Here is a hand from this weekend (that I played poorly) and I think is a good example of not taking a few extra seconds to think things through before you act.
This Saturday in a 1/2 NL game it's pretty late into a session and I'm way up at the time I've got about $1150, I bought in for $300. It's about midnight and I'm planning to leave soon when the following hand came up.
In early position I have 7/8 hearts. I limp in. 1 to my left is a very loose player who is down about $500 on the night, he makes it $20 to go, this is standard for him and doesn't mean much. 3 players call the $20 before me so I call.
Flop comes AhQhJc
I check and it gets checked around to the cutoff who makes it $50. It folds around to me. The guy who raised was somewhat tight and I didn't believe he would bet into the field with just a flush draw, I put him on a made straight, or a big ace. There is now $150 in the pot and it's $50 to call. I want to see the turn because I think this guy will pay me off if I make a flush on the turn. This is as far as my thinking went.
This is the point where fatigue and not giving proper thought to the situation hurt me.
I called everyone else folded.
Turn is a J of hearts. The only thing going through my head is flush. I look at his stack, he has about $320 and change. I'm first to act and without thinking I make it $330 to go.
Insta call. He's got AJ.
If I had taken the time to think about it, I would have checked and could have gotten away (I hope) from the hand to a big bet or at the very least lost a lot less on this hand.
I see this type of thing happen a lot from good players making decisions far too quickly without thinking. And this time it cost me a big pot. I still posted a good win of about $520. But it should have been better.
Something to think about.
omni
