Ever realize something specific you do is costing you money?

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05-05-2005, 05:15 PM
dalecooper

Ever realize something specific you do is costing you money?

I just noticed today that I tend to play some hands (or even stretches of hands, especially when my cards are cold) on cruise control. I think lack of focus is a leak for me. Look at this one:

***** Hand History for Game 2003808083 *****
$25 NL Hold'em - Thursday, May 05, 17:07:35 EDT 2005
Table Table 37625 (Real Money)
Seat 4 is the button
Total number of players : 10
Seat 1: Cancer1man ( $17.9 )
Seat 2: Tochtas ( $51.15 )
Seat 3: soplatterive ( $33.89 )
Seat 5: DDUB24 ( $22.6 )
Seat 6: GuranG ( $24.75 )
Seat 7: angahar ( $23.05 )
Seat 8: Snivey ( $33.65 )
Seat 9: Cage20 ( $23.07 )
Seat 10: nighthawk226 ( $41.21 )
Seat 4: stressball10 ( $24.4 )
DDUB24 posts small blind [$0.1].
GuranG posts big blind [$0.25].
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to stressball10 [ As 8d ]
angahar folds.
Snivey folds.
Cage20 folds.
Cancer1man folds.
Tochtas folds.
soplatterive folds.
stressball10 calls [$0.25].
DDUB24 calls [$0.15].
GuranG checks.
** Dealing Flop ** [ Jh, 7s, 3s ]
DDUB24 bets [$0.5].
GuranG folds.
stressball10 calls [$0.5].
** Dealing Turn ** [ 4s ]
DDUB24 checks.
stressball10 checks.
** Dealing River ** [ Kc ]
DDUB24 checks.
stressball10 checks.
DDUB24 shows [ 3d, Td ] a pair of threes.
stressball10 doesn't show [ As, 8d ] high card ace.
DDUB24 wins $1.75 from the main pot with a pair of threes.

Obviously not a major pot. No real reason to get heavily involved here. But my read on him (even without me really paying attention to the hand) was correct - I could have easily taken that little pot from him by bluffing the flush on the turn or river. Or even raising his weak bet on the flop. I had the perfect opportunity too, with what is often called the naked ace bluff - I have the ace of spades in my hand. It's amazing to me to notice that I just bypassed the chance to take two free dollars when it was basically mine to take, and I even KNEW it, and just didn't act on it because I was bored.
05-11-2005, 02:54 PM
SmackinYaUp

All the time man. If I am not focusing on the table, I miss out on so many little pots like these. Cruise control doesnt really help anyone.
05-12-2005, 12:49 PM
ender555

Quote:

Originally Posted by SmackinYaUp

All the time man. If I am not focusing on the table, I miss out on so many little pots like these. Cruise control doesnt really help anyone.

i miss out on these little pots too, but I don't pay to see them. When i'm in a pot i fight for it basically.... it's too hard to fight for a lot of little pots when 4 tabling. I end up fucking trying to buy every single pot out there, lol.
05-15-2005, 03:15 PM
Chicago_Kid

Quote:

Originally Posted by SmackinYaUp

All the time man. If I am not focusing on the table, I miss out on so many little pots like these. Cruise control doesnt really help anyone.

This is a style thing as well, I think. Some people are good at stealing these small pots all night while others would rather look for 2-3 big pots to get their dough. It just depends on your strengths and (as you said) your focus. Online I think it's tough to push every edge while you can do so easier in live play because there's more to keep you focussed (conversation, breaks, etc.).
05-17-2005, 06:37 PM
ChezJ

personally i don't see this as a "cruise control" situation where you are playing too much by the book. i see major errors on every single street.

pre flop, with A8 on the button, i would have gone for the blind steal.

the flop is a clear fold for me once EP bets out. you've got 1 overcard and a backdoor flush draw. not worth a 5:2 bet in a miniscule pot.

on the turn, i definitely bet with a draw to the nut flush.

i also bet the river to rep the K.

if this is representative of your standard play, you may want to rethink your game.

ChezJ
05-17-2005, 07:06 PM
dalecooper

Quote:

Originally Posted by ChezJ

personally i don't see this as a "cruise control" situation where you are playing too much by the book. i see major errors on every single street.

pre flop, with A8 on the button, i would have gone for the blind steal.

Me too, if I was paying more attention. When I mentioned cruise control I don't mean playing by the book - I mean zoning out and just kind of going along for the ride. You can play very by the book and play a hand a lot better than I played this one.

Quote:

the flop is a clear fold for me once EP bets out. you've got 1 overcard and a backdoor flush draw. not worth a 5:2 bet in a miniscule pot.

I don't TOTALLY agree... many players bet out when they hit bottom or middle pair against 1 or 2 opponents; this is even more likely if two of the players are the blinds and the third (if there is a third) is just a limper. I can easily read this as a probable pair of sevens and called with two overcards and the backdoor draw. Actually he had worse than the sevens.

However in this case I called because I wasn't really paying attention, as mentioned before. It was a small bet (though not relative to the pot) and the board was uninteresting, so I called. Not a great play. Defensible but not great. I'd usually fold there.

Quote:

on the turn, i definitely bet with a draw to the nut flush.

Me too - that was a clear opportunity to pick up the pot from disinterested opponents.

Quote:

i also bet the river to rep the K.

sure. Standard play.

Quote:

if this is representative of your standard play, you may want to rethink your game.

I have to reiterate, this is not at all representative of my standard play. It is however fairly representative of the occasional hand I get involved in when I'm bored and not paying attention to the game. The amounts are small, I'm distracted with another hand at another table - or something else I'm doing on the computer - so I just limp in and call a couple small bets until it gets interesting, or until the hand ends. I'm not looking at my reads or calculating the pot odds. It is indeed very bad play from almost start to finish. Luckily I do this maybe four or five times total in a long session; I doubt it's costing me more than a buck or two a day. But that's still a leak. Which is why I posted this thread.

If you want to see what is representative of my standard play, please view basically any other post I've made here in Hand Histories. Generally I'm a much more adept, aggressive, careful player than what is shown here. Not that my play is above reproach, but I would rarely play a hand as poorly and disinterestedly as I did this one.