You lose the most one step short of winning

1. under the gun fold
2. middle position fold
3. cutoff fold
4. I raise to $2.50
5. small blind call $2
6. big blind fold

Here is the hand. I have 6♥6♦ on the button – I act last on every street, the best seat at the table. I raise to $2.50 and the small blind calls; he has $22.22, a shade over a ninth of my stack, and after the call he has $19.72 left – that is the money I am playing for, and three streets put all of it in the pot.

1. small blind check
2. I bet $1.98 · 33% pot
3. small blind call $1.98

I have a set of sixes, and the board is unpaired and rainbow – no two cards of the same suit. It is a high board, and it connects better with his range than with mine: top pair or better is there, by my estimate, in 27% of the hands he arrives with and in 21% of the hands I open on the button. That is what I want – it means he has something to call my bets with. By my estimate, my share of this pot is 88%. He checks, I bet $1.98, a price any pair calls: the first bet should be the cheapest. He calls.

1. small blind check
2. I bet $7.47 · 75% pot
3. small blind call $7.47

A card that improves almost nothing: a five is in only four combinations of his range, and my share of the pot rises, on the same estimate, from 88% to 93%. He checks again, I bet $7.47, and after that bet he has $10.27 left: whatever comes on the river, the rest of his stack is going in. He calls. I work out the river plan right there, before the card: of the 46 cards I cannot see, eight are dangerous – four kings and four eights. After those, by my estimate, 15–17% of his hands beat me; after any other card, 8% or less, and on the other thirty-eight cards I call whatever he bets.

1. small blind bet $10.27 · 41% pot
2. I call $10.27

That eight. My share falls, on the same estimate, from 93% to 85%, and he moves all-in: $10.27. The arithmetic: for the call to pay, the pot has to come to me at least 22.6% of the time – $10.27 against the $24.90 already in it and his $10.27. I built his range by class – the hands that call a button open and then answer two bets: a pair made with one of his hole cards, a pocket pair, or a straight draw. 147 combinations reach the river, and 22 of them beat my set: the straight, eight through queen, plus pocket eights and pocket jacks. The other 125 are worse. For the call to be a mistake he has to put his last money in with those twenty-two only; if he goes all-in with two pair as well, the call is, by my estimate, profitable. I call. He has T♣9♣, a straight. −$22.22, the biggest loss of the hour. On the flop he did not even have a pair – just four cards to a straight, and only a king or an eight completes it. The eight came. I did not pay for the hand being bad: a set beats everything that reached the river in his range except those twenty-two combinations. I paid for it being good – with nothing at all there would have been nothing to bet on the turn, and I would never have reached the river.

1. under the gun fold
2. middle position fold
3. cutoff raise to $3
4. button fold
5. small blind fold
6. I raise to $7.88 · ×2.6
7. cutoff raise to $16.01 · ×2
8. I call $8.13

The same mechanism from the other side of the table, and it is the biggest pot I played this hour. I am in the big blind with K♥K♦. The cutoff (CO) raises to $3, I re-raise to $7.88, he makes it $16.01, I call.

1. I check
2. cutoff bet $16.26 · 50% pot
3. I call $16.26

A set of kings. I check, he bets $16.26, I call.

1. I check
2. cutoff bet $51.32 · 79% pot
3. I call $51.32

I check, he moves all-in for $51.32, I call. He has A♦A♥. Of the 44 possible rivers, two save him – the other two aces; the other 42 are mine.

And the $167.68 pot is mine – $163.18 after the rake and the jackpot drop. By EV the hand was worth +$72.17 against +$79.59 actual: the difference is the price of those two cards. He lost $83.59, his whole stack, with the best starting hand in the game, and $67.58 of it went in after the flop, when my set of kings was already there.

1. I raise to $2
2. middle position raise to $6.50 · ×3.2
3. cutoff fold
4. button fold
5. small blind fold
6. big blind fold
7. I raise to $18 · ×2.8
8. middle position raise to $255.32 · ×14.2
9. I fold

The second-biggest loss of the hour is $18 with A♥Q♦, and it is about the same thing. Under the gun (UTG): I raise to $2, a player in middle position (MP) re-raises to $6.50, I make it $18, and he moves all-in for his whole stack, $255.32. The call would cost me the rest of mine, $82.76, and would need 41.4% equity. Against aces, kings, queens, and ace-king my hand wins, by my estimate, about 24% of the time; even adding jacks, tens, and ace-queen itself to his range, about 34%. I fold. Ace-queen was strong enough to re-raise and not strong enough to call the shove, so folding it cost $18 instead of $2.

1. I raise to $2
2. middle position fold
3. cutoff fold
4. button fold
5. small blind fold
6. big blind call $1

The small losses at showdown work the same way. A♠J♥ on the button: a jack on the river gave me top pair, my opponent had 9♠7♠ and a straight, −$8. 8♥7♥ against the big blind on a board of A♣ 8♠ J♣ J♦ J♠: I had a full house, he had Q♠J♥ and quad jacks; −$4.25, because after the second jack I never bet again. The three showdowns where I had nothing cost $7.80 between them.