Poker Articles

One thing that we all as a community have in common is that at one point in time, we have have let one bad thing lead to another at the poker table. Compounding mistakes is something that is not only easy to do but is probably a habit that some players do not even realize they have. It is something that can occur during a single hand, an entire tournament, or a series of tournaments which you are playing at the moment.

You are deep in a MTT and have an average stack. You hold KQs in late position. A tight UTG raiser makes a standard raise of 3x the big blind. Although you are aware that you fare poorly against his pre-flop range, you decide to go ahead and call with the hope that you can either outplay him postflop or outflop him. The flop is K 5 2 rainbow. The UTG player leads for a little less than the pot, and your KQs now looks to be the best hand. You decide to shove all in and are shown AK by the UTG player. You brick the turn and river and exit the tournament.

You are at the final table of the 100r on Pokerstars. It is now 7-handed, and you are sitting 5th in chips. You are playing a solid, patient game when it happens: AA in late position. The UTG player makes it 3x the big blind, and a middle position player flat calls. You shove all in with your aces, thinking about how cool it will be to tell your friends how tough of a field you outlasted when you win. The UTG player folds, and the MP player calls you with 88. The flop and turn brick, but the river is a nasty 8, giving your opponent a set and sending you packing in 7th place. You are in 5 other tournaments at this time and begin playing terribly due to your bad luck in the 100r. You exit quickly out of your other 5 tourneys and log off cursing your bad run of luck.

As we see in both of these examples, this player paid dearly for letting one mistake or bad beat lead to further negative consequences at the tables. In the first example, the initial mistake of calling the pre-flop raise from a tight player UTG resulted in him losing his entire stack in a single tournament. In the second example, this player made the mistake of allowing his emotions to dictate his play. This mistake had a ripple effect on all of the other tournaments he was playing and caused him to blow a lot more cash than was necessary---he basically let one bad beat knock him out of 6 tournaments!

Compounding mistakes is something that I struggled with when I first started playing poker seriously, and I suspect it is something many players do without even realizing. If you have ever watched sbrugby's videos on cardrunners or read his blog, you will find a common theme. He stresses the importance of not tilting and playing your A game at all times. Sbrugby is fully aware of the consequences of making a mistake by playing poorly, and you should be as well. All too often, we play poorly and blame the cards or a run of bad luck. We 3 bet all in pre-flop with AK against two solid players and bemoan the fact that we always run into monsters. We chase cards down only to complain that we never hit anything.

The next time you find yourself complaining about a poor run of cards, go back and analyze your play. Did you make that initial crucial mistake in a hand that caused you to play the entire hand poorly? Did you bust out of a tournament because of a bad beat you took in another? Accept the fact that you will make mistakes from time to time when playing a game of incomplete information. But also realize the danger of compounding mistakes and the effect these mistakes will have on your overall bottom line.