Played a 45-player tourney yesterday and was running well. Lasted till the final table with an average chipstack and was in good shape to slide into the money – it paid thru 6th place.
I wake up w/ AQ and raise. The large-stack, aggressive player shoved all in. I’d seen him do it in the past with medium pocket pairs. I’d noted him as someone to avoid tangling with. Of course, what happens, I call – putting my tourney life at risk. He showed 66 and my AQ went unimproved and I was out. I was disappointed to a degree, but my general feeling was that winning that hand could put me in the drivers seat – which would have been nice.
An afterthought occurred just moments ago as I read this quote from, “How to Think Like a Pro” by Roy Cooke and John Bond. It says, “To err on the side of caution can only be a small error. To err on the side of taking too much risk can be a disaster.”
In other words, folding would have only been a small mistake – and there’s no doubt about it. I’d still have chips left to battle with and could have picked a less dangerous opponent or a smaller stack to tangle with. Calling like I did, on the other hand, would be either a huge mistake or a coin-flip at best. Based on that player, it’s unlikely that me calling the all-in was going to be a brilliant decision. *Sigh*
I could have waited till I was actually in the money to make a call like that. Hindsight is always 20/20. But that quote really puts things in perspective and will hopefully come to the forefront of my mind when I’m put in that kind of situation again.
Filed under: Poker | 1 Comment »
