, LockeLamora and myself played in a WSOP Team Championship event at Ladbrokes, which consisted of the 4 of us playing 12 MTTs with points based on finishing positions. After the 12 games we scored 810 points which finished 1 point off 2nd place, which would have been worth a 3,500 euro WSOP Package for us all, this was very disappointing for all 4 of us as we were probably the best team in the championship but we all got numerous instances of bad luck in different tournaments that we couldn't overcome, we could easily have finished 1st and scored a main event package, but it wasn't meant to be. May ended bad but in the first week in June I managed a good score on PokerStars, I got to the final 4 of 1222 runners in a $33 buyin MTT, I ran fairly well to get there, winning most of the races I got involved in. When we got 4 handed we agreed to do a deal where we all got $4k each and 1st would get the extra $900. Considering I was 3rd in chips and a way behind the leader, 4th place was $2.5k and 1st was $6.3k I was happy to make this deal, I was surprised the chip leader agreed to it as he had a nice chiplead, but of course that could all have changed on a flip.

That MTT aside I have ran pretty poorly in recent weeks, but this isn’t going to be a whinge blog, I have spoken before about how running bad can lead to playing bad without the player even noticing, when running bad marginal decisions are much harder and can be affected by factors outside of the current dynamics. A good example of this is when you are in a MTT and have been card for a long time and haven’t won a pot when you get dealt a good hand, say JJ on the button. You have 30bb but before the action gets to you there is an UTG raise and a 3 bet shove from a tight player, now if you were ‘running well’ then this hand is probably an easy fold but if you have been card dead then sometimes you might be tempted to call because it is the best you have seen for sometime, which is clearly something that should never be considered when deciding an action, historic hand distributions should always be irrelevant when making a decision.

I am going to highlight a recent hand I played in Welllbet’s Home Game which on the surface looks like run bad but in fact I played it poorly and I think it is a good hand to learn from. In this hand I am currently 2^nd in chips with 25bb and there are 12 left out of 91 runners, 10 get paid so we are near the direct bubble:

Blinds are now 600 / 1,200

Seat 1: ForFoxSake - 30,485

Seat 3: Seat 3 - 22,472

Seat 6: Seat 6 - 10,975

Seat 7: Seat 7 - 35,854

Seat 8: Seat 8 - 17,516

Seat 9: Seat 9 - 22,877

Moving Button to seat 6

6 x posts ante of 150

Seat 7 posts small blind (600)

Seat 8 posts big blind (1,200)

Dealing [6 h][6 s] to ForFoxSake

Seat 9 folds

ForFoxSake raises to 2,750

Seat 3 and 6 fold

Seat 7 calls 2,750

Seat 8 folds

Pot sizes: 7,600

Dealing Flop [4 c][9 c][K d]

Seat 7 checks

ForFoxSake bets 3,425

Seat 7 calls 3,425

Pot sizes: 14,450

Dealing Turn [J d]

Seat 7 checks

ForFoxSake checks

Pot sizes: 14,450

Dealing River [6 d]

Seat 7 bets 8,400

I make a standard size open and get called by the small blind, I make a c-bet and get called, the turn goes check check. The river gives me a set and the villain leads out, although the river also brought a back door flush draw I don’t think there are many combinations of diamonds he would have here, especially with the top pair on the flop being a diamond, a hand like QTc is possible but I think sets are unlikely here, so the vast majority of the time my set is good here. Due to not running too good in recent times and not hitting many sets I make a knee jerk reaction and shove:

ForFoxSake raises to 24,160 (all-in)

Seat 7 calls 24,160

Pot sizes: 62,770

ForFoxSake shows [6 h][6 s]

Seat 7 shows [A d][9 d]

I get snap called by the nuts, the villain had in fact hit runner runner flush. At the time I was annoyed with my poor luck, the river card is the only card in the deck that will bust me here but shortly after and on review I shouldn’t have busted in the way I did. Sure it is likely I have the best hand, but we are 2^nd in chips v 1^st and when I raise the river here there aren’t many hands that will call that I have beat and there are no hands that beat me that will fold to the raise, as such I think calling is the best option, in other words there are no river cards that should bust me in this spot if I am playing well. I bubbled the MTT from 2^nd and blamed it on bad luck when I could (and should) have realised that calling the river was the best play, I would have been left with around 13bb which would give me a chance to play shove fold poker.

Morale of the story is to check your play in hands and don’t always assume you have been unlucky with the cards and that the hand was out of your control, you might find spots where you had some bad luck but you compounded the misfortune with poor play. It is all too easy to put these kind of hands down as coolers but good players will save chips in some of these spots, weak players will instead go bust and then bemoan their luck without reviewing to see if they made a mistake.

I will be heading to Vegas on 27^th June so I won’t be blogging for a while, although I hope to have a few interesting things to write about when I return, until then good luck at the tables!