Running a red light

On Saturday night, I had my biggest ever loss on a single hand when I "ran a red light". I'd been playing very well, and had built my stack up to over $92K, when the infraction occurred. I'd made an ace high flush on the river, but didn't bother to check whether the board supported a full house. It did, since the river card had paired the board in addition to completing my flush. I got into a raising war with another player until he was all in. He turned over a full house, and I lost $81,452 just like that.

I was in a bit of a daze after that huge loss. I hit the felt very soon afterwards, then reupped for the max at the same table. After a small number of hands, the table ended up quitting on me; at that point I was down another $13K, for a cumulative total of $53K lost on the night so far. I then made the bad decision to join another table; I compounded the error by picking a table with some very big stacks at it, hoping to hit a home run and recoup all my losses. As could have been predicted, I ended up hitting the felt again; I knew enough to finally call it a night at that point. It was my fourth largest session loss ever.

River cards which look like they give you the nuts are very dangerous; you have to keep your wits about it you and assess things carefully. My mistake was believing my hand was unbeatable, without verifying whether that was so or not. But that wasn't my only mistake. Even without checking whether my hand could be beaten, the resistance my opponent was putting up should have given me pause. The resistance should have forced me to do the hand verification, after which I should have simply called instead of reraising.

I've quoted this gem from Ben Franklin before, but it's so good it bears repeating: "Experience keeps a dear school, but fools will learn in no other".

During current Hold'em session you were dealt 108 hands and saw flop:
- 13 out of 17 times while in big blind (76%)
- 11 out of 17 times while in small blind (64%)
- 54 out of 74 times in other positions (72%)
- a total of 78 out of 108 (72%)
Pots won at showdown - 15 of 30 (50%)
Pots won without showdown - 10

delta: $-93,000
balance: $1,729,167