Playing scared poker is playing losing poker. In this example, I flopped the top two pair after an unraised pot. With several players acting after me, I worried that one of them might have limped in with two spades. I decided to make a pot bet on the flop to try to thin out the field. It worked by getting two players to fold.
However, I was still in the worst position with three players still acting after me. An ace hit the turn, but it wasn't a spade. I still worried about the flush out there and decided to check to try to get some information. One player bet about 2/3 the pot and the player after him called and was all-in. At this point, I thought that at least one of them had a good chance of having the flush. Otherwise, why put your money in the pot?
Poker is one of those great games that are analogous to life in many ways. It is important to stay in the present, to live in the now and forget about one's past experiences. In this case, I had felt burned so many times by a board that flopped the same suits. I would flop top pair or even a set only to see that someone had flopped a flush. With these negative experiences in mind, along with being scared that I would go broke on the hand, I made a bad fold.
I was out played in this example by aggressive betting. My opponent probably thought he had the best hand with top pair and the nut flush draw. I would not have been surprised if I had bet out first and he had pushed it all-in. In that case, I probably would have had to call even if I knew he had a flush. Since I had two pair, I would still have a few outs and would have been a 10% dog. But with all the money in the pot, it would have been very close to a proper pot odds call.
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