So firstly an apology for not updating the blog in quite some time. I did originally want to keep content on here updated at least once a week but I’ve been tilted a lot recently and really wasn’t up for it.
However every cloud does indeed have a silver lining, in that I’ve realised some major leaks in my game and after watching a large number of The Poker Bank’s videos (which I thoroughly recommend) I was ready to hit the tables once again, this time with a much tighter outlook.
Which brings me to folding.
Folding is something I’m really quite bad at.
I always feel like the reward of hitting that two-outer is so great that I just NEED to call the Villains pot-sized bet on the Turn, or call that large 3bet by the nitty player on the table who only has 15% VPIP when I have pocket 8s..
Therefore I decided to really work on my discipline when it came to mucking my hands and here are some examples for you. As a note I’ve decided to use screenshots instead of a proper text break-down for these, as they are fairly simple. I do however want to start using further detail on hand examples from HEM2, which I plan to do in future posts.
I’ve chosen these four as they are examples of moments where I would have most likely called or raised previously, but in each instance took the time to consider the play and folded.
Starting off pretty simple here. Pocket 6s vs an almost 4x 3bet from a pretty nitty player. Usually I would have been so married to my hand that I would have never thought to give this Villain my $0.06 without at least seeing a flop, with the 10.5% chance of hitting a set. Not great pot odds!
Another pretty simple preflop example. I’m holding a strong hand, but being out of position in a 3-way pot when I can put the other two on a tight range of AQ+ with high sets I’m dominated. Again I would usually have called this, or maybe even gone all-in, and although I could have got extremely lucky it wasn’t worth the lost money.
Bit of River play here. I have a middle pair with an Ace kicker, so I’m not holding air, but the Villain played strong throughout the whole hand and an over half the pot triple-barrel just didn’t seem like something he’d do with an aggression rating of 4.1 and 67% Cbet. I put him on a JJ/QQ, but he could have easily held a set or even AT/A2.. Either way I’m losing the pot if I call.
Another one that may seem pretty simple to the good poker player but bare in mind I have top pair with a king kicker here.. and to a newb like me this is almost an All-In moment!! Thankfully I took a moment to consider the possibility of a flush on the flop or backdoor and it was an easy fold.
I think the lesson I’ve learnt, especially when looking at my report graph on HEM2 which is actually starting to move up of late, is that yes I will be losing a couple of cents here and there when I fold strong hands, but I won’t lose dollars or buy-ins when it’s looking quite likely the Villain is holding the nuts.
Cheers for reading and please do comment or tweet me with any feedback!
Like this:
Like Loading…
