Reads or results

It's always hard to remind yourself not to pay attention to the results of any one particular hand, but rather to analyze it according to the information available to you at the key moment. Case in point, a recent hand at $25NL.

In the BB I picked up TT. Folded around to the cutoff, a habitual raiser in late position who raised to $0.75. I reraised to $2.25, not particularly wanting to play TT from out of position. Here is where it got interesting -- he reraised all in, but because he was a short stack, I was getting between 2:1 and 3:1 on a call. I called without hesitation, and lost to AA.

In retrospect I was annoyed with myself, but then I realized that I'd probably played the hand pretty well. At the key moment (the final call) the least favourable (to me) range I can put him on is JJ+, AK. Against that range, I win 1/3 hands, so the call is clear. I actually think that his range is much wider than that, including some lower pairs, and more coin flip hands.

Of course what really stung was that it turned a small win at that table to a small loss. Ah well, shortly thereafter second pair on a Q74 flop decided to pay me off all the way to the river, when the Q on the turn convinced him that I didn't have one.