The Mistake

I've been playing $4.40 180-person Sit-N-Go tournaments lately, after a cold streak in the smaller Turbo SNGs. The slower structure is refreshing; when antes begin hours rather than minutes into a tournament, it's far more likely you'll be outplayed by an opponent than blinded to death. Or, just as likely, you'll outplay yourself.

This brings me to The Mistake. Originally brought to my attention by jjok who was citing Poker Nerd, The Mistake is that move you make after hours of careful, quality play that cripples you or knocks you out, turning a potentially decent hourly profit into a stinging loss. It's the first thing you think of when you wake up the next morning. It's the hand your brain chooses to store it in ultra-high-res long-term memory so you can conveniently recite it down to the suit of each card six months later.

My two most recent Mistakes:

• Survived the bubble. My M is 8 and I have a good shot to make it to the final table. My A5o in the small blind was good enough for a steal attempt, but the big blind was sick of funding my comeback in the past few rounds and decided to call my raise. I flopped a four-flush with my ace of diamonds, and made a pair on the board with my five. I min-bet. Big blind, who has me covered, goes all-in. At a minimum I should read him for ace with a higher pairing kicker, or possibly medium pockets. But I called, feeling sure I'd see another diamond. Nope, he'd tilted briefly when he called me with 74o, he flopped a 45678 straight, and my low pair didn't improve on the turn or river. Note that the straight was irrelevant; the Mistake I made was risking all my chips on a draw when I believed my opponent held a better hand than I did. Finished 15th out of 180, and my memory of an otherwise well-played tourney is sour.
• This was the hand in mind when my alarm clock rang this morning. I'm seventh place in chips out of 19 players (i.e., next player out pops the bubble). Under the gun, I raise AQs to 3x BB. There's nothing wrong with this play; we're shorthanded and it's more likely than not to succeed as a steal. But the steal fails; the player to my left (who is sixth in chips) re-raises me with half his stack. At this point in the tourney this would be standard play for someone with medium pockets; you hope your opponent backs down, but if not you might flop a set or outplay him if the flop is scary and you have position. So that was my read -- 99, TT, or JJ. The conservative play would be to fold; why risk over half my stack to see a flop when I'm one position away from the money? But I had a more aggressive plan: call, and if I pair up (or even if a king comes), push all-in and see what happens. So I call, and the flop is T33. My post-flop plan has failed; in fact, I see a card that could have given him trips. I push anyway, he calls, and shows us all his pocket jacks. Only two minutes earlier I was in good position to cruise to the final table, but instead I finish in 19th place out of 180, which pays zero. I can't recall a time in my life when I wanted more desperately to rewind time 10 minutes than in this $4 online poker tournament.

Neither of these plays started out as The Mistake, but as I received more information later in the hand, I failed to adjust to accommodate it, and that's when the Mistake occurred. To be specific: I had a plan to steal the blinds or see the flop cheaply. When that plan failed, rather than abandoning it, I turned it, on the fly, into the "Risk My Entire Tournament On An Unpaired Ace" plan. Adrenaline sent me on tilt, and rather than asking the usual boring, disciplined question "Is my hand the best at the table?" my fishy side screamed "What exciting thing might happen to crush my opponent's made, monster hand?!!"

So that's my contribution to Poker Nerd's list of leaks to plug to avoid making The Mistake: much as you have a plan for the tournament and need to stick to it, you need to have a plan for each hand, including an exit strategy, and follow through when the exit conditions become true.