Butchering 72o

Have you ever played a hand so atrociously poorly that you just can’t let it go? During the session you keep thinking about it. The next day you keep thinking about it. It’s an itch. In your mind. That just keeps coming back. It’s like those trick birthday candles. You blow out the flames, but then they keep popping back up.

Butchering a hand of poker can be like that, when the memory just won’t go away.

Like this hand I played last week in Vegas. The game was $5/10 no-limit hold’em. Two players folded and the next player opened for $40. This guy’s VPIP was around 50%. Yes, he liked to see lots of flops, and yes, his ranges were wide, but he was not what I would call a donator. He did not get strung out for big money before the flop, or after, without good cause. Even though he gave himself plenty of rope, he rarely hung himself with it.

Two players called the $40 and the small blind folded. I was in the big blind. I had 7-2 offsuit. So I folded.

Do I suck or what?

My image at the time was very tight, very disciplined, very much like a player who, if he were to raise from the big blind in this spot, to say, $150, the chances that everyone would fold were way high. That was me. At that moment. There was $125 in the middle of the table, just sitting there, like money on a sidewalk. All I had to do was pick it up. But no, I decided instead to just walk on by. Man, I play bad.

Okay, thanks for listening to my bad play story. I think I can let that hand go now.