HAND OF THE DAY: 09.11.08

I busted out of a MTT this morning and moved over to a cash game. I won nearly $300 spending a couple hours at a couple of $3/6 NL tables. Here is the craziest hand of the session:

I open-raise in 5th position with Ad-3d; the bb calls.

POT: $39
FLOP: 7h-6d-6c
ACTION: * / *
ANALYSIS: He checks which tells me nothing. I'm going to get check/raised often enough in this spot that I prefer to take a free card, so I check behind.

POT: $39
TURN: 7h-6d-6c / Ac
ACTION: * / *
ANALYSIS: I catch my ace but still see no reason to bet. Maybe he calls me with a straight or flush draw, but if he has a playable hand at this point, it likely has me beat. I would rather wait to put in a small bet at the river if he checks it to me a third time. Then he might call me with an underpair to my aces.

POT: $39
RIVER: 7h-6d-6c / Ac / As
ACTION: B $30 / R $60 / R $180 / x
ANALYSIS: I waited long enough to see my ace-high transmuted into a full house. And better yet, he's betting into me. I had some suspicions that he may have flopped trips and now I think he is making a desperation bet after seeing the hand slip away. I suppose I could just call here and close the action since I don't exactly have the nuts, but I've made this min-raise on the river in this spot so often that my fingers executed the action before my brain even got involved. The other guy nearly always begrudgingly calls, shows a six, then curses his luck. One thing that has never happened to me before was having an opponent re-raise me instead. If he would have min-raised me instantly to $120, I'm sure my fingers would have obliged him with the call. But, he took a moment to think through the situation and then put out a meaty 3x raise. There's no way he puts that money in with less than quads, since I obviously have at least aces full. At the $3/6 NL level, I would expect a player to call me with an ace, probably call with a pair of sevens and maybe even call with a six, but never would I expect to get raised by any of those hands. He must have 6-6. I don't think I've ever put an opponent on quads before and folded, so I broke new ground by mucking my boat.