Grinding then throwing it away

I saw what I thought was a really bizarre play last night that got me thinking about what motivates players to do what they do. I was playing at two 10/20 cent no limit cash tables at the same time and was ahead a few bucks and would describe the play at both tables as being relatively donkey free zones.

In order to set up the play that really caught my attention you have to know that the maximum amount you can bring to the tables I was playing at is $20. There were 2 players who both had around $50 when I sat down and they generally stayed around that level for the 15 minutes or so that preceded the hand I am about to describe. I would describe both of them as being relatively good players who seemed to be grinders. At the time of “the hand” I had doubled my buy-in of $7 to 14. Don’t ask why I only bought in for $7 at a table that had so much money at it quite yet, I’ll explain a theory I have been working on in a future post. Now back to the hand …

I was in the BB for all of 20 cents, 1 limper before the action got to the player on the button (one of the $50 stacks) he went ALL IN, and the next player to act (SB) was the other big stack. He tanked for a bit then CALLED, WOW, these 2 guys that have been grinding through a profitable session at a conservative table are suddenly both all in with 40 cents in the pot! What cards did I have? 8 4 off suit ;-( But, I thought to myself. Can I call this? Of course I knew the answer was no but suddenly I am thinking, call and lose (the most likely scenario BY FAR) or fold and continue to play smart poker. Of course, I folded but it reminded me that even against good players (I think I can at least describe myself as a decent player) you don’t know what they are thinking or what motivates them which adds an interesting level of complexity to the game. My thought process was I’ve got $7 invested here, I’m ahead about $4 on the other table, if I call and hit something crazy my $7 investment will have turned into $42, if I lose I go to the other table and continue to grind to try and make back my losses. I folded!

The initial raiser turned over AQ diamonds, the caller turned over AK offsuit and the flop came 883, the set I didn’t pay for. Blank, blank on the turn and river and AK took down a big one. Look, the point of this blog is not to justify that I might have called with 84 because that’s a call in a situation that I can’t make. The interesting (to me anyway) observations on that hand are 1) Why would you grind your way to a profit just to throw it away like that? And 2) You never know what someone else is thinking or what motivates them to make a particular play.


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