In the last year, I have seen players who I thought were playing a respectable game just appear to lose all sanity when their KK flops an Ace and was curious if you all are have seen the same thing. These were the two most recent situations:

Situation 1: Guy ($200) who had been tight passive for 3-4 hours raises $12 unexpectedly and gets a couple callers. Flop comes A56r, guy checks, one his his villains who plays straightforwardly bets $25, and guy c/r all in and loses to AQ.

Situation 2: Guy ($300) who had played a decent tighter, moderately aggressive game and who had made some decent folds, raises some limpers to $12 from the SB, gets two callers. Flop comes AA7r. Guy bets $20, one caller who is a loose guy who is not particular passive or aggressive. Turn is AAA7. This is where pure insanity happens. Guy c/r/4bet/calls allin! His villain obviously had the ace.

Are you all seeing this kind of stuff? If it was from maniacs I wouldn't blink an eye, but it is from guys who seem at least decent at times. What is going on psychologically here?

Wrong forum.

People who play tight cant accept the fact that they got out flopped. They wait all day for big pairs and just cant fold them. The LAGier you play the easier it is to fold big pairs. Every hand is another potential good hand to play.

Standard, also the second hand doesnt sound so bad. Might even be eligible for the BBJ. Peeps not gonna have quads all that often

It's psychological and it's entitlement.
In plo I see guys fold sets who won't fold pocket aces in the same spot

Although the hand with 3 aces on the board you mentioned is a bad example of this.

What’s more likely: That two solid players are losing their minds in this situation or that your read is way off?

What I experience often is Some Reg tells me that Other Reg is a good player when in fact Other Reg is very bad at poker. Often it is a too-tight Some Reg misidentifying Other Reg’s tightness for winningness because Other Reg doesn’t get involved in big pots much and Some Reg isn’t good at tracking small events over long periods. Meanwhile, I and others are slowly bleeding Other Reg while nodding along with Some Reg.

Maybe you found two solid guys with a very specific and costly leak, but I know where my money is!

Are you guys seriousness about the second hand?

Look I have no problem with a bet, bet, bet line or maybe even a bet,bet/call,check call kind of line (though this is probably still a little optimistic)... But to check/raise/4 bet/call the all-in on the turn!?!

Yes I realize this is now drifting into a strategy discussion but come on now. We are really okay with this guy's line on the turn? We don't think there's any kind of psychological entitlement tilt going on here?

Just standard tilting.

I find that I have a harder time folding when I know I was ahead at some prior point in a hand than when I was always behind or its very ambiguous.

But I think what you are seeing is at the edges of a bell curve.

Much more intriguing to me is SB vs BB play in tournaments. I have seen guys who have played tight solid ABC poker for hours go berserk in a blind vs blind hand.

Good insight. Curious on the bolded since I play mostly cash where it's most always chopped, but am looking to play some 1 - 2k buyins over the next year. What sorts of things have you seen?

Would it seem less out of line if you acknowledged that he was only calling a three bet (opponent made first bet, he made the second bet, third was the all-in)

Note to mods. Don't put this in LLSNL. It doesn't belong there, either.

Only a little as even if that were the case to give up the lead and check is fine but then to raise?? What is he hoping to get called by that he beats. I still even think check raising is a bit optimistic.

Were you the guy in the 2nd example? Because there were definitely five bets on that street although the fifth bet All In was not all that much more than the 4bet. That's why everyone was snickering about how there must have been five aces in the deck.

I'm not the guy it's just that your description is three bets but you labeled it as 4 bets....

Player A checks
Player B bets (1 bet)
Player A raises (2 bets)
Player B raises all in (3 bets)


Now you are saying 5 bets which would be possible. But it couldn't be 4 bets.

No everything is consistent with OP that said "Guy c/r/4bet/calls allin!", as I was just describing his actions

Guy: checked
Other player: bet
Guy: raised
Other player: 3-bet
Guy: 4-bet
Other player: All in
Guy: Call

Oh I see. I read it differently

[ ] entitlement
[ ] over playing aces or kings
[ ] thinks everyone is playing back at them
[ ] not a good player after all
[X] all of the above

Maybe you would get more in depth analysis in the psychology form.

I have seen people bluffing and taking risks much more frequently blind vs blind than any other situation.

For example with over 100 blinds effective stacks it folds to the SB who shoves. I say out loud "well there's basically only one or two hands I am playing here" and see AA. The other guy had ATo.

Another tourney we are about 60 blinds effective stacks second day and I have 66. I limp pre in the SB the BB raises and I call. The flop is 632. He bets strong and I c/r like 2.5x and BB shoves with 43o. This guy had been playing tight solid all day.

And so on.

People forget that they play poker to make money and not to play poker.

People say or think they play poker to make money and then 'act' like they are there just to play around in the game by their game play.

Players go into a session with (unrealistic) expectations and when things start to come up short or not as quickly as they would like them to then 'things change'.

Players think they are entitled to good results when they play 'correctly', but yet treat a spot like this one, say KcKs v AXh, like it's a River 2 outer when in reality it's 67/33. And they tend to think that because an Ace rolled out the last time that they are 'entitled' to 2-3 Flops in a row without an Ace when in reality every hand is independent of the other!

This is a perfect example as to why 'good' Players want to play deep in both cash and tournament. The ability to sit back and wait for spots where other Players make a mistake or start to lose patience is golden!

Lack of patience and envy/jealousy of other Player's short-term/current gains is different in each human for sure.

To now answer your question ... ... yes, I do think there is more emotion/tilting in poker these days. The more educated the poker player becomes the higher the expectations IMO. Just because you know the math/correct play doesn't mean a Player has the ability to actually play in a disciplined fashion when they need to.

I was in a PLO hand where a guy claimed to be 'unbeatable' and stated 'come and get me' when he potted from the SB with top set on the Flop, even though we were multi-way! As it turns out he was only 40% against the two opponents calling him down on Flop and Turn ... of course he was rewarded with quads on the River (and two folds for no additional value). If this Player had lost this hand there would've been hell to pay for a good 20 minutes at this table about how his (60% dawg) luck was so bad .... GL

I think the emotional states are the same but many more opportunities exist to tilt.

The vast majority of people who play poker overestimate their winrate, due to survivorship bias (people who ran poorly at first, even if they played well, tended to quit early).

As a result, people underestimate the likelihood and depth of downswings. For example, someone who flops a set 150/850 times they've played a pocket pair will believe that playing pocket pairs is insanely profitable; when they "only" hit 100/850 of the next times, they bemoan how bad they're running.

As games get tougher and more players know whether a straight beats a flush, peoples' winrates are dropping, and on top od that people tend to revert to the mean. They get stressed because they've built an expectation around an inflated winrate. They may not have saved enough in the good times to ride out yhe downswing.

In this specific example of hand 2, it's not too hard to imagine that years ago KK would have been good. In 2006, it might have been possible to value bet KK, expecting 2 people would call with non-aces and offsetting the few times someone called with an ace. As the years went on, the number of people who would call with aces full of deuces decreased, and the number of people who would raise with quads increased. At some point the value bet turned negative but maybe this guy ran well. In the past 3 years, the last 5 times he's value bet KK on an AAA board have turned out poorly for him and he can't believe his horrible luck!

This post is kinda pointless but I’ll bite. When people play tight, they tend to have trouble folding big pairs, etc when it’s clear they should. Why it’s prolly better to play Lagier and more post flop so you are better at reading situations and knowing when to fold/ you are beat.

or BQ. Thanks in advance

I saw this the other day at my casino as well. Player did not fold pocket kings when the flop came A-Q-Q, the turn came a brick and the river completed a flush. He was playing tight and lost $100 on the hand to Ace-Queen!

As for why they don't fold, people do love to bluff an ace card. Maybe that's part of the thinking.

Had a lady call me down tonight with KK on a 35QAQ runout with KK

She bet half pot on flop. Check/Called the turn. Check/called the river.

Her hand was good....what a fish : )

^^^^^ Which is why they don't fold as much as they should. Because they do win every once in a while!! "Pairs are hard to find and people like to bluff." GL