TRUST Your Instincts

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Okay, as a little disclaimer at the top of this entire post, I want to clarify that this post is more geared toward people that are fairly advanced players (amongst players here).

Every now and again, I hit bumps in the road or have major breakthroughs in my poker experiences. When I figure something out, I like to share it here. Now, almost undoubtedly, I will make this post, and after reading it, someone who is not quite as good as they think will attempt using this advice and it will cost them a pot.

The fact of the matter is, no matter how much reading of poker strategy you do, one of the most important factors in playing winning poker is experience--and that's sort of what this post is about: trusting your experience, your instincts.

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So, last night, I was at the casino playing $1/$2 NL Hold'em. All-in-all, I lost $200 (a single buy-in). You can't win every session. I'm not tilting, and this thread doesn't exist for me to complain about a losing session--you guys know that's now how I roll. What's interesting about last night's losing session is that despite it being a losing session, I was more exciting coming home last night than any time in recent memory. Why? Because I had a major poker breakthrough.

I realized just how good of a poker player I am (as well as an area of my game I need to improve).


Now, normally I like going to the casino on Friday nights. When a table is full of drunk hooligans playing crazy, I usually can just easily sit back and crush the table. Unfortunately, last night, I was placed at a very, very tight table. One of the tightest tables I've ever sat at. That's okay. I'm a good player. I can play LAG successfully (though my natural and preferred style is TAG).

I was doing decently. I had built my stack up to $450-500 or so, and everything was going decent. It could have been better. There really wasn't a whole lot of action, and I was stuck to just buying what pots I could.

And then...this hand came along...

I'm UTG and look at KdQd. I limp for the $2. (I know what you're thinking, that's not very LAG right? That's more L/P. Well...sorry, but I'm not playing that overly aggressive out of position at a tight table.)

The guy to my left limps for $2, and it's folded to the cut-off who makes it $10--beyond standard. Button and both blinds call. I call. And now the guy to my left raises the pot to $45.

It's folded back around to me.

Now, normally, this is a standard fold for me. However, a couple of things entered my mind.

First and foremost, I knew that if this table was going to wake up, we'd need a big pot. I figured even losing $200 in this pot here could be long-term profitable for me. My goal since I sat down had been to loosen up the table.

My second thought was to count the money. The raise was to $45, so that meant it was $35 for me to call. There were 4 people that put in $10 then folded, so that's $40 in dead money, plus my $10 and villain's $45 mean that it'd be $35 to call a pot of $95. File that information in the back of my mind while I continue to analyze.

After those first two immediate and almost automatic thoughts begins my real analysis. Remember, this is the guy to my left. He limped from UTG+1. I know he is one of the better players at the table. Unfortunately, I haven't played with him long enough to know his odds of attempting this with AA from UTG+1. If he's straight up UTG, I just muck'em and assume he's playing his AA here. But he's UTG+1, so I don't automatically put him on AA, especially after I've already limped in willingly.

The table is just going to have to wait on me. I want to have a good idea of what kind of hand this guy is holding before we get to the flop, because I don't want the flop to dictate my decision.

Eventually, I come to the conclusion that there's three possible hands he has right here. He either has AA, a medium pocket pair (55-99) or any-two-limp-cards (hands like 67s, TJs, etc, whatever, very wide range, but not including ANY two cards like 27, etc).

AA has me dominated, I'm flipping against the medium pocket pairs, and I have the two limp-cards dominated.

One last consideration I make is that I'll have the ability to bet first which is something that I decide I want in this scenario.

I decide to call. As soon as I call, villain begins chatting me up. "You know it'd be really wild if you threw a $40 blind bet in," etc. I'm mostly ignoring this, because I have the feeling that he's trying to get me to believe he has Aces.

The flop comes out KhJd8c. At this point, the pot is $130. There are only 2 hands in the range I assigned him that beat me--AA, 88. He's still trying to talk me into betting, so I feel fairly certain that he's missed and I have the best hand (reverse psychology, etc). I bet $70 into the pot.

As soon as I bet, he quiets. He thinks for a while, and he raises $100 on top.

So now... it's $100 for me to call $370. But that's not an option. The only options are fold or all in. I've got about $250 or so left in my stack (can't remember exactly). When he raised me, I immediately rule out 88. That means the only possible hand remaining in his range that beats me is AA.

I decided to fold. I decided that his reraise (yet not all-in) in a pot that big (relatively big for these stakes, and definitely huge for this table) swung the odds to heavily toward him actually having AA and not a big bluff. You just don't really see people firing like that a whole lot at this place.


He ended up showing me he had T7.



I was upset with myself for so decisively putting him on AA. That hand bothered me for a while--but did not affect my play. For the rest of the night, I just got dealt a lot of second best hands (like...when I raise pre with AT, flop comes AAK, and on the turn I decide preflop smooth caller has me outkicked...river comes a T, so I beat AJ and AQ but only lose to AK, and that's what he has).

But it wasn't until I finally got in the car and started driving home that I finally became really happy about that hand.

You see, if you've drove home from playing live poker, you know that every real poker player does the same thing on the drive home. You're away from the table, so you don't have to thing about the hand in progress. You're left "reviewing the tape," so to speak. You go over the hands from that session that you filed away in your memory.


Normally, when playing TAG, it's not as important to read other players quite as much--not with the same amount of intimate detail as when playing LAG. You just need to figure out what a guy's general range is overall--not for every single specific hand. You're playing tight, he's playing loose--far more often than not, you have him beat if you're in the hand.

When playing LAG however, it's important to be able to win big pots with single pairs and to know where your single pair is good and where your single pair is running into a monster. When you play TAG, you let people run into your monsters. When playing LAG, you win lots of pots and avoid running into other people's monsters.


In this hand, I had read my opponent extremely well. My bet on the flop was perfect. Everything was good in the hand until it came time for me to call his second bullet. I didn't trust my instinct. I didn't have the balls to throw in $250+ in a $1/$2 NL game with top pair second kicker because I didn't trust my own poker instinct--and that was the only error I made in that hand.


I only made the error because I'm so adjusted to playing a pretty solid TAG game against very bad LAG opponents who just want to donate chips. Certainly, I still need to work on developing my LAG skills, and definitely need to have more faith in my instinct--because it's becoming quite good. But after last night, I realized that I undoubtedly have the ability to play LAG with the best of them (TAG is just usually the premium strategy for me to use where I play).