Another poor play on my part from yesterday.
I had just gone on a mini rush, and climbed out of a $900 hole to be up around $5-600. I had been raising a good amount and perhaps getting a bit greedy with steals and light call downs.
Villain is a player I don't recall playing with. He came to the table with about ~900. I know he wasn't on the 2/5 table I had hit transferred from, so I think he may have snuck the extra chips from a 1/2 session. Regardless, I noticed this when he sat down and opted to say nothing. Could very well be legit and if floor/dealer don't have an issue, I'll never be one to demand chips come off the table.
This becomes partly significant for a few reasons
1) is he shot taking 2/5? Will he be scared?
2) is he someone who has come to table to bumhunt someone at a deep table? (Me or another player)
3) chip stack becomes an issue in the hand
I may be slightly off on my preflop action as well as exact small card that came on flop. At the time the hand seemed rather insignificant and I hadn't planned on reviewing it, and the exact action/board is somewhat insignificant. However as I was going over mental notes from the day I realized I made a critical error in the hand, and basically was trapped into making a play that I'm often trying to induce from my opponents.
The play itself wasn't awful I guess, but mybapproach to it was.
1 limper before me, I make it 20 in EP with QQ. 1 or 2 callers? Villain repops to 85 in SB. Folded to me I call. We are heads up.
Flop 8
7
3
Villain checks to me. I check to hide hand strength.
Turn 8
Villain bets 100, a fairly weak bet in my opinion. I raise to 250.
Villain insta shoves for 550 more.
And here is my problem. Look above at my reasons for the check and bet...
There were none. There was no real thought behind any action I made in the hand. I just acted to act. And now, with no gameplan, no reason behind my actions, I'm ****ed.
Is villain shoving here because he has seen how loose and spewy I can be? My showdown hands haven't exactly been monsters.
Does he think I'm a player who can lay down a big PP here and is making a play with ATC or using AK as blockers? Does he think I'm a station or sticky player who he can extract value with by vbetting KK+ here? Does he know about this thread? Does he even know how to tie his shoes?
I don't know what action he expects from me because I made a "standard" raise without putting any thought behind it. What action did i hope to affect with my bet? Get a better hand to fold? Get a worse one to call? Build a pot where I can snap off bluff attempts on the river? Hadn't seen him get out of line yet so far (small sample), so why should I think he doesn't have it?
Don't ask me, I don't know. I just bet.
And to me that is one if the most critical flaws you can make in hold'em, someone any current or past student/strat partner knows is basically my mantra... KNOW WHY YOU ARE BETTING.
I opened up the pot for a player I have virtually no info or read on to steal a bunch of dead money from the spewy loud fish in the corner. Impossible for me to say since I don't know how he's viewing me. I don't know why I bet, let alone why he bet.
I try to get him to give me more info. Does he want me to call? What do I have? Wanna show one perhaps? Blah blah blah. I'm lost in the woods and the trail of breadcrumbs is gone. I surrender. I made my bed and now here you go take it enjoy it **** it I'll sleep on the floor.
After the hand/session I just chalked it up to typical over aggression by me, but the more I thought about it the more I realized that either I let someone trap me into spazzing the turn, or I trapped myself.
Though it was fun playing against some new faces. Gotta remind myself that when I'm playing deep and not really on my A (or even B) game, it's often best to just walk away and live to fight another day.
And there goes another rambling steam of conscious wall of text. Sorry in advance for all the typos and iPhone autocorrect pseudo-language substitutions. And has anyone actually even bothered to read this far?