Double take on the suckout thing

This is painful to write, even more painful to follow through with. I have been sucked out quite a bit, others have to. We all share the pain. Were the suckouts avoidable?

No, really?

I have decided to look back at a lot of my hands and wondered, could I have avoided this? or was this just pure luck and just bound to happen.

What was my hand selection? My position? Did I raise enough? Did I let my opponent draw to cheaply? Did I try to get to fancy? Was i steaming? Am I playing to loose?

Anyone ever do this?

You could easily form an argument, "You were ahead in the hand Liz and someone caught a lucky card. That's a classic definition of a suckout, quit being blonde."

If something keeps happening over and over there has to a reason for it. If there is a major leak I need to plug it.

You will never be able to avoid suckouts. Agreed. But maybe there is hole in my game that I am not aware of.

It's real easy to blame some idiot (and most idiots deserve it) but I wonder if i could have done something different.

I always ask myself those questions. 95% of the time I played it right. It's that 5% that bothers me.

No easy answer. A lot depends on the game, the buy-in, position, reads and all the other factors we all always discuss.

What it really takes is posting a HH to analyze. Many on here are willing to do that and you will have other opinions to guage your play. Are we talking freerolls? Micro stakes? Ring games? What limits? $10+ MTT buy-ins? Limit? No Limit? (I think you get the idea)....

Too many variables for one stock answer. Pin down some details and the folks here can pin down some answers.

Basically, if I understand this poker thing correctly you are supposed to go back and analyse your's and your opponents play and decide if you sucessfully made your opponent make a mistake, i.e. called your pot sized bet for a gutshot and hit it (a true bad call but they got lucky and suckedout ) in which case do not feel bad about the suckout but feel good you got them to make a mistake and have confidence as long as you keep causing them to make mistakes against you they will become like ATM machines that you occasionally will make a deposit to, but you will usually withdraw large sums from. Now if your analysis finds you are giving them correct odds to make calls and they are catching, then you use that information and adjust future play so you are not. Of course this analysis is after the fact, and 20/20 hindsight, but the more you do the post mortems correctly, presumably you will make more and more correct decisions in the heat of battle (at least in similar situations) where you do not have all the information, and eventually you should come out on top more often then not. I sure hope it works that way because that is what I am trying to to do also - lol.

you have to analyze these situations. only way to learn from your mistakes is to study your mistakes. if you didnt make one then you know theres nothing you could do and you feel confident about ur play once again instead of questioning yourself. if you question ur play things will never work out.

Two words, pot control....I'm not an expert on it, but I can tell you Ive thought the same things you have as well....and honestly I have come to the conclusion that sometimes just a flat call with certain hands that might be strong but could be dominated based upon the board and opponents range is the answer instead of trying to stack with a tptk etc....

LizzyJ said:

This is painful to write, even more painful to follow through with. I have been sucked out quite a bit, others have to. We all share the pain. Were the suckouts avoidable?

No, really?

I have decided to look back at a lot of my hands and wondered, could I have avoided this? or was this just pure luck and just bound to happen.

What was my hand selection? My position? Did I raise enough? Did I let my opponent draw to cheaply? Did I try to get to fancy? Was i steaming? Am I playing to loose?

Anyone ever do this?

You could easily form an argument, "You were ahead in the hand Liz and someone caught a lucky card. That's a classic definition of a suckout, quit being blonde."

If something keeps happening over and over there has to a reason for it. If there is a major leak I need to plug it.

You will never be able to avoid suckouts. Agreed. But maybe there is hole in my game that I am not aware of.

It's real easy to blame some idiot (and most idiots deserve it) but I wonder if i could have done something different.

Click to expand...

Looking at your hands in HA, I would like to know what kind of image do you convey at the table?
LAG or TAG?

shinedown.45 said:

Looking at your hands in HA, I would like to know what kind of image do you convey at the table?
LAG or TAG?

Click to expand...

Definately TAG. If I opened a pot it was a raise for at least 3xBB, if someone was in the pot I re-raised at least 3x. I almost never played the S/B, if I did I came in with a raise. I was between 15-17% of hands played for most of the tournaments. The only times I checked is when I was in the BB and everyone limped in. That was the modus operandi that I used. I used to be a tight/weak player, but since the beginning of the year I made it a habit that I was going to either fold or raise. If I called or limped there had to be a very valid reason to do so. It was a HARD habit to break.

HOWEVER.....

A small portion of the hands I played really had me puzzled. Those are the ones that really got me in trouble. I can't understand why I played them the way that I did. Those hands I flagged and took a long look at them. I was quite obvious what I did wrong, but I guess in the middle of play, lose concentration for a few moments and that can cost you a chunk of your stack. It was definately an eye opener.