Evaluation fixation

Last night, I came about as close as you can get to a 0th place, without actually getting one. I hit the rail a mere minute after the late registration period ended. This was largely due to a bad case of evaluation fixation I had on one particular hand. Evaluation fixation is when you correctly evaluate, upon seeing the flop, the community cards you don't want to see on the turn or the river, but fail to consider the other hands an opponent may have hit, when the cards you don't want to see don't show up. Let me illustrate this with last night's example. I was dealt J9o  (jack nine offsuit), and paired my nine on the flop. It was top pair, but there were two cards in the flop that were of the same suit. I made a mental note to fold if another card of that suit showed up on the turn or the river. In other words, I was saying to myself, "Don't let a flush beat you". The turn card put two flush draws out there; I still had top pair. I was still saying to myself, "Don't let a flush beat you". When the river busted both flush draws, I was so relieved that I bet. I was thinking to myself, "A flush didn't beat me!" instead of asking myself, "What hand can beat me now?". The river card was a king, but all my brain told me was that it wasn't either of the two flush draw suits. When my opponent raised me, I had to fold, and curse myself for a fool. There's no way I should have bet in that situation. At least I had enough presence of mind to realize my opponent likely had a king in his hand. His raise allowed me, belatedly, to "see" the river card :-)

style flavor buy_in entry players entries paid place winnings

MTT   NLHE   174000 26000       6     114   30    72        0

delta: $-200,000
MTT NLHE balance: $19,284,668
2020 balance: $12,062,343
balance: $73,870,353