A friend of mine recently was complaining about a hand he lost, which was AK (hero) vs. AA (villain). In the hand, all the money went into the middle preflop, and the rockets held up, costing my friend about 1.5 buy-ins. Later, my friend complained that this was “a beat” and then proceeded to, ahem, whine about how he always runs into aces with big slick.
Of course, my friend was mistaken when he called this a bad beat. A true bad beat is defined as a loss where the hero got his money in far ahead of the other hand, but then got sucked out on and lost. This clearly is not what happened in this hand.
So, if this wasn’t a bad beat, what was it? Poker players like to talk about “coolers,” so I wondered if this fit into that category. A typical cooler is one in which both players flop sets and all the money goes in and the higher set holds up. Another example is when one player has KK and the other AA, all the money goes in PF, and the rockets hold up. The player with the cowboys simply got “coolered,” which is another way of saying “that’s poker.”
Getting all your money in preflop with AK might be considered by some players to be standard, especially if it was suited, but in fact going all-in with big slick is highly dependent on the range you put the villain on and his tendencies. I asked my friend what stats the villain hand, and what was the PF betting. He responded by saying that the villain was in the BB and was a tight player. He said the betting was bet, raise, re-raise, RR all-in. The hero then called the shove. In other words, the hero got his money in way behind.
So if this wasn’t a bad beat, or a cooler, or even just the normal variance of the game, what was this?
Answer: bad play. In hindsight it’s clear that the hero should not have called the 5-bet shove preflop. A tight OOP player was saying with his 5-bet shove that he had a very, very strong hand. When the villain 3bet, you could put him on hands like JJ+ and AQ+, but when he 5-bet shoved, the range should have been narrowed to something much stronger, like KK+ and AKs. In other words, the hero was most likely beat and should have folded his AK. In the heat of battle it’s often easy to get married to AK and not continue to narrow and refine your hand range read, but it’s incredibly important. If my friend was playing his A-game, I believe he would have folded and saved himself a significant amount of money.
Now, I can’t be too critical of my friend, as I made a similar bad play this morning that cost me more than two full buy-ins. In my case, the money didn’t go in until the river, but in hindsight I think I got married to a hand and forgot to refine my read when a villain shoved.
The hand played out with me open-raising very deep stacked in MP with JJ, and then getting RR’d pre by an equally deep-stacked-tight ABC small blind. I had notes on this player than indicated he only 3bet with big hands. I smooth called at that point, deciding to turn my jacks into a set mining proposition.
The flop came A85 rainbow and the player bet a tiny amount to me. I called behind and took a relatively cheap card on the turn, which was a third jack. Bingo! The villain led out for a half-pot sized bet and I decided to just smooth, planning to let him hang himself on the river. The board paired the five on the river, giving me a boat. Villain bet about 25% of the pot, and I fired back a half-pot sized bet into the middle.
The villain then 4-bet me all-in with a massive overbet.
I remember actually thinking that the opp couldn’t have quad fives, as he would not have RR’d me PF with a small pair. But that’s as far as my thinking went. My brain kept screaming at me that I had a full house, dammit! Get the money in!. Ergo, I called without actually refining my read on the villain.
Imagine my thoughts when all the money shipped to the villain’s side of the table. He had turned over aces full and scooped the pot. Talk about a cooler, I thought. Dammit!
In hindsight, however, this wasn’t a cooler. Nor was it a bad beat. Nor was it variance of the game. This was actually bad play by me.
It’s pretty damn hard to fold jacks full on the river, but when you’re this deep stacked, you really need to slow down and look for a fold. I lost more than $50 in this hand, and I think that folding in 20/20 hindsight may have been a better play.
I think.
Or maybe I just got coolered.
All-in for now…
-Bug
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