Making The Right Decisions

I haven't been playing much lately. Been focusing on some projects that I have been managing overseas. But to be honest, I got a little burned out on poker. The rest was needed.

Last night we had some friends over to play a little friendly Texas Hold'em around the kitchen table. I felt good playing again. The game sparked that inner poker fire that had been burned out for a while. 

Tonight I decided to go back online and play a little. I started with a little limit Hold'em to warm up. Within about 10 minutes I had a pretty good feel for the players at the table and was able to "extract" some profit from the weaker players. I then moved on to a $20 sit n go tournament. 

I played my standard game, just as I teach on SitNGoTraining.com. I played a very patient game and made good decisions throughout. We were still at an M of about 40 by the time we made it to the money. As a result, we had lots of time to wait, wait, and wait, until the blinds rose enough to start forcing plays.

With three players left, we were about even in chips, but it was time to start shoving. I waiting for the proper situations to shove. Finally, the big opportunity came. The player to my right had been raising the pot on each button. He did this time also and I looked down to see QQ. Normally I would be excited to have QQ with three players left, in the money, and a raise-happy button. However, QQ and I have a bad history together. I don't have the exact statistics, but more times than not (many more times!), someone sucks out on me when I play QQ. If I were on the bubble I probably would have thrown it away. That is how bad my history has been! Throwing QQ away against a habitual button raiser. However, I couldn't let it go this time. He raised, I shoved. He turns over AKo.

The result of the hand isn't really what this message is about. The issue is about making the right decisions, regardless of your history in that situation. I almost folded the QQ because it has such a bad history for me. There might be some situations where folding QQ is the right decision. For example, if the button and I were equal in chips and the BB was all in (blinded out), if the button shoved, it would probably make sense to fold and hope to get down to two players. But the three of us were about equal in chips and our stacks were about 8x the BB. So it is time to shove. 

The point is this. Know the right decisions before you are faced with them and more importantly, follow through on them regardless of your history. If you continue to make the right decisions, over time, you will profit from them.