Winning money is a marathon not a race

Poker is a marathon not a race

Although it may not appear to be so at first glance, as the chips and money go in (for some never to be returned again), and the all-in race is on to double up or even triple up your stack when your opponent hits his flush draw on the river, and you’ve got to start all again.

Poker is like the ocean: an ebb and flow of ongoing play, sometimes little actions, sometimes big, sometimes huge and all the while as you sit patiently you have to be ready for your moment!  Watching your opponents can be dull sometimes, like watching paint dry, but you’ve got to do it.  

Suddenly you are all in again, this time with pocket aces, and it’s your chance to win your money back.  Your opponent has Queens!  But wait no...a Queen has hit the flop, then an A on the turn...yessss!  Poker is a game of predominantly skill and patience and a bit of luck...but in my opinion luck comes from building momentum or playing well (skillfully).  Move to quickly, become too aggressive, check to readily and you are suckered: you sprinted the first mile in the Poker marathon.

Its better to take your time, waiting for a better position and nicer cards.  Poker is a marathon not a race.

An unwelcome return to Bad Beat City :(

I got myself tangled up in a bad, bad, bad beat which left me down during a losing session in which I lost with Kings versus A3, QQ versus 10 7 and other such scenarios.  So I played well in this time and lost.  I called a pre flop derails with pocket fives from the big blind and flopped a set on a flop of .... 5 10 8

I bet into my aggressive opponent of half the pot of around $1.60 knowing he would likely figure me for top pair.  He duly went all in and to my surprise so did the player to my right.  I could see why when he revealed his hand: 79 suited for an up and down straight draw.  Fair enough.  But guess what happened next?  Here you can see JJ had 4.2% chance of winning on the flop and the other hand a more modest 21.3% with his straight draw.

8 on the turn....

8 on the river....

Giving the player with Jacks his three outer on the river to take down the $30 pot!

Poker is a marathon not a race and I’ll have to grind it out again before I get back into my groove again. :(

Thanks for your time. (I don’t have the image of the final hand as I was shaken by this and forgot to take the screenshot; so you’ll have to trust me on this one.)