lay it down?

To make a long story short, after buying in for 400, I made a few bad decisions and found myself sitting with 65 and ready to call it a night. Out of nowhere, I hit a nice run of cards to build back up to about 500. THEN, pocket 8's turned into set over set over set with an 8-4-2 flop, and I tripled up. Thinking that my ubsurd run of luck was about over, I decided to play conservative for the next hour or so, and then cash out. It was 3:00 AM by now, and the table was down to 6 people, so everyone was straddling. On my straddle, I had Kc-Qd, everyone limped in, so I decided to just check and see if I could catch and push. The flop is Ah-Kh-Kd, first to act bets 65, I call, everyone folds. The turn is Qh, and before it registers in my mind that I am full, he pushes all-in for 1300.

Now my problem is, do I really want to call this bet, knowing that if he has one of the three hands that beats me, I am walking out with nothing. After the initial shock wears off, I start to analyze the situation and come to the conclusion that he can't have A-A or A-K because he would have raised pre-flop. The hands I put him on now are 10h-Jh, or a bluff. My next thought is, if I had the absolute, unbreakable nuts, would I really push all-in like that? As these thoughts go thru my head, my initial instict is still going thru my head over and over again: "Call and you might go home broke."

After about 5 minutes of thinking, I finally call and flip my card over. He peaks at his cards, and tells me he doesn't think he can win. The river is an A, and now I have to go thru another moment of fear as I realize that if he has an A, I'm beaten. He flips over 5h-6h and says "nice call."

The question is, have you ever been in a situation where you were almost certain you had the best hand, but calling could mean losing a huge stack of real money? I know some people will say "that's why it's called gambling" or "that's the easiest call in the world to make, why'd you take so long" but to me, if they say that they've never been in that type of situation.

I call.

(I've never been in that type of situation)

fixed limit ftw

I would probably call, and yes it would have taken me just as long.

Yeah, I hate that. I know at the end of it, I'm gonna remember the fact that I loss all my money more than the fact that I did the right thing.

im a calling station... i think there is no way id lay this down...

That's an easy call, what took you so long?

now youre ready for 10/20

I'm tight as hell and I don't think theres any way I'm laying that down ever, or even taking that long to think about it. However, I have had situations that are similar which are really calls you have to make but you just can't bear the thought of losing the hand.

I was probably 99% sure I had the best hand, but like I said the hard part was knowing that 1% would cost me the 1400 or so I had in front of me...

u cant think about the money when youre playing... only think about making correct decisions

u cant think about the money when youre playing... only think about making correct decisions

i dont think you should be in the game if your roll is small enough that it clouds your decision making process. usually 15-20 buyins are recommended for the lower stakes games, but if you have even 30 buyins for a game you're playing and you still cant bring yourself to make good decisions when the money gets big, then wait til you have 50 or 100 buyins. whatever enables you to be 100% comfortable with the money on the table. if you really concentrate and focus on where youre at and be patient before moving up, youll have a much easier time adjusting from level to level and will become a very successful player. so many people are concerned with moving up in stakes when they should be concerned with mastering where they're at. if a lot of the shot-takers who move from 2/4 one week to 25/50 the next just settled down and were conservative with their rolls and patient with their game, they'd be twice as good and 4 times as rich.

as for me, i'm kinda an idealist, so even though i might be uncomfortable with the money in play ill always put that out of my mind and focus on making the correct decision. although in the past thats worked against me... i used to play above my comfort zone (and my roll) and almost gone out of my way to make what i now realize are bad decisions just to show that i was playing "fearless"

I would have folded.

Maybe that's the reason why I suck at poker...