The month of April is going to end up being a profitable one, although not as much as it could have been thanks to the ever-present "leaks" in my game. I seem to find myself winning a whole lot of small-to-medium pots every time I play but somehow I manage to lose one big pot along the way that really cuts into the profitability of my session. For example, last night I brought it in UTG for a 4x the BB raise with QQ. It passed around to the button, who reraised me another 4BB. One of the blinds (on a very short stack) called the raise and I did as well. The flop came A-K-Q, and I checked to the re-popper, who bet 8BB, which was called by the short stack. As soon as the shorty called I put him on Ace-X, and figured that the repopper couldn't have Aces, so I called as well. The turn was a blank, and I checked again to the repopper, who bet 20BB. Now at this point the shorty was already all-in, so if I folded I was going to get to see the repopper's hand, but of course I couldn't find a fold with my trips and called him. The river was another blank, and I check-called the repopper's river bet, only to find out that he did indeed have Aces in the hole. In retrospect, I had a pretty easy fold on the turn, because after I called the flop bet the repopper had to give me credit for a very strong hand, and since he continued betting despite this I should have known that I was up against KK or AA and let the hand go. What it comes down to is that I get a bit too stubborn with my very good hands, and once or twice a session make a negative-expectation play despite all the evidence in front of me that I am either beat or going to get called by what must be a better hand.
The other leak that's been occurring has been on my steal-reraise hands. About every 20-30 hands I will reraise a few limpers with raggy Aces or other similarly trashy hands. About half the time I get no callers and win a few blinds, but the other half of the time I get called and find myself in troublesome spots where I am betting big with a mediocre hand and praying that my opponent will fold, but instead I'm getting called or even reraised. The result is that the pots I win are small, and the pots I lose are much larger.
So my goal for May is to recognize and eliminate those -EV plays, and also limit my steal-reraise attempts to hands that actually have some value to fall back upon. Vamos a ver !
