The Aggro's Lament

It appears that my image is officially shot in my Thursday night cash game. All my limper iso-raising and 4x raises with 67s have got people convinced that I'm usually full of shit. Last night, Mr Pietzak lead into me on a dry flop with a nearly pot sized bet. I had called a raise on the button with ace-ten suited in my attempt to play more position pots postflop. There was so little on this raggy-high board for him to hit, and so little for him to continue with - I felt a raise was in order. I made it $15 - 2.5 times his bet, and he raised it yet again, committing himself to the pot. Of course I folded my ace-high, and Mr. Pietzak decided to show his hand - jack-nine, a complete whiff for him too. Caught bluffing with the best hand!

The way the aggro player gets paid off is to finally hit a big hand while someone is taking a stand with top pair. I'm still waiting for that to happen. My biggest hand of the night was pocket kings, but the flop and turn were so nasty that I ended up checking out of position and shooting for a small pot. The river king filled me up on a straighty and two-pairy board, but my slight overbet didn't get called, so I won the minimum with a monster hand.

Certain hands occur that make me stop and realize that my skills are improving, which of course is so hard to tell between the non-stop waves of variance washing over you. In tonight's hand, I had raised up two limpers with king-queen, and had missed the 3-5-7, two spade flop. I fired out a big $10 c-bet trying to clear out the queen/jacks and the ace-rags. Mr. Pietzak called me - telling me he had some part of this board, some part, and then Bill shortstacked his last $14 into the pot. I called the mandatory $4 raise, as did Pietzak.

The turn brought a brick - I still had nothing, but I had a plan. To this point I had raised limpers and fired big into two opponents, and also called the $4 baby raise. If not for that last part, my line looked pretty strong so far. I checked the board one more time - if Pietzak had three of a kind, or even a bizarre 4-6 straight, he would have likely raised b/c of the two spades on the flop. I felt his hand was more in line with a pair/gutshot type of thing.

Bill, on the other hand, was so shortstacked - he could have made his stand with a baby overpair like pocket eights, or top pair (67/78), or a flush draw. I had 6-out equity against most of his range, and I felt like Pietzak's hand wasn't strong enough to stand a big bet. If I could clear out Pietzak and force him to give up his equity, I would basically take it for myself against the all in player, and get a free showdown into a $50 pot.

I shoved all in, with king high.

Pietzak folded as I predicted, and I got to see a showdown with Bill with what I figured would be a 25% chance to win a giant pot, heads up. What he showed was even better than I could expect - he had a nine-ten flush draw, and I was a 70% favorite to win!

Sadly, I did not win the hand - Bill spiked one of his pair outs on the river, but I was not deterred. I had gotten myself a chance to win a very big pot by getting BOTH a better hand to fold AND a worse hand to call, and I had nothing myself. Over the long haul, that type of play will be rewarded.