THE PROCESS OR THE RESULT?

I was playing a hand the other day in the $2-5 NL game at Red Rock casino in which I made a bad play, but ended up winning the pot.

We were playing short handed and a tight-passive older guy raises to 20 and I make the call out of the bb with 9d7d. The flop falls 764 rainbow and I check-call a bet of $50 on the flop. The turn brings a 6 pairing the board and I check again. My opponent bets $100 and I ask him how much he has behind. He says “about $700.” I have about 1k behind and decide to represent the 6 and move all-in. He goes into the tank and after about 2 minutes decides to put all his chips in and make the call with pocket 99s. With no more action the dealer then burns and delivers a 7 on the river making me a full house and two fisting a $1600 pot to me.

“Wow! I thought I had 3 outs, but it turns out I only had 2,” I exclaimed. “What do you mean 3 outs?” He says. “You only had 2 cards in the deck that could help you.” To which I replied; “Well, I was counting on one of my outs as you folding, but obviously I counted wrong.”

This particular guy is a zillionaire and money was not a factor in his decision, but knowing that he valued making good decisions, I wanted to know why he called.

“Why did you call me, didn’t you think I had a 6?” I ask him.

“No,” he said. “I knew that was what you were representing, but I thought if you really had the 6 you wouldn’t have over bet it like that. Your bet was more then the size of the pot. I figured if you had the 6 you would have just raised me a couple hundred trying to get me in there. Your bet was more like you were trying to force me out of the pot. So I called.”

His thinking was correct and I knew better and publically chastised myself for making a bad play, while I stacked his chips knowing I had gotten away with one.

It’s a strange dynamic in poker when you can make the correct play (in this particular case Call) and get punished and you can make an incorrect play (move-in) and get rewarded. I’m sure most of you have been on both sides of that fence as well. Or at least those of you who know what the correct or incorrect thing is to do when playing your hand.

Bottom line is my instincts I think were correct, but my execution was poor. The correct play if I wanted to represent the 6 is to raise it to 250 and then follow through with betting the remaining 450 on the river regardless what came. In this case the result may have been the same. The only difference would have been in the process. The part of the process I did do correctly is ask my opponent what I did wrong and taking his note and being more mindful of it in the future.

Winning players know that the key to winning is not focusing on results, but rather focusing on the process of how you get there.

Enjoy the Journey,

Kenna James