Fear factor

If there's one thing I've proven to myself after nearly five years of playing online poker, it's that I don't play scared. I'm not afraid to put all my chips in the middle. That's why how I played a particular hand last night came as a real shock to me. I played scared on that hand. I'd been dealt a pair of sevens, and hit trip sevens on the flop. They were the top set, since the other two cards were lower than a seven. I bet the flop pretty big, about $6,000. One of my opponents went all in for over $40,000 after I acted. That scared me enough to fold, without even stopping to think. It was a knee-jerk reaction, and was stupid. If I'd thought about it at all, I would have realized I was still best. I got to see the holding of the all-in player at the showdown; all he had was an ace seven offsuit, which gave him aces up. The only possible saving grace for me was that the board may have supported a straight, but I honestly don't remember. Let me check the archives...

As it turns out, the board did support a straight, but I can't let myself off the hook. I remember being afraid of a bigger set, which was completely nonsensical! In fact, my memory was that my opponent had gone all in on the turn; that's what I originally wrote in the first version of this post. The only reason for me to fear a bigger set, as my self-esteem demanded, was if the all in had come after the turn card, which was an ace, was revealed. Memory is a notoriously tricky thing! I didn't remember what had actually happened, but what I would like to have happened. I didn't want to admit to myself that sometimes the fear factor kicks in and influences my play.

Thankfully, no real damage was done, and I didn't play scared on any other hands. Still, it was a good lesson; I need to be wary of knee-jerk reactions.

During current Hold'em session you were dealt 52 hands and saw flop:
 - 6 out of 7 times while in big blind (85%)
 - 4 out of 6 times while in small blind (66%)
 - 27 out of 39 times in other positions (69%)
 - a total of 37 out of 52 (71%)
 Pots won at showdown - 4 of 6 (66%)
 Pots won without showdown - 7

delta: $35,341
cash game no limit hold'em balance: $4,855,971
balance: $7,212,924

Fear factor

Last night, I didn't have any monster hands, but still made a nice profit. Looking over the session stats, I'm inspired to come up with yet another poker statistic; I'll call this one the fear factor. Here's the formula:

fear_factor = pots_won_without_showdown / hands_taken_to_showdown

hands_taken_to_showdown includes both hands which won and hands which lost. A value of at least 2 for fear_factor means that the rest of the table was in fear of you. Last night, my fear factor came out to 2.67.

During current Hold'em session you were dealt 41 hands and saw flop:
- 4 out of 6 times while in big blind (66%)
- 3 out of 6 times while in small blind (50%)
- 21 out of 29 times in other positions (72%)
- a total of 28 out of 41 (68%)
Pots won at showdown - 2 of 3 (66%)
Pots won without showdown - 8

delta: $25,626
balance: $2,765,056