Last night was my biggest to date playing exclusively cash games, topped only by the WSOP (obviously- not sure that even counts since it took two weeks) and my win in the UB 200K last November. Funny thing is while I wasn’t playing badly I don’t think I was playing particularly great poker either. There were just a lot of cards falling my way. For once I won the vast majority of my flips at 25/50 Cap, which was nice since I was playing as many as four tables of it. The big night was also despite getting thoroughly owned by a very good player in this hand:
Full Tilt Poker, $10/$20 NL Hold’em Cash Game, 5 Players
LeggoPoker.com – Hand History Converter
SB: $2,227
BB: $4,711
UTG: $7,963
Hero (CO): $7,237.50
BTN: $1,144.50
Pre-Flop: J
9 dealt to Hero (CO)
UTG folds, Hero raises to $70, 2 folds, BB raises to $260, Hero calls $190
Flop: ($530) 3
T
K (2 Players)
BB bets $375, Hero calls $375
Turn: ($1,280) 8 (2 Players)
BB bets $875, Hero calls $875
River: ($3,030) 5 (2 Players)
BB checks, Hero bets $2,222, BB raises to $3,201 and is All-In, Hero folds
Results: $7,474 Pot ($3 Rake)
BB mucked and WON $7,471 (+$3,739 NET)
Pre-flop we’re nearly 300 BBs deep plus he’d been 3-betting me a ton from out of position so I was looking to get tricky on him. The reason I say I was owned is that I feel in retrospect that he was just inside my head. He was simply thinking on a higher level than I was and knew what I was up to. He knew I was trying to mess with him and he knew how I was going to do it. Whether he was bluffing or not on the river, it’s a great check-raise.
I was thinking I could steal because you so rarely see people bet flop and turn then check river witha monster. Either he had the As and knew I couldn’t call but would bluff or he had nothing but knew I’d often be bluffing and made a sick re-bluff. In retrospect, this is a clear turn shove, and I’m pissed at myself for getting fancier than was necessary.
Honestly the best hand I can point to where I played well was a pretty thin value bet against a cap game fish:
Full Tilt Poker, $25/$50 NL Hold’em Cash Game, $1500 Betting Cap, 4 Players
LeggoPoker.com – Hand History Converter
BB: $5,987
Hero (UTG): $10,000
BTN: $5,437
SB: $5,816
Pre-Flop: 9 9 dealt to Hero (UTG)
Hero raises to $122, BTN folds, SB calls $97, BB folds
Flop: ($294) Q K 2 (2 Players)
SB checks, Hero checks
Turn: ($294) 8 (2 Players)
SB checks, Hero checks
River: ($294) 3
(2 Players)
SB checks, Hero bets $123, SB calls $123
Results: $540 Pot ($2 Rake)
Hero showed 9 9 (a pair of Nines) and WON $538 (+$293 NET)
SB mucked 5 5 (a pair of Fives) and LOST (-$245 NET)
I’d taken this check-down line against him before and was pretty sure that he would have made a blocking bet with almost anything that beat my 9’s. Plus the guy was a station so I definitely thought he could call with worse, maybe even A-high if I bet small enough.