Somehow, when you make the right calls and go down, even if there’s a decent sum of money at stake, it just doesn’t hurt as much as if you know you made a boneheaded play. Such is the case for me, at least, and was the case a couple months ago when I sat in on a game with a bunch of people from work on a Sunday afternoon.
This type of crowd is always dangerous to begin with, something for another discussion, but there were at least two or three players who I’d played with before and knew they were skilled at the game. One of them I knew to be a regular online player who had studied the game a significant amount.
Does that make you automatically a great player? No, but any good player will tell you that studying certainly gives you a leg up on your competition. So I was cautious going head-to-head against this guy anyway. As it turned out, both times I faced off against him in Hold ‘Em and ended up with an all-in battle, I had the percentages when we flipped our cards, but he was the one cleaning up the chips at the end.
He was gracious about it, and was shaking his head, almost in shame the way a tennis player does when their forehand hits the net and trickles over for the point. What else could he do? That’s just how the cards fall sometimes.
The one time I actually beat him (and believe it or not in all this losing I did manage to walk away up a few bucks on the night), it wasn’t an all-in situation, so I had to keep my best poker face on. This, I believe, is where I took the advantage. Someone so used to playing online, while they might have a decent poker face if pressed, has little experience reading other people’s faces so much as their delay times between actions. That, and it’s just not built into their playing culture and discipline to watch me as I was watching him.
He started talking out loud, which I’m always of fan of when I’m on the receiving end (it makes me feel empowered as a player), and told himself I was on a value bet. I knew this wasn’t the case, as he would shortly find out, so he came back against my bet by doubling it on a raise. I raised back, and he called and saw my trips beat his two pair.
Would I take that one win against the two losses? I’d prefer not, obviously. The two losses didn’t sting, but they didn’t really offer me the opportunity to learn much, either, since I feel as though I played perfectly and just lost to the luck of the draw.