HAND OF THE DAY: 09.04.08

$2/4 NLHE cash game, six-handed. I am $600 invested and my stack is $780. The player I am up against has a stack of $470. I am dealt Qc-Qh in second position. The utg player raises to $14, I raise to $40. The player behind me calls the $40 and the original raiser folds, leaving us heads up.

POT: $100
FLOP: 7c-4d-2s
ACTION: B ($44) / R ($99) / R ($172) / R ($432 all-in) / C ($260)
ANALYSIS: Obviously, the player to my left has a hand good enough to call me preflop after I had raised the utg player. I am representing a big hand so I think if has aces or kings, he would have popped it up and tried to get it all in pre-flop. I'm left thinking he's most likely got J-J, T-T, or A-K. The flop is safe if I am in the lead because I don't think he invests $40 cold with a pair of sevens or smaller. So, the only hands I am losing to are aces and kings. With this flop, it is likely we both have overpairs, and even more likely I've got the better one, so I want to build a pot. I bet out a little less than half the pot to represent a scared A-K.

He makes a small raise, which is not entirely unexpected. We both know he has a pair and it looks as if he's trying to find out cheaply if it is any good. Well, I'm losing to aces or kings, I'm tied with queens, and I'm beating jacks and tens, and even nines and eights, though I consider those hands less likely. He only called me preflop when he was offered the opportunity to build a pot, so either he doesn't have a giant pair or he was determined even then to create a raising war post-flop on a baby board. I don't really see the point in calling here. I think I need to go to war and test my queens to see if they are good. I put in a healthy reraise to announce that his pair is no good.

I am not happy when he then pushes all-in. It is beginning to appear as if he has played a giant pair for maximum value. It will cost me $260 to win $962. I need to win this showdown around 27% of the time to break even on the call. I make the call for several reasons: first, the table is short-handed, which makes me want to believe there is a better chance that queens are going to be the best hand with only five opponents; second, I think he has either kings, queens, or jacks. I am beating one of those hands and tying another. I'm drawing thin against the kings but I want to believe that it all adds up to a call; third, at the $2/4 level, I would not be completely surprised if he shows A-K suited with his fingers crossed; and finally, I really suck at poker and seem to make it a habit of getting my money in with the second best hand.

I call and he shows Ks-Kc. I go on to run pair into higher pair, and trips into a full house and lose $1200 on the day.