HAND OF THE DAY: 09.01.08

$3/6 NLHE cash game. I am $900 invested and my current stack is $535. I've been getting no cards at all and the table is pretty tight, yet I stay because I've been playing a few hours and know the table, plus I am due a flurry of high cards at any moment.

In this hand, I am under the gun and a new player has sat down two seats to my left with a $240 stack. He posts the $6 rather than waiting three hands for the big blind. That is usually the sign of a gambling-type player. The smallish stack also points towards him being a gambler since he's presumably more interested in risking a smaller stack in an attempt to double up quickly than he is in playing deep-stack poker, which takes patience.

I am dealt As-Qc and decide it is in my best interest to limp in and hope for a flurry of preflop action with that extra dead blind sitting out there. I will fly in under the radar and hope to isolate when it comes back around to me.

It doesn't take long for the action to ramp up as the dead blind guy raises to $27 to protect his investment. It folds all the way around to me. I am highly dubious that he's got a hand better than A-Q. I've seen this routine before where a player posts when he shouldn't and then compounds his error by overplaying his hand preflop. I imagine he's got some sort of playable hand like two big cards or two suited middle cards. I think I have the best hand but I'm not ready to announce that just yet. Since he will have position on me for the rest of the hand, I'm satisfied with taking a flop and seeing if he is willing to overplay his hand some more if I continue to show weakness. I call $21, bringing the pot to $63.

FLOP: 2s-6c-2d
ACTION: * / B ($63) / R ($144) / R ($213 all-in) / C $69
ANALYSIS: I love this flop. I haven't hit a flop all day but I couldn't have missed this one better. I'm willing to bet his $240 that my A-Q beats whatever he's holding, so I check with the intention of check-raising. He knows that flop missed me and he needs me to fold ace-high so he puts out an intimidating pot-sized bet to take it down. The bet could mean that he has a low pair but if so, then I'm just going to have to outdraw him because my chips are going in. I raise to $144.

I have effectively put him all in, because I'm not folding at this point. Folding does not seem to be an option for him. He sets his phaser to gamble and shoots it all into the middle. I call and he shows Kd-Jh. The ace on the turn ends it and I win a $486 pot.

This pot got me turned around and I went on to recoup my buy-in with an additional $108 profit before quitting.