Too Many Experts

I know I can come across that way at times. Really, we can often argue either side with gusto. Yet, flames at the tables and occasionally a forum or blog will go into the black and white mode. That’s seldom viable.

I’m going back to my favorite example. That is Fuel55. He loves the old speed limit. My last blog showed it as only a .2 BB profit item. Yet, Fuel seems to somehow make it work, That isn’t his game. That is his fun. It works not because it is better than the odds show. It works because he has a post flop game.

So, you see this ‘donk’ hand and you see the guy kill you or the table. Some goes on a rant when his KK gets busted along with his buyin. The difference between an advanced play and being an idiot are in the mind of the player. And, that isn’t a part of a hand history.

I’ve been a niche player all along the route. I’ve found an interest and pursued it. Along the way I’ve made a profit. That supposedly put me in the top 10%. At times that may be justified and other times I know I’ve played far from optimal poker. I could probably round up two hand histories that are almost identical where I feel I played very well in one and very poorly in the other where the actual outcome may have favored the donk side.

Today I lost a nice hand. I bet it aggressively and go drawn out on at the end. I lost and feel I couldn’t have played that hand better. On another hand, I pressed too much. I thought my read was right and it wasn’t. But, I got the drawout and my jacks full won the pot over the aces up player. He had the one A that came on 5^th, I think. I felt I was probably ahead but never paused to test the water. I won and sucked in doing it.

At that table today, I thought I was at least playing my B+ game. The day before I had a better session by far but can’t say it was better played or a bit under today. Today I won a hand that was all read. It worked. Other times it doesn’t. But, I felt a confidence against that player that worked. My 88 held up without improving. He did all the betting and had another scare board that he always worked as hard as he could. There were 3 players like that at the table and one ended up being my bitch. The other two got a walk and some helpful notes. All three were taking 2/3^rd of 3^rd street action.

In the flop games, we try for the read. It fails or works. We see a board that looks innocent and it isn’t or the turn kills us. That is the way it happens. We have two added streets to be drawn out on. Runner-runner is more than annoying when it happens. Remember, compared to the flop game, you can add 2 runners to the above and that happens. You have to be stoic at times.

A major component at poker is deception. That can make for trouble because we are always working with incomplete information. Then we get odd hands that makes us think in what ends up being the wrong direction. It happens. The idea is not to make it worse by flapping our ‘expert’ tongue.

ADDENDUM:

Just had a very nice session on PokerStars and at a .50-1 table. Managed to triple my buyin which got my loss at all play at that level down below $100. It is the only level my winning session are below 50%. That is barely at 49.35% but obviously the wins are a lot weaker than the poor sessions. Here’s a chart of my play since the first of the year. The recent cooler was nasty but I seem (knock on wood) to be coming off that.

Stud has fairly high variance and this chart certainly confirms that. Or points out I’m far from an expert…

What is confirmed is an old saw that goes,