Winning/winning potential
I think if I just could remember the difference between these two I would have a much larger bank roll. I find that you sit down and on the first hand you limp in with 2 & 7offsuit and for whatever reason the next thing you do is look down and on the flop you hit
7, 7, 2. The NUTS.
The next hand A, A your raise pre-flop you get re-raised. Next thing you know it is capped you’re doing your best to not smile but you can already see the chips piled up in front of you. The flop comes 2, 8, 10 not too bad you someone bets you raise. Your pot is building. The turn A. Awesome! You bet it, the round gets capped. Now for the river, a 2, you are not afraid. You bet again all the way to the cap. The guy next you shows you a 2 then another 2. ARGG!!
For the rest of the night you end up not betting as strong when you have a good hand. You tend to play more hands then you should. You walk a way at the end of the night scratching your head wondering what went wrong.
The trouble is that you have mixed up Winning and Winning Potential. You won with your first hand. With your second hand you lost but you had a much higher winning potential. According to pokerroom.com. With your first hand 2,7 off suit you will lose -1.12 times your big bet so if you are playing at a $3.00 $6.00 table this means you are losing $6.72 every time you play 2, 7 in the long run. Your second hand has a value of 2.32 or at the same table every time you play A A in the long run you will add $13.92 to your stack of chips.
This makes for a net difference of $20.64. Now can you understand what when wrong? With your first hand you won even though the winning potential was not there. The second hand you lost even though the odds were in you favour and you had a hand that had a very high Winning Potential. As a result the rest of the night you just played what you felt was right with no regards to what the Winning Potential was.
Next time you play try starting only with hands that have winning potential. If you do not know what hands these are then use this site pokerrom.com or another like it.
Just remember next time you are sitting there trying to decide if you should get in the hand or fold, think about Winning Potential not about whether you won or lost the last time you had the very same hand.
By: Dart L Wooden 2005
