I Barely Know You

This poker blog cracks me up. I sometimes think something I write is really cool and it gets no responses, or I write something I think is basic poker and I get a zillion responses and start a 7-blog flame war. Yeeesshhh.

Anyway.. here is a question I have been thinking about. Put on your caps if your a good player and answer this: What make a good call good?

Is it the fact that you won the hand? If that is our criteria then every donkey who sucks out on us is a brilliant call maker. Is it having the best hand when the money goes in? I am not sure this is it either. If I am playing 600NL and I know my 68o with an 823 two spade flop is the best hand.. do I call the 600$ raise the bluffer with KQo makes? Perhaps he has A4 spades? A4 clubs? Is this a good place to get all my money in? Can I outplay him bad somewhere else?

I am such an intellectual that I have to think about these abstract concepts. Just ask Ick, he always tells me I am wiiiicked smaaaaaattt. The reason I bring this up is that I made two calls I won with. One was interesting. One was stupid. Were either ones good reads? Possibly. Good plays? Who knows? Good calls? You decide.

I am in the middle of a 90-person SNG on FT. I am doing pretty well with over 4K in chips. There are 57 people left. I look down and see AQ. The flop comes Axx. I call a small raise into the pot. The flop comes Axx and it is 3-handed. The initial better leads out with a bet. Our second hero calls. I think I am good here so I float a call and see what the out of position c-better does next. The turn is a Ten. He checks. The next guy checks and bet out $400. This is a pot sized bet and there are 2-hearts on the board. The original raiser bows out and now I feel alot better about my hand. The middle guy thinks about it for a while and cold calls. The river is a second ten. I decide I will check here and hope he does not have a ten. He immediately pushes all in. My initial reaction is "Aww fuck I let him catch trips". I then rethink the hand in my head. He waits and calls with the turn card which brought a flush draw. He saw me lead out weak on the river. If I listen to my MiamiDon and other various people who have told me this over and over it smells a hell of a lot like a huge bluff on a missed flush with a scare card. I will have 1200 chips left if I lose. I end up making the call after replaying the hand in my head. Was it a good call?

The next hand you already know about but I might as well rehash it. I have 24c in position and call a small raise from Penner. He leads out on a two-club flop and I decide I will cold call. He then bets the pot when I make my flush on the turn. I decide to milk him and cold call. The river brings the horrible fourth flush card. He pushes in and it is 7$ out of my $25 original stack to call. Pot odds potentially dictate a call. However I am sure I am beat. I say to myself "Fuck this you can have my last $7 I quit".. and then I make the call. Was it a good call?

Now remember what you were thinking when you read the end of these hands. I ended up winning both hands. I was correct in both hands in the fact that I was ahead. I do not think that this in itself makes these good calls or bad calls though. I also know I misplayed both of these hands at least somewhat and if you want to comment on that you can but I am more interested in the concept of what makes a good call.