Hand of the Day

Anyway, I was in the $10 rebuy last night on Stars. Was not playing well but this hand came up that I thought was a little interesting because of the read.

I was down to only $3500 in chips, the blinds were 75-150. I have 33 in the CO. Action folds to me. I make it 450 to go, standard. BB calls. The BB has around 11,000, which is about average at this point. He has been relatively active, but not making any astounding plays. I had no clue what he had.

Flop comes 5J3 rainbow. He checks. What do you do? I bet 600. He calls.

Turn is a Q, making two diamonds. He checks. What do you do? I checked behind. I hoped he would bluff at the river.

River is the K. No flush. He checks again. What do you do?

You really have two choices here. 1. Make a 2/3 pot size bet or 2. Move in. Option 1 is clearly an attempt to get paid off as a weak attempt to buy the pot. It could also be viewed as a reasonable value bet trying to get a decent call from a mediocre hand. Now I did not have any clue as to what the BB kicker was, but I was almost positive that he had a jack because he smooth called the flop bet. Now because he neither C/R my flop bet nor bet the turn, I did not think his kicker was any good. And when he checked the river, I definitely knew it wasn't QJ or KJ. He would have bet something somewhere.

I chose option 2 and moved in for 2450 into a pot with 2100. He thought for a full ten seconds and called with J7. I wanted him to think I was trying to buy it on the river, and he fell right into that thinking. He said to himself. He does not have anything. I bet its a pair of 10s at best, or an ugly Ace.

Moving in on a weaker player can invoke certain emotions, especially in someone who has an ego issue. I do not know who the BB was or if he has any of these issues, but I really thought that if I overpushed the river, he would have to call with any face card in his hand. He was only worried about AK and talked himself out of that worry with his call. I felt that I maximized hitting that set against a weaker player because of the manipulation of his emotional state. If I was wrong, he would not have called anyway. He calls with two pair regardless of the emotional state he is in. But what I guaranteed was that he would call an all in with a jack in his hand, which he did.

Until next time (and it may be a while - I am off to DC for a few days of work),

Good Luck and See You at the Felt.................................