I just got back from a glorious cash game at a frat of a nearby college tonight, where the poker gods smiled on me. It was a good mix of players, no clear fish, loud and loose aggressive for 50% of the table. The game was .5/1 NL - I bought in for $40 and managed to lose it all with pocket jacks as an overpair to someone else having a made flush on the flop (more on that below) ,but then I reloaded for $40 more - and the poker gods smiled. Through tight playing, putting myself in in positions where I had positive odds to win big hands, and ONE really lucky all in- I turned that to $415 in 4 hours. Cashed out with over half of the money in the 10-handed game, and all the while keeping my image as a weak-tight, clueless novice from the neighboring dorky college by not debating about pot odds and implied odds the entire time. Anyway, I was just wondering what you all would do with the following hands that I went all in on or had big pots in during my path towards my monster stack. My NL playing style is usually tight preflop, and I have a tendency to overbet pots/go all in whenever I feel that I have the best hand, sometimes to my detriment. Anyway, here are a few situations that I faced on a 10-handed, crazy NL table-1) This is how I lost my first $40 buy-in. Black pocket jacks preflop UTG, I raise to $4, two call. Flop comes 8
7
3
(or so), I bet about $10, one folds, loose aggressive player goes all in. He's been known for playing anything tonight - calling $3 with 5 2 offsuit (which he used to catch a straight), AQ to his advantage, QQ, lots of suited connectors. I figure him for having the ace of clubs - he likes to semi-bluff with drawing hands - or maybe a 8 or 7 - and call, hoping I can still draw to a decent flush in the latter two situations with my black jacks. Nope - he turns over Qc
8c, takes me out.2) I reload and proceed to lose blinds until I hit A
K
on the button, with one raise to $5. I call, and the flop comes J
10
x. The raiser bets about $8, I think for a while and push him all in with my remaining $35 or so. Is this semi-bluff correct for a fair sized pot, and would you guys make this play against a fairly aggressive player? I figure I have a good amount of outs. In the end, after much discussion with his kibitzing friend about "pot odds" and "getting two-to-one for his money" and how I might be bluffing, he somehow calls with A
K
. It's a nice little freeroll for me, and I hit my heart on the river to double up.3) The one CLASSIC hand of the night - dealt KK UTG, raise about $6, get reraised exactly $6 by a newcomer who has amassed a big stack (about $120) that covers my 100. I found out afterwards that he has a reputation for being tight in his raises preflop, although I could not have known that at the time. The miminal reraise did get me thinking for a while, and I said to myself, it'll be funny if he has AA since I did read about someone doing the minimum reraise with AA on this forum. But I don't think I have the poker zen yet to fold cowboys. So I go all in and he calls with AA, but I hit the K on the flop and take it down. Thing is, I did get lucky, but should I have just called his bet and looked out on the flop for aces (i was reading him for AK or JJ maybe)? The end result would probably have been the same - I find it hard for him to fold AA to an all in on a King rag rag rainbow flop, but I'd have been much more sure .. but then what if an ace hit? 4) I get one more situation like I asked about a week ago here - all in with open ended straight and flush draw. I call a raise from BB with 7
5
, hoping to hit something weird, and hit 6
4
2X on the flop. I check, see a big bet from the initial raiser, and put him all in - I think someone told me I had a60% chance of winning these hands once - and I hit the straight vs his overpair to win the hand. Correct play, I think?5) After I hit $300 with that hand, everything seemed to be in alignment - when I limped with 9 7s, I hit 777 on the flop once; another time I called a bet with 22 and hit a set. One last hand,though, got my thinking about ideal time to spring a trap - I get dealt 8 5 suited on the BB, loose aggr. player raises to $3, two others call, I figure I want to take a gamble and call. Flop comes 3 5 5, rainbow - loose aggr bets $15, tighter player calls, I raise to $45, loose agg mucks without hesitation, but tightwad thinks for a long time, then turns over a big overpair and folds. Question is, should I have smooth called and perhaps allowed another set to hit, or should I have done exactly what I did by effectively putting him all in ? I think that if I had not raised in this situation and done it one card later (AND in that quad hand raised on the flop with 777 instead of smooth calling a large bet and getting checked/ folded around the turn and river), I would be up to $500 by now. Any thoughts on this?So that was a lot of fun hands - I have 4 benjamins burning holes in my wallet now, and I might actually look up akishore/smash's game tomorrow in Somerville to see how I face against real competition :)YLi
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