Most of us know what a mistake looks like. For example, during the summer a mistake resembles every guy who thinks a Speedo is a wise fashion choice. Shelley Long leaving the show "Cheers" to pursue a film career was a huge, obvious mistake. Mistakes are not always that obvious though. A player can lose a big pot in a hand of poker and not have to bother with figuring out what they did wrong.
There is a recent story from a Vegas casino. During the game of Holdem, seven players saw the flop, five saw the turn, and three remained in the hand long enough to see the river. Two of them were driving the action. They were raising and re-raising each other at every chance. Neither of them would budge, and they both probably thought they had the best hand. By the time it got to the end they were lucky a slap fight didn't break out.
The Board was 4/6/2/K/K. One player had a pair of fours, and had completed a full house. This would have been a wonderful thing had his opponent not had a pair of sixes in their hand and the ability to clobber the first player with an ever fuller house. The first player lost a huge pot, but did he do anything wrong?
The behavior of his opponent could have suggested that they had a king in their hand, giving them a triplet of monarchs, or a 3/5, which would have given them a straight. Even knowing that it was possible that his full house was beaten by another full house, the odds of that happening were about the same as Vanessa Rousso deciding to make him her own personal love monkey. In other words, it was possible, but probably not going to happen.
He had really good odds of winning that hand. The mistake would be letting himself get gun-shy and backing off when he had a strong hand. Don't let a single failure color how you will play.
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