A Bold Play

A Bold Play
by Rolf Slotboom

It was once again one of those nice and quiet Sunday afternoons. Knowing there are usually no big pot-limit Omaha games available on Sundays, I headed to the casino to play some limit hold'em, even though the stakes are relatively small (especially when you compare them to our regular pot-limit game). But because I rarely get to play any long sessions of limit hold'em anymore, I sometimes choose to play on one of these Sundays, because then the cardroom opens early - meaning I can log in quite a few hours and practice my discipline probably more than anything else.
Now, it is three or four weeks after my article “A semi-bluff succeeds” has been published, and quite a few of my opponents in the game have read that piece. In the article, I described this exact Sunday afternoon game, and analyzed a hand that I stole from my one of my opponents, in addition to one or two other moves I had made. Possibly because of this piece, people seem to focus on this alleged “stealing” and “bluffing” of mine much more than usual, so I knew I had to make the necessary adjustments, and would have to come up with a real hand every once in a while.

The $10-20 table that I'm playing at is not as soft as on an average Sunday, but it is still quite a good game. Having said that, I haven't won any pots in the first three hours of play, and I'm down almost $300. That's when the following hand develops. Everybody folds to a lady player two off the button who calls as the first one in, a loose / aggressive player in the cutoff calls as well, and I'm on the button with a queen-jack offsuit. Even though this is typically a hand I would limp with, because there are two relatively tight players in the blinds, and I want to get the chance to play against the two somewhat looser players only, I decide to raise. Indeed, both blinds fold, so three players see the flop AQT rainbow.

Both players check to me, I bet, and they both call. The way they call it looks to me like they are both rather weak. Even though some players like to check-call with a pair of aces (especially a weak ace, when they fear the raiser might have AK or AQ or so, but still want to keep him honest), in this case I think they don't even hold that much. So, when the turn is an offsuit six and they both check again, I fire $20, confident that indeed my pair of queens / jack kicker is the best hand right now.

The lady player hesitates and then finally calls. Knowing this player, she would have called instantly with an ace or even a queen, and the way she calls it seems to me that she isn't drawing but has a weak made hand. I put her on a ten, something like T9 or T8 probably. The other player, who is aggressive but rather inexperienced and way too loose, now calls rather quickly, and his body language suggests that he probably has a queen – in which case my jack kicker is undoubtedly good. (With king-queen, he probably would have raised preflop, and with any other paint card he would now have made two pair, and I don't sense that much strength in him.) It is possible he's got a QJ as well, but something like Q9, Q8 or even a queen-small suited are all just as likely, as this person would play all these hands in this type of situation.

Now, the river comes another six, making the final board AQT66. Once again, they both check, and with my now rather weak QJ (my kicker doesn't play anymore, meaning I will have to split with any queen, and anyone with an ace, six or even a KJ beats me easily), it would seem normal to simply check it back. After all, usually in this type of situation I will only get called by someone who has me beat or who has the same hand as me, so there would be no value in betting – right? Well, not really. If my read on both players was correct, and knowing both their tendencies, I was pretty sure I could get the lady to pay me off with just one ten, and after this much strength (with a tight player like me betting on all streets against this scary board, and the lady paying me off three times) the inexperienced player with the queen might then reason that at least one of us had to have an ace or better. This is exactly what happened: The lady with the ten called, and the third player then folded showing a queen, meaning that instead of a split I now won the entire pot.

The inexperienced player showed both surprise and disappointment at the outcome, because he is not someone to throw away a marginal hand easily, but now he had done just that and it turned out to be wrong! Well, of course he was correct in folding his hand, because in this situation where I knew I was going to get called, there was no chance whatsoever that I could be bluffing, and the way the betting went I was almost certain to have a big ace or better here. But because both players had basically given away their hands by their betting patterns, their predictability and their body language, they had made it very easy for me to make a “shot for nothing” by making a bet that, if my read was correct, was basically free of risk – and fortunately, it paid off well for me.

After that, I was fortunate enough to win a couple more pots, having raised before the flop with some very marginal cards. First, I raised from the small blind with a king-eight of clubs only, once again to force out the big blind, and to compete with the same two players again. This raise of mine happened to make the eventual winner fold, and instead of losing quite a few bets, my top pair of kings now won a decent-sized pot because of the contributions of the aggressive player, who called me down with second pair. And then, on the immediate next hand, I raised from the button with an ace-nine offsuit only, got three-bet by the small blind, and ended up winning a very big pot by making the nut flush on the turn. This meant that I had booked quite a good result for the day without getting any decent starting hands, and by winning three decent-sized pots with hands that were fairly marginal at best.

A few minutes after that, the two weaker players left and the table suddenly became shorthanded, as just some of the tighter players remained. With me having shown nothing but garbage in the last two or three pots, I decided to call it a day as well, because I knew that the tight players would never give me credit for a real hand anymore after all this previous aggression of mine with – in their eyes – crummy cards. Now, in a short-handed game you simply cannot afford to wait on premium cards and you will have to steal a lot, but after all the events on this day, I didn't think I could get away with any thievery anymore. So, this being the only game available on this day, I decided to simply go home and do some writing instead.

Still, I was pleased with the way I had played this session, in particular in the queen-jack hand mentioned. It doesn't happen very often that you have an almost perfect read on not just one but two players, and that from there you can basically predict their actions and lure the worst hand into calling and the same hand as yours into folding. It was a bold play that's for sure, a play I might not make again in a very long time – but it sure felt good.