Wow, last night was wild to say the least. I decided to leave work early so that I wouldn't end up at the casino till really late. I left at 6:30 and arrived at 7, I got onto a table shortly after.
The table was pretty tight it seemed. Not too many people knew what they were doing, and would just fold most pots to me easily. There were however two players at the table that I spotted right away as potential threats, both were next to each other and at the opposite side of the table. (We had postion on each other half the time.) One was a young kid probably about my age, wearing a light zip up hoodie and looked pretty cunning. Probably a former online player, the other was a young foreign looking woman with her hair up in a bun. She was a little overweight and wearing an Ed Hardy long sleeve shirt which made me think "WTF". Anyways, I tangled with both of these players at times, but I had the biggest pots and most trouble with the woman, who had to be a pro.
The first one who I ran into tho was the kid. He kept limping along with other players and when I was on the button, I would raise it up to 12. Most times he and everyone else would fold. There were times he called, but check folded to me every time (About 2 or 3 times this happened). I knew tho, that at one point he was probably going to fight back.
The same limp, and then I raise preflop situation happened and I held J10 off suit. This time he calls me out of postion. Flop comes 10 9 3 rainbow. He checks, I bet 15 (Same bet I always make, and I did this to look suspicious and induce a bluff) and he check raises me to 45. I flat while staring him down. Turn brings an 8, so now I have a straight draw to go with my top pair. I was def not going anywhere now. He leads nervously this time for 57, and I flat. River is a 9, and he check folds to a 70 dollar bet by me. There are two reasons why I bet that river. 1. There is a possibility he has a better hand then me. Maybe A10, or Q10. He could be thinking the way I have played my hand that I was slow playing, and fold his better hand to my river bet. Also, it was for value, if he was convinced I was bluffing, he could have called me with his pair of 8's or smaller pocket pair. (Those hands make sense for how he played the hand, because he probably had smaller pairs/ drawing hands bc of his limp call pre. And he was trying to pull a move on me so yeah) Anyways, he folded and I won a good sized pot.
Shortly after that he lost all of his chips and the only player left for me to worry about was the pro woman at the opposite end of the table. I thought she was a pro for a few reasons. 1. The way she played was smart, deceptive, and intuitive. She was making good reads and playing appropriately for the kind of table we were at. 2. Her chip tricks. She not only could to the chip stack ruffle, but she could roll a chip along her knuckles like I can (Except she can do it even better then me) These are signs that she spent a lot of time dealing with chips. Which could very easily translate to a lot of time at a poker table. 3. The final reason was because she talked about her poker past. Apparently she has played in 3k buy in WSOP circuit events before. Ok, anyone can enter those, but add that in with everything else, it paints a good enough picture to assume she is a pro. (She also had a huge chip stack in front of her).
Because I knew how good she was, I made plays to exploit that, I would raise her limp, or I would overbet rivers against her while holding marginal hands. Things like that. And I was getting the best of her too. Until the biggest hand of the nigh happened.
1 player limped in early pos. The pro woman limped behind and so did a couple others behind her. It gets to me in the SB, and I look down to find AA. I know I need to raise this up a decent amount, but not too much bc most of these players were folding pretty easily pre. I raise to 16, and the early pos limper calls, so did the pro woman. Flop comes K77 rainbow and I lead for 30, early folds and the pro reraises me to 85 total. I think for a bit and am unsure of calling for a couple reasons. First is that I know that she called my pre raise with nearly any two cards and may have hit trip 7's bc she must have figured my bigger pre raise meant a big pair and she wanted the implied odds to be able to bust me. Also, we are both deep stacked at this point. She has me covered, and I have a little over 300. But what puzzled me is why did she reraise and to such a good amount when she had pos. on me with trips. She could smooth call and safely slowplay, esp. on that not so threatening board. So I finally decide to flat her, the turn is a blank, and i check... this time she bets 150 (I only have 245 left at this point) I think for a long long long long time, I even apologize to the table for waiting this long. An old guy next to me looks at me and asks if I have AA too lol. (Which was totally rude and uncalled for by him when I'm involved in such a big hand.) Well I then try to talk to her, and she just has her head down and not giving away any info. I know that at this point it is also all in or nothing, so I am preparing to shove my whole stack. The hands I'm putting her on that I can beat is a bluff, (I have been outplaying her and the whole table up till this point, so she could be trying to make a move) or a high K, like a K10 or maybe a KQ. (She wasn't raising too much preflop surprisingly, so these kinds of hands are in her range) I end up reraising all in to 245 total, so she only had 95 left to call. (I did this play expecting to be wrong with her calling, or right with her folding. I did not expect to have any fold equity because of how big the pot was compared to my 95 dollar reraise. She was getting a little more than 6 to 1 odds!!!)
Well once I make that raise she looks visibly upset, but has not released her hand yet. And I dont even know whether or not I should be scared of her with trips at this point or did I catch her? She thinks for long enough that even she has to apologize to the rest of the table. She is announcing that she is putting me on pocket K's and worried about being beat by a full house. I just stare her down as she is thinking and counting chips and she looks to really be in a bind. At one point she looks up at me and asks if I will show my hand if she folds. (I actually was already prepared for this question, and pro's usually ask this for info. If you say yes, you are read to have a big hand. If you say no, you are read to be bluffing.) And at this point in the hand, there is soooo much in the pot, and I am still uncertain of what she has, I didn't mind taking it down right now without her call. So I nod my head yes that I will show, and she immediatly seemed perturbed lol. She wants to call soooo bad, but just says that she cannot call, and folds. I show the AA and tip the dealer 10 bucks, and she starts to freak out a little bit saying that she had 79. Now I want to believe her, but idk. If she really did have that hand, she should have called with the 6 to 1 odds. Also, another player at the table announced that he actually had 78. (even less likely she had a 7) So I want to say that she has it, but I am still uncertain. (Actually, I'm pretty sure she did not have it. The whole hand including that big fold on the turn just doesn't make sense if you have trip 7's) I scoop the huge pot, and am sitting with a stack around 600.
I end up busting another guy and getting up to 700, and on my last hand of the table I find AA UTG. I do my normal raise and get a couple callers, one of those was the pro woman again (UGH! Not again!) Well flop comes out Q9x and the one caller checks, I check (Trying to mix up my play with AA. Last time I lead ya know, now I will check into a woman who could very easily be tilting) and the pro woman bets 22. Other player folds and I flat. Turn comes a 9, I check call her 45 dollar raise. River is a blank, I check call her 70 dollar bet. She shows J9 for trips (again against my AA) and I muck lol. That last hand sucks but given the circumstances I think check calling was a good way to play the hand. If she had a Q or a bluff, or any other kind of hand, I just want her to keep committing chips to me. And the check calls were also for pot control. (If she was tilting, I didnt want to have to face a tough decision if I reraise and she gets a little bit frisky. For example, if I reraised the turn when she hit trips, she would have fired back at me and I would have been in deep shit for a decision.)
Anyways, I get up from the table after that, I have a stack of 561, so a 361 dollar profit! I think I played very well. The big pots were questionable, but I ended up on top so they were played correctly in those given situations apparently! :)
So I am starting off my attempt at being a pro pretty well, I played for 2 hours that night and profited +361. AHHH YEAAAHHH
-Coopb20
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