Our second hand in “off the beaten path” week reminds me of another cliché about the woods— the zen koan “If a tree falls in the forest, does it make a sound?” If a poker player misses a pure bet, but neither player notices, does it matter? When you’re playing a hand and you notice your opponent takes you off tree, I think it’s important to try to get in their head. Did they do this on purpose, or do they have a blind spot in their understanding of the game? Once you determine if they made an error or were trying to exploit you, you can come up with the best counter-strategy. Similarly, if you intentionally go off tree to try to exploit your opponent, you need to be aware of the fact they might be asking the same question of you, and if they conclude you’re trying to get one over on them, you need to be prepared to counter their counter.
Today’s hand is about when that doesn’t happen. It’s about when two very good poker players play a hand where a mistake is made, but neither one knows it. Well, I can confidently say that I did not think Mike Watson made a mistake in this hand. It’s possible he knew he made a mistake and lied to me when I asked him about it, but I doubt it. From one perspective, if neither of us knows we’re off tree, it doesn’t really matter. We are just playing a poker hand the way 99.9% of people have played poker hands throughout the history of poker. However, I feel that I should know better and play better. Was this a hand where both of us punted, or just a normal poker hand where we missed some hard-to-find solver precision?
HH Pokerstars Replayer
(4000/8000/1000) Ante. 250k Starting Stack.
PokerStars Hand #232820719272: Tournament #3332007476, $10000+$300 USD Hold’em No Limit - Level XI (4000/8000) - 2022/01/04 16:37:30 ET
Table ‘3332007476 2’ 8-max Seat #8 is the button
Seat 1: raidalot (300359 in chips)
Seat 2: neymar-jr (330872 in chips)
Seat 3: SirWatts (633217 in chips)
Seat 4: WushuTM (202235 in chips)
Seat 5: C. Darwin2 (120303 in chips)
Seat 6: Sam Greenwood (779482 in chips)
Seat 7: Proudflop (216390 in chips)
Seat 8: moertelmu (211494 in chips)
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to Sam Greenwood [Ks Qd]
SirWatts: raises 9600 to 17600
WushuTM: folds
C. Darwin2: folds
Sam Greenwood: calls 17600
Proudflop: folds
moertelmu: folds
raidalot: folds
neymar-jr: folds
*** FLOP *** [3s Qh Th]
SirWatts: checks
Sam Greenwood: bets 36432
SirWatts: raises 64032 to 100464
Sam Greenwood: calls 64032
*** TURN *** [3s Qh Th] [9c]
SirWatts: checks
Sam Greenwood: checks
*** RIVER *** [3s Qh Th 9c] [Ad]
SirWatts: bets 64032
Sam Greenwood: calls 64032
*** SHOW DOWN ***
SirWatts: shows [5h Ah] (a pair of Aces)
Sam Greenwood mucks
SirWatts collected 384192 from pot
