HE REALLY SHOWED ME

Yesterday was just horrible. I donked out of some tournaments, then I lost my $250 buy-in within 20 minutes in the cash game. I knew I was in no state to play more poker, so I cut my losses and went outside to pull weeds for the next four hours. God, was that exhausting! I had no idea how neglected my landscaping had become. It seems I'm always out there mowing the grass, but I guess the weeds will mock me if I ignore the non-grassy knolls. I crashed hard right after putting the kids to bed last night.

So, in theory I'm rested today, though my body rarely knows the true rested state. The first thing I did was watch Rizen's commentary on his epic heads-up replay of a big tourney he took down at PokerStars. I came in late, so I don't know if it started out heads-up, but it was all tete-a-tete for the 40 minutes I watched. Next, I fired up a $50 tournament and donked out within two levels.

The big blow came when I raised with KK and saw the flop three-way. The flop was A53. It checked around to me and I put in a token minimum bet. One guy raised to $120 and the other guy called. Now I was all ready to be done with the hand when the ace flopped, and I surely would have folded to the raise, but with the second guy calling, I suddenly thought that maybe they both have aces that they are not proud of and would fold to a big reraise from me. So, I represented AK by bumping it to $500, which was the size of the pot. My ploy worked, I'm sure they both believed I had AK, but since the raising guy had a set of fives, he happily raised all-in. I'm proud to say I folded at this point (he showed the fives) but I'm sad to admit I tried this nonsense in level one. I guess if he has AJ instead of 55, it would have worked.

I was out a few rounds later and I moved to a $2/4 NL table. I've been doing well recently playing at this level at Full Tilt, and now I was taking my game to Stars, where my bankroll has been in freefall for a month. I bought in for $300 at a six-handed table. The guy to my left had a habit of making preflop raises with any ace or with any two high cards. It folded to my small blind and I raised him with AJ. He reraised and I called. The flop came AK8 and knowing that he could have any ace, I decided right then that all my money was going in if possible. It finally did go in on the turn and he showed A8. I caught a K on the river to counterfeit his two pair and my J kicker gave me the pot.

I caught all kinds of hell from him in the chat box. It is true he got very unlucky, but sometimes your opponents will make mistakes based on mistakes they have seen you make, if that makes sense. I didn't give him credit for two pair there because I knew he was capable of overplaying top pair with a mediocre kicker. In fact, my hand was better than his preflop, yet he was reraising me. I decided preflop that my money was going in if an ace hit the flop, so I was the guy who got unlucky when he hit his weak kicker on the flop. Justice was served at the river and I busted him.

He rebought and told me to keep chasing those six outers on the river. I knew he was out to get me, which often means that pots in which we clash will not be played in a straightforward manner. I know when I've got it out for someone, I get all tricky and trappy and usually bad things happen to me as a result - it's targeted tilt: tilt only against one particular opponent.

So, for the next few rounds, every time I raised his big blind from the small, he would cold call me, looking for a confrontation in which he would have position. I stopped raising and started calling with my ace/rag hands, looking to play more post-flop against him. My big moment finally arrived, not from the small blind, but from under the gun:

I had AA and I just called. I call a lot from UTG at a six-handed table. About half the time, there is a raise by someone with position on me. Sometimes I call, but often I fold. I give away money on those times when I fold to a reraise, but establishing this pattern also enables me to limp with my high pairs and look for the pot to build behind me from opponents expecting to be able to push me out of the pot. Then, if I come back with a reraise, it can easily be interpreted as me declaring that I'm just not going to be pushed around anymore.

So, I limped with rockets ($4) and right behind me, my nemesis bumped it to $20. I didn't know what he had, but I knew it wasn't beating me, so I reraised him to $72. I made the raise larger than necessary to keep in line with the unwritten rules of the pissing contest to which he had challenged me. His 5x raise of the big blind was much larger than it needed to be, so I didn't want to go with my standard 3x reraise. I picked a crazy number that I figured he would call with position on me, since it looked as if I was trying to avoid a flop. He called.

The flop came 742 and I bet out half the pot. He called. The turn was a 2, putting two spades on board. I again bet out half the pot and again he called. I figured he didn't have A2, and if he had a full house, he was going to double up. I thought most likely, he has an overpair and he thinks he has me beat. Either that or he really loves his A7 and thinks it's good against my AK or so. Whatever comes on the river, I'm planning to put him all in. It was a red five. I overbet his remaining stack and he called with A5s. I took $400 off of him and he quietly disappeared. End of pissing contest.

So, to analyze his hand: once again, he overplayed ace/rag by making a big raise from second position. With one player in the pot already, in that spot, I am limping with A5s, hoping to make my money post-flop with the nut flush draw. That is not a hand I am bumping 5x with a player already showing interest and three players left to act. By calling the $52 reraise, he is committing a LOT of money with an extremely marginal hand. Even if he flops an ace, he's got to be scared of action. He's only looking really good if he flops a straight or flush, which just isn't going to happen all that often. He is really investing a lot of money on his perceived ability to outplay me post-flop, assuming I've got nothing but a dream of pushing him off the pot.

At the flop, the pot was $150 and I bet $75, a standard continuation bet that imparts no information on whether I've hit my hand or not. He makes a marginal call with his gutshot straight draw. He must figure his ace is still good as if I've got some kind of KQ type of hand. He calls rather than raises, to see if I give up on the turn. The turn brings the deuce of spades, which gives him the nut flush draw to go with his gutshot. I bet $150 and he calls, leaving $103 or so in reserve.

The better play here, in my opinion, is to go ahead and raise all-in for whatever fold equity that play might have. I would have called of course, but there's the chance I would have laid down AK or AT or KQ or any of the hands he must have put me on. He must have figured I had a pair at this point and he was calling for the drawing odds, but still, an all-in bet would have been appropriate, since my folding would have been a good result for him, and he had plenty of outs in case I didn't. The only reason not to commit all his chips is because he is considering saving the last $103 if he misses his draw.

The river is an offsuit 5 and he calls off his chips with second pair. I am particularly proud of my $266 bet in this spot. He's got $103 left and I really wanted him to call. If I bet $103, then I'm a guy with dollar signs in my eyeballs looking to extract every cent. If I go all-in, a massive overbet, then again, it looks like I love my hand very much. I chose a bet that represented 2/3 of my stack, yet less than half the pot, just for the curiosity factor. I'm not pushing all-in and I'm not betting exactly his stack. So, is it a value bet or a bluff? Who knows? Call and find out.