Gloat while the gloating is good
I've been playing some poker while on holiday. Not a lot, and not in long sessions, so I've been concentrating on the continued development of my cash game. My current level of choice is two-tabling .25/.50 NLHE on UltimateBet.
I was having one of those sessions -- if my first card was paint, my second was a deuce, three or four of the opposite colour. If I got a monster hand like 88, the flop would come AKT all of one suit. I was in serious risk of going on card dead tilt as the blinds, occasional limp, and occasional raise dribbled away. It didn't help that the previous session had been much the same, nor that the blinds from whom I was most likely to steal were calling stations of the highest order.
So, when I picked up AJ suited in the hijack seat with no action in front of me, it certainly looked like a monster, and I put in my normal 3BB raise. This was called only by the SB, a player on the maniacal (and losing) end of loose aggressive, on whom I also had the cryptic note: "bluffed with a min raise of a continuation sized bet".
The flop came KQx, with one card of my suit, and he bet $1 into the $3.50 pot. That seemed rather suspicious to me and so, for various reasons, I raised to $3. First of all, he might well be full of fecal matter, and this would take the pot down. Secondly, he might well have an underpair (my image at this point would have been very weak tight, so this would not have been such a ridiculous move), leaving me with lots of outs (or taking the pot down). Thirdly he might have a K or a Q, call, and I'd probably be able to get a free card. So my main hope was that he would fold, but if he called I wasn't too upset. Call he did.
The turn was another blank (not in my suit) and he checked, so I simply checked behind. The river was a glorious ten, giving me the nuts. To make it even better, he now bet $5. I raised to $10 (putting my note to good work -- if he used the min raise as a bluff, he might read min raises as bluffs), he reraised to $30 and I re-reraised all in (for not a whole lot more, having started with $49). I did contemplate just calling, trying to avoid paying extra rake on what I anticipated would be a split pot, but in the end decided there was enough chance that I was actually good that I might as well go for the throat.
He called, and showed QQ.
Now boys and girls your homework for today is to suggest at just how many different places in this hand he should have done better.
I was having one of those sessions -- if my first card was paint, my second was a deuce, three or four of the opposite colour. If I got a monster hand like 88, the flop would come AKT all of one suit. I was in serious risk of going on card dead tilt as the blinds, occasional limp, and occasional raise dribbled away. It didn't help that the previous session had been much the same, nor that the blinds from whom I was most likely to steal were calling stations of the highest order.
So, when I picked up AJ suited in the hijack seat with no action in front of me, it certainly looked like a monster, and I put in my normal 3BB raise. This was called only by the SB, a player on the maniacal (and losing) end of loose aggressive, on whom I also had the cryptic note: "bluffed with a min raise of a continuation sized bet".
The flop came KQx, with one card of my suit, and he bet $1 into the $3.50 pot. That seemed rather suspicious to me and so, for various reasons, I raised to $3. First of all, he might well be full of fecal matter, and this would take the pot down. Secondly, he might well have an underpair (my image at this point would have been very weak tight, so this would not have been such a ridiculous move), leaving me with lots of outs (or taking the pot down). Thirdly he might have a K or a Q, call, and I'd probably be able to get a free card. So my main hope was that he would fold, but if he called I wasn't too upset. Call he did.
The turn was another blank (not in my suit) and he checked, so I simply checked behind. The river was a glorious ten, giving me the nuts. To make it even better, he now bet $5. I raised to $10 (putting my note to good work -- if he used the min raise as a bluff, he might read min raises as bluffs), he reraised to $30 and I re-reraised all in (for not a whole lot more, having started with $49). I did contemplate just calling, trying to avoid paying extra rake on what I anticipated would be a split pot, but in the end decided there was enough chance that I was actually good that I might as well go for the throat.
He called, and showed QQ.
Now boys and girls your homework for today is to suggest at just how many different places in this hand he should have done better.
Labels: cash
posted by Michael Albert at 2:31 pm
1 Comments:
I love it when things like this fall into place.
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