POTD #201 A Prague Mystery Bounty Hand vs Adrian Mateos

Today's mystery: Why did I keep betting?

“I know that” is a common refrain I hear from students when I point out an error in a hand they played. It’s also something I often say to myself when I am reviewing a session of my own and see a hand where I punted. There are two lessons to learn here; the first is one of humility— I don’t need to convince myself, and you don’t need to convince me, that we know the answer to the hand that was played. What matters is, what were the circumstances that made us unable to execute and focus, and how can that be fixed in the future? If the answer was bouncing around somewhere in our heads, why were we unable to access it while actually playing the hand? Speaking for myself, sometimes I am in a mediocre mental state and I know it. I woke up and put salt in my coffee instead of sugar¹; I three-bet bluff in level one and feel as nervous as if I’m bluffing at a final table; I am just not locked in. When I am struggling, I have tricks to get myself back on my A-game, but they don’t always work, which to me is one of the values of studying. You can raise the floor of your game such that your C-game is still strong.

However, there are times when I’m playing my B or C game where preparation hurts me. I make mistakes because my wires cross, and I make a play designed for one situation, but I’m playing a hand that’s in a similar, but different, situation. I know what the right play is, but I can’t access that knowledge from the stacks of my brain and I pull out the wrong book. I might conflate a deep-stack play with a short-stack play, or think the general c-bet strategy on a board is the same whether I raise from UTG or the button, or think that T88 will play like TT8. Today’s hand starts with a preflop spot that seems like a spot I’ve played hundreds of times before, but is slightly unusual. Then I had some fast and easy postflop rules that seemed natural to me, but led to me making several mistakes. In the New Year, I could resolve to have more humility and not be insecure when trying to justify a mistake I made, but I think the more valuable resolution for myself is improving my focus such that I make as few execution errors as possible.

EPT Prague 2022 Mystery Bounty €10,200
(1.5k/3k/3k) 50k Starting Stack. 46 left. Bounties at 21. 9 Cash.

Pokernews Update

It folds to Adrian Mateos (90.5k) in the CO who makes it 6k, I (300k) make it 16.5k on the button with A♦️6♦️, it folds back to Adrian who calls.

Flop (40.5k) K♦️9♠️6♣️: Adrian checks, I bet 8k, Adrian calls.
Turn (56.5k) J♦️: Adrian checks, I bet 25k, Adrian calls.
River 106.5k) 4♦️: Adrian checks, I shove for his final 41k, he snap calls and is shocked when his Q♦️T♦️ is not good.