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I am glad you think you are playing better poker, but seriously, you can't assume that just based on your results which can be due to normal poker variance. (Seriously, sucking out to a nut full house on the turn against trips is nice when it happens, but it isn't really an indicator of great poker skill.)
What's more important is the way you THINK about poker hands. I.e., when he called your flop bet, what range did you put him on? Was 6-8 within his limping range? What hands in that range do you think he would fold to that bet? Did you understand that you could be behind in the hand? What was your plan if you hadn't have completed your boat on the turn or the river?
The key isn't to win a big pot with a big hand-- even many bad players can play a big hand pretty well. (In the end, even with respect to the best poker players in the world, getting good cards never hurts!!!) When I first realized that I was actually getting better was when I started thinking not in terms of my hand and what I was doing but in terms of what the other players were doing and what that told me about what I might do.
Indeed, the hand that truly convinced me that I might be able to play poker well was a hand in which I was able to lay down a set of aces in a limit game because a good player who was not normally a calling station was calling my bets on the flop and the turn on a wet board. He hit his straight flush on the river, bet out, and someone else paid to see it (with a pair of 9's!). I didn't.
In other words, I LOST money on the hand. But I had an epiphany. I had made a good decision because I realized what the other player was doing, and based on how he played poker, I was able to figure out what it meant. And what the Villain's play told me was far more important than the fact that I had a set of aces, a hand that poor players will call to the river because it was "too good to lay down".
Otter, you will know when you are playing better poker because you will start seeing the meaning of what the other players are telling you. Until then, it doesn't matter whether you are up $400 or down $400 (even though, obviously, all other things being equal it is better to be up the $400).
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Thank you to everyone
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Originally Posted by Otter_Brothface
lol
