TPTK four-way with AQs in the HJ

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Hero folded.

Thank you for cultivating my cherished poker virtue: humility.

Because I’m candid, I also have bragging rights: https://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/54/po...

Full disclosure; I lost 90 this night, not recorded on the spreadsheet.

Curious what you thought V had when you folded.

I'd probably prefer just to bet the turn against someone who is likely calling wide, but against an erratic player who might hurp durp if checked to then I'm not going to hate on a check either. But think we probably have to continue against this guy. Board is getting a lot drawier, we're OOP, we don't want him to check the river back with worse that would pay off, etc. so I'd probably just stick the rest in now.

GcluelesshighvariancenoobG

Not looking to beat you up or put a spotlight on you and ask you to answer difficult questions. Feel free to tell me to piss off if that's the case...

Did you fold because you assigned him a range that is entirely made up of hands that beat AQ, or was it something about his bet size, or did you pick up some sort of tell? Just trying to understand the reasoning behind your fold.

I don't hate checking turn after V calls our large c-bet, but we need to be pretty sure he's got 2P or a set in order to fold. Your read is that he's a reg who calls too much post-flop, and is capable of semi-bluffing. Surely he could have a lot of KJ / J9 here, if that's our read.

With two other opponents still in the hand on the flop, I'd think he'd have some raise frequency with 33 or QT, even when we bet large. He wouldn't want to give the other two guys a good price to chase their draws by just flatting.

If we think about it along those lines, I actually really like your turn check, to give him a chance to start betting all his draws. But when we take that line of large c-bet flop / turn check, we have to be willing to go with our hand, and just put the rest in, not flat, and certainly not fold.

Again, not trying to make you feel worse. Just hoping this is helpful.

TT or QT.

Because he bet 1/2 pot? Because he always has the nuts in this spot?

You said in an earlier post you're ashamed of how you played this hand. Why? Do you think you made a MUBSy fold?

If you fell victim to a temporary bout of MUBS, does that happen often, enough for it to be a persistent leak? Have you spent any time away from the table, thinking about the thoughts you're having in game, thoughts which may be self-sabotaging?

I seem to recall you mentioning something somewhere about being on some meds for anxiety or depression. I have ADHD and tend to have racing thoughts, pretty much all the time, but especially in-game. I've struggled to figure out how to time my meds for optimum performance in-game and still be able to get to sleep before the sun comes up.

I've found it's helpful to have a repeatable thought process to use in-game. For me the biggest challenge is just remembering to actually use it.

A simplified version of the questions I try to force myself to ask before acting:

1. What is their range? Are they capped or uncapped?

2. What happens if? Will they fast-play their value if I check or bet small? What seems likely to happen if I bet large?

3. What would I do here with the nuts? What would I do if I was bluffing? Is it plausible that I have the nuts, or more likely I'm bluffing?

4. Is my opponent's line more consistent with hands that beat mine, or hands I beat?

Hope something here helps.

Also...you seem to beat yourself up a lot, at least in your comments in a lot of your threads.

Are you being funny, or are you truly "ashamed", or whatever?

It's okay to play a hand poorly, if you learn from it. We're all here to learn. And we're all random anons on the internet. You shouldn't give a $hlt what anyone here thinks about you as a player. I don't.

I think that sort of negative self-talk is self-defeating and drives us into a vicious cycle of negativity, where thoughts become actions and self-fulfilling prophesy.

When I lose a big pot or think I played a hand poorly, I try to think about it over the coming days, and force myself to consider alternative actions I could have taken at each step along the way.

I lost a big one in my last session. More than a week later, I'm still thinking about it, looking for what I could have done differently to avoid losing as much as I did. I'm either going to find a better line I could have taken, or I'm going to find that there was nothing I could have done differently that would have led to a different outcome.

It's a constructive, rather than destructive thought process.

I actually never feel shame. I also almost never feel fear. In the many times where I was in dangerous situations and responsible for the safety of others, I was always the most level-headed. Anger, humor, sympathy, and other emotions I feel deeply. I cry easily. People know me as an extreme cognitive and affective empath. But I also have high executive function, and my judgment almost always trumps my feelings. As long as I take my meds and see my doctor (checked in last week, btw), there is no need to worry about my mental health.

In this hand I got mubsy. It rarely happens. My father never felt fear at all, ever, and his executive function and cognitive empathy, and memory processing far exceeded mine. So maybe I'm still processing my inferiority complex with my father? Actually, I'm too old for that.

I am mostly candid and often ironic. The strat forum isn't the place to get philosophical but I do believe humility is the virtue of a warrior and a poker player. In history and literature, heroes who never admit to their mistakes are doomed for a tragic end. I play 99 out of 100 hands correctly now. But margins are so thin in raked games that a mistake in a 3B pot with TPTK is make-or-break, the difference between a pro and an enthusiast.

I know many lurkers on 2+2 who do not post hand histories because the trolls attack them, and many posters give their advice with Schadenfreude. No one seems to like posts where the hero played correctly. They like posts where the hero made a mistake. Think: Oedipus, Napoleon, Sid Vicious. Do you want to read about Phil Ivey and Immanuel Kant? Or Stu Ungar and Friedrich Nietzsche?

I really appreciate everyone's advice on 2+2 over the years. I achieved my main poker goal of "most likely a winning player in a raked game," though I am painfully aware that some of the best poker players went broke or almost went broke, even though they played almost every hand correctly. I love writing these posts. I am so glad people read them.

Back to work...