This is something I wrestle with quite a bit. We all do, but I’m famous for jumping to conclusions and it gets me in these situations. When I play a hand and form a plan based on my read on a given street, it’s smart to not get too married to my original plan. New cards often change the entire outlook of a hand. Here’s an example from last week.

I have 64 in the small blind and call the villain’s raise to 12 from the button.

Flop: J64

I check, villain (who is a good player and we have a long history) bets 15, I CR to 45. Villain thinks a little, then makes it 115. I call planning to get the remaining 150 in front of him in the pot on the turn/river.

Turn: A

Was thinking about leading, but now I check. Villain puts his remaining 150 in there. And I make a marginal-to-poor call.

I got a little greedy on the turn here. I knew I was 80% good on the flop and given my action showed that I was committed to the hand. When the turn shows a scary Ace, I should have given a really hard thought to folding to the bet of 150, even though the pot is close to 250. If it’s any card under a Jack or maybe just a king I think calling here is reasonable. Actually, if it’s any card under a Jack, I lead the turn for 75.

But that Ace is an awful card and I’m calling now getting less than 3-1 that my opponent is bluffing strong throughout the entire hand or that maybe he has a pair of frustrated Kings. That’s short odds on a long bet.

The hand did have a silver lining to it (for me at any rate), I call and the villain flips AJ (of course) but I suck out the 4 on the river to draw out.