Poker Articles

There are more than a few tales from around the world about traits that are bad for human beings to possess. From the seven deadly sins of Christianity to the Japanese homunculi to Lastikman from the Philippines, there are many stories about what happens if we fail to avoid these sins.

This is true at the poker table as well. There are indeed many sins that can help separate a player from his chips at the table. For the purposes of this article I will only talk about one such sin, stubbornness.

As an example, let me tell you about a tourney I played last night. I was about a half an hour into the three dollar rebuy on stars and I had won one big pot to get my stack up over 5k. At my table was one guy who had over 20k, three or four guys who were in the 4-6k range, and the rest were all under 3k. The big stack had already demonstrated his inability to be moved off a hand. If he was in the pot and had gotten any piece of the flop, he was there to stay.

More than once, somebody at the table had tried to put the big stack’s will to the test by bluffing at a pot. Every time, no matter how many shells they fired, the big stack stuck by his guns and called them down or folded cheaply when he completely missed. I don’t remember the big stack acquiring any of his chips any other way. In fact, the one time he had been dealt a big pair he had also played it the same way – calling rather than betting or raising.

I don’t use any of the computer programs that show you how your opponents are playing, so it is up to me to pay attention and figure it out for myself. I had already decided that the big stack would double me up if I finally flopped a hand, but that he would also take my chips if I tried to bluff. So, when I picked up KQs in middle position on his blind I made a standard raise to try to build a pot. The flop came AcQc9s and he checked so I bet out a little more than half the pot to see where I was at. To my huge surprise he check raised me for another 1500 chips. I almost thought about putting the rest of my 4500 stack in the pot, but I didn’t get stubborn and instead I folded.

A few hands later in my big blind I picked up pocket aces and was pleased to see that he had called a small raise. It was just the two of them in the pot so far so I decided to gamble with my aces and flat call. The three of us saw a flop of ThKc3s and the original raiser bets out 900, or about a little less than the size of the pot. I waited while the big stack decided and smiled as he called the 900. Now came the hard part. I was torn between flat calling again and raising it right there. Had there been a flush draw on the board also, it would have pushed me firmly into the raising camp. But still, any card, 9-A on the turn was going to be a scare card for me. So I still decided that there were too many cards to come that I didn’t want to see and pushed.

Honestly, I’m not sure what the best thing to do there was as they both folded and I added almost 3000 chips to my stack. But, the way I saw it, at least I didn’t get stubborn. I could have easily played back at the big stack in the previous hand and stood a good chance of stacking off to a weak ace or even two pair or a set of nines. I’m sure it was possible that he was on a complete bluff and I’d have doubled up, but I mentally put the odds of that in the low 20% range. I was satisfied with my playable 7k stack after I won with the aces and I would be fine even if I went to the break with just that.

To my thinking I did not get stubborn either time and kept myself in the game with enough chips to play. If I do get stubborn I like to do so more in the second spot than the first. I don’t mind sometimes “gambling with the best hand” as I like to call it, and taking at least one more card off with my aces against one or even two opponents. True, there has been more than a few times that this has cost me the pot, but there have also been times where I get a lot more value out of my aces by taking a risk there. But, when I take that risk, I do it because I think the situation warrants it. I try not to do it because I want to take revenge for an earlier loss, or because I think I deserve more chips, or even because I was too stubborn to see when it was time to take down the pot. Poker is about conquering these negative emotions not giving in to one of the deadly sins of the game.