Been picking up quite a few new things to think about from Dan Harrington’s book on Hold ‘Em. Learning to take more chips when people are giving them away, and also spotting a few more cases where I’ve been making some mistakes without realizing it. One such case bit me in the ass again tonight, and the first thing I thought was that I had just reviewed that in the book a couple nights ago. It’s the situation where I’m heads up with a player I’ve got an excellent read on but I settle for small advantages where I could really afford to sit tight and wait for better situations. So I’m there heads up, my opponent slightly outchipping me by only a couple hundred after I had clawed my way back from about a 5-to-1 chip disadvantage when we were still 3-handed. Heads up I’m definitely getting the best of it and I think I’ve got him read superbly. He opens for 3x the big blind and I just call with A5 offsuit, trying to trap since he’s been folding to almost every bet I make regardless of size. Flop comes J52 with 2 diamonds. I make a bet of about half the pot trying to look like I’m making a steal so that he would re-raise and I would drive him out with an all-in. He pauses and then pushes all-in. At that point I figure my 5’s are good, since it’s a crazy overbet of the pot and he hadn’t been betting his top pairs agressively when he would hit them. I also realize I have the Ace of diamonds too, so if he’s drawing to the flush, he knows he doesn’t have the nut draw either, so the overbet made even more sense. So I convinced myself I had the read, my fives were good, so I called all in. The good news is I was right, he showed K3 of diamonds and my 5’s made me the slight favorite at that point. Bad news is that a diamond fell on the river and I was done. I’ve made similar moves like that countless times in the past and always just figured I got unlucky. After reading Harrington’s book, I realize yes I was unlucky, but I was stupid too. Since this was one of those rare cases where I was the better heads up player (heads up is usually the weakest part of my game), there was no reason to risk all my chips on such a small advantage. I should have just folded and continued my methodical dismantling of him on my own terms. That’s the big lesson I have to internalize, just being the favorite in a hand is not justification to call down any bet, not when there’s certainly going to be much better bets just around the corner. Tonight’s example was a particularly horrendous one since my pair was so low that even if I was ahead in the hand, I had to know that it was still darn near a coin flip. I wish I could say I won’t let it happen again, but until I can go a couple months without pulling another one of those boneheaded plays, I think I’ll just keep my mouth shut.