Played the Stars 11R this evening, ran my stack up nicely, lost with KK vs AQ, ran it back up again, made it to the money. Then I made an online poker blunder and limped with TT in early position. Of course I meant to raise it up – but I misclicked. Talk about an absurd error. And after all the efforts I’ve been making to slow down my play! My finger just slipped. In the words of my idol, Jack Bauer, “DAMN IT!”
So the flop comes 589 rainbow. I bet, a huge stack smooth calls and another guy behind him calls. Oh dear. Turn is a 7. I am wading into really nasty territory. So I check, the big stack bets, our third wheel folds and I decide to call and see the river, because I have a decent stack and I can afford to see this blunder through. Or so I think. The river brings my six for the six to ten straight. I shove, the big stack merrily turns over the JT that I let him play when I failed to raise pre-flop. He takes all my chips with his jack high straight, and I am left staring angrily at the offending, misclicking hand.
What a frigging moron.
Edit: Anybody think that the best way to correct the pre-flop mistake is to move all-in on this flop? On each street I was trying to think of how to rectify my mistake as best I could. Obviously I had the worst possible result with the choices I made here. After much thought between (and during) my classes today, I think pushing on the flop is the best move. Since both the other players limped pre-flop as well, it’s unlikely that either of them has a bigger pair than I do (unless they are misclickers as well). That means I need to be concerned about a possible set on this flop, two over cards to my tens, or the draw that the villain had here. My stack was about 74,000 chips to his 114,000. With the blinds and antes, along with my call and two others, there’s about 16,000 in the pot pre-flop. If I push, I don’t think he calls with his draw. He’s in a good position to move up in the money and doesn’t need to gamble for that much of his stack. Anybody out there calling for that much of their stack on an open-ended straight draw? Upon reflection I think pushing on the flop is the best course of action to fix the pre-flop mistake.
2 replies on “Death By Misclick (redux)”
OK Jodi, you are guilty here of results-oriented thinking. Since you know now what your opponents had (or at least one of them), you know that if you had moved in on the flop you would’ve won the hand. But you don’t know what your opponents have when you’re playing against them, and you don’t know what the turn and river are going to be when you’re deciding what to do on the flop. Also the goal is not to win the pot, the goal is to win the most money.
If you move in for 74k into a 16k pot you’re only getting called by hands that crush you. You have almost no equity when called–maybe 5%. When you don’t get called, you win 16k. Now, you’re probably winning the pot often enough so that play still makes a little bit of money, but you can do better than that. Your goal should be to maximize profits. That is, you want to bet an amount where some worse hands might call you incorrectly. I’m not sure how much you bet on the flop, but it looks as though you played it fine after the mistake-limp. Don’t replay the hand and say “if I had done this I would’ve won.” Instead, think about the whole situation and what your best strategy is against all the possible hands your opponents might have had.
Good points all, thanks for your thoughts. I am often guilty of results-oriented thinking.
Of course I could have obtained the best result by not misclicking! From now on when I get a big hand I am going to make myself count to five or something before I act.