POTD #77 How Much Can One Pip be Worth

Quite a lot in today's hand

A general piece of advice that others have given that I agree with is, if you want to optimize your study time, it’s best to focus on single-raised pots-- especially single-raised pots vs. the big blind. They are the most common pots you will play, and if you master preflop play and single-raised pots, your game will be built upon a rock solid foundation. I am trying to teach and entertain at POTD, and I have noticed that when choosing hands to write about, I often do not heed my own advice. I disproportionately write about three-bet pots, hands that occur deep in tournaments, and other types of less frequently played hands. This happens because I select hands based on how much I blundered and not on what is most common. This blog aims to be educational and fun, so I do sometimes feel a need to add a disclaimer: Most hands are not like this. But I don’t include that disclaimer because I trust my readers are smart enough to understand they are seeing a curated selection of hands not a representative sample of them.

In POTD #22 and POTD #53, I wrote about the 2022 SCOOP Main Event and two big pots I lost that played a large role in me four-bulleting the tourney. While those hands were bad and cost me a lot of money, they were not close to the biggest mistake I made as measured in BBs. The biggest mistake I made was in a three-bet pot in the GGMasters $1k, one of the smallest tournaments I played on the day. On some other days, I might be able to say, “Well, I punted in the $1k because I was so focused on playing great in the higher stakes tournaments,” but we already know that is not the case. So let’s dig into one of the oddest hands I played that day, a hand that made me double-take when I realized how costly a certain play of mine was.

HH: GGPoker

$1,050 GGMasters Freezeout Championship
(125/250/30) (SB/BB/Ante) 10k Starting Stack

It folds me in the HJ (8,895) I make it 550 with A♠️9♠️, it folds to the SB (11,244) who makes it 1,875, I call.

Flop (4,240) K♠️6♦️5♥️: SB bets 1,060, I call
Turn (6,360) 5♠️: SB bets 1,590, I call
River (9,540) 3♦️: SB checks, I check and lose to A♣️J♥️