skip to main |
skip to sidebar
About 38 players took to the $50 buy-in monthly tourney.
Loved my table draw early. 3 players on the way being blinded out. One guy telling me how this was his second tourney ever. A sweet woman who played too many hands and thought everyone was bluffing, or called with a pair hoping for two pair.
I came in with a slightly different strategy - I decided I was going to get a bit more aggressive early and try and grab some chips. If I stepped in the bucket or got knocked out, then I would be ready for the highly +EV cash games that formed afterwards.
My "go big or go home" strategy was helped by good cards early. Pocket queens in early position. Big blind calls. Flop is all under the queens, but also all hearts. I have the queen of hearts. My opponent donks into me - but big, like twice the pot. He has a hand, but he doesn't like those hearts, I think. I think I'm ahead, but I'm also in position, and don't have to make a decision right now. I call the bet.
An interesting, useful turn card- the king of hearts. I have the second nuts. My opponent bets the pot. This seals it for me - no ace of hearts for him. Wouldn't he check or bet smaller with the nuts? You're never 100% sure though, so I take a couple seconds to mull it over then put him all in. I am rewarded with a big sigh and I know I've got him. He mulls it over but folds.
Right before the break, I've got about 18 blinds left. An aggressive player raises my blind from late position. I hadn't played with this guy before, but he has seen tight, competent. My hole cards read AcTc. My normal play would be a fold here, but I'm working under go big or go home mode tonight. I go all in. He has me covered, but not by a lot. He thinks, thinks, thinks, then calls - with AQ. I'm in trouble.
My opponent is the dealer, and he flips over the first flop card - a ten! I have three outed him. My joy is extremely short-lived, though - the very next card is a queen, and he has three outed me right back. I stand up. Then the turn card - another ten! Unbelievable. The table erupts at the improbability of it all. My double-suckout holds on the river, and I'm sitting pretty for awhile.
I decide to take a few shots at stealing some blinds to keep the momentum going. This works exactly 0 times - I am reraised every time I do it. I guess my AT all in has given away my tight image.
I eventually get moved to a table that's even better than my first one. Two women players- both competent and knowledgeable, but not aggressive. One has a giant stack, probably half the chips on the table, but she's still limping and folding hand she should be playing. The other woman player is very short and waiting for her shot to go all-in. The gentleman to my left is older and tight and I don't think he'll be much trouble. My cash game partner Todd is at the table - I know his game. One other player is tough but I have position on him. I feel great about my chances now.
My hope goes away on a blind vs. blind hand. I have JTo. I consider raising the older guy, but I like my hand and feel like I can outplay him postflop. I'll just bet any flop and he'll probably fold most of what he's holding. The board brings a surprise - JJ8, and I've got trips. Plans change - I'm still betting the flop, but for value. He calls. Uh-oh.
Turn brings a nine. Now I've got trips and an open-ended straight draw. I bet big again, he goes all in. Crap. Well, I don't think you're supposed to fold trips with a redraw this late in a tourney. I'm also hoping he shows something like 77 for "two pair", but nope, he shows queen-ten for the made straight. Called my big flop bet with a gutshot and hit it. Sigh. My 10 outs don't come.
I am knocked down to three big blinds. I go all in on the next hand (Q4) and double up. I shove with ace-high and win some more. A well-timed ace-king in the blinds takes away dead-money limpers. I build back up to 7-8 blinds, and still have a shot.
My bustout hand was probably misplayed. The shortstack female player finally puts her chips in. She has 1100 and blinds are 150-300. I've got ace-jack and about 1300 more than her 1100. I shove over her. The huge stack woman player calls THAT bet as well. Yikes. We flip them over - the shorty has ace-queen, the bigstack has pocket nines. I need some more three-out magic, but it doesn't get there, and I'm gone in about 15th place.
I probably need to let ace-jack go there. I think that's two live tournaments this year where I have re-raise shoved someone with a marginal hand, but my stack isn't quite big enough to scare people after the original raise, so I get calls (last time it was pocket fours, this time ace-jack). A fine play if you're first in, but you need to take the ranges of the players already in. My ace-jack was probably in trouble vs. her range - flipping at best. Plus I had other players behind me, including the by-far chipleader.
Oh well. Go big or go home, right? The cash games were already loaded up - two full tables. I could have waited around but came home and cranked out 500 Rush hands for a couple BB profit instead.
Hand #19 of the night I got 2 outed on the river and stacked.
The Rush tables were extra-unfriendly tonight - seemed like everyone was one step ahead of me. Couldn't win a hand, preflop or postflop. Was down 160 big blinds in an hour.
Then I did something I haven't done in awhile - I moved over to a normal, non-Rush, 6-max table. For a short bit my faith in humanity and poor poker players was restored - I stacked a donkey who decided AQ was enough to go all-in (I had queens).
I held my own at these tables for a bit, but hell - they were aggressive too. Ultra-aggro-preflop, light 3 betting (A7, A8), flop shoves with draws. All at frikkin .05/.10 blinds!
I took a stand with a 35/30 who was to my right with KQ. A few orbits before, I saw him bet/bet/shove with middle pair and a 7high flush draw. His opponent had flopped the nut flush, so obv. his sick aggression didn't work that time.
With my KQ, I started with top pair. He bet all the way, and I walked the dog, call, call. Ended up with top two pair, and got it in, but I was dead the whole time. He had 89s and had flopped a straight. Stacked again.
I think the player pool is getting better. I'm sure having trouble winning anything.
Played in 2 Sunday tourneys today, and had an awesome run.
First, I took third place in a 141 man tournament ($8 + 0.80 buy in), which netted me $135.02. Secondly, I placed 65th in the Super Stack 10K Guarantee (2629 players), which added on another $32.38 profit.
No large sums of money here, but in total more than I've made in 20,000+ hands of 10NL since I moved down. Maybe I'm better at tourneys than cash games.
I tell you what, though - I don't like tourneys much. Today I played for 5 hours, called an all in with pocket queens (actually I shoved over his shove), and was racing AK. He hit a king on the river to cripple me - I was out an orbit later. No drama to it, just two correct shoves with strong hands and either my 5 hours of work to get this far (or my opponents 5 hours) is whacked in a coin flip.
My last hand was a correct shove from the button with jack-ten. The blinds and antes were SOOO big that not taking a crack at them would be folly. Just stealing them would double my stack. The big blind called with Ace-ten and I was dominated and gone.
In a cash game, you make a misstep and say "whoops", then reload and keep playing. Tourneys are so unforgiving.
1000 hands this afternoon - playing fine, I guess, bobbing up and down as usual. Then I get stuck with kings vs. aces and whap - down a buy-in. Nothing you can do. When you 3 bet and a guy min-4-bets you, you figure it's aces, but it's wrong to fold kings. Just get it in and take your lumps. (one extra lump today, I hit a king on the flop, but an ace came on the turn. Bleah. The best hand won, yada, yada).
I also discovered a hidden reason to double barrel. I have been using the double barrel myself to positive effect. Today, I was the one double barreled, and it won my opponent a ton of chips, as it messed up my hand reading.
This hand also needs to be put into the running for my worst hand played of the year.
beware the feral cow packs. they hunger.
Full Tilt No-Limit Hold'em $0.05/$0.10 - 9 players
BB: $14.24 (Hero)
UTG: $8.39
UTG+1: $4.05
MP: $8.37
MP2: $4.03
HJ: $10.32
CO: $5.69
Button: $4.05
SB: $10.05
Preflop: ($0.15) Hero is BB with 
(9 players)
UTG calls $0.10, 2 folds, MP2 calls $0.10, HJ raises to $0.30, 3 folds, Hero calls $0.20, UTG calls $0.20, MP2 calls $0.20
HJ is a 20/20, only 10 hands though. Pretty useless sample size more any reads. I'm setmining.
Flop: ($1.25) 
(4 players)
Hero checks, UTG checks, MP2 checks, HJ bets $0.60, Hero calls $0.60, 2 folds
Out of position, but a gutshot. I decide to check/call this bet and pray for a gutshot to come.
Turn: ($2.45) 
(2 players)
Hero checks, HJ bets $1.30, Hero calls $1.30
I originally planned on giving up here, but it's a smaller size bet. I briefly felt like, if I hit the straight or set, I could win a bunch from an overpair, since he seems to like his hand.
River: ($5.05) 
(2 players)
Hero checks, HJ bets $4.50, Hero calls $4.50
The nine comes, giving me the one card idiot end straight. He bets pot. Again, I should have folded, but my gut told me that three consecutive bets meant aces or kings, and I just caught him.
Hero mucked
HJ showed 
, and won ($13.12) with a straight, Jack high
HJ won $13.12
(Rake: $0.93)
Well played by him - he double barreled on a card that improved his equity, adding a gutshot to his two overcards, and won a big pot from a donkey who couldn't fold the bottom end of a straight.
So many problems with this hand. Check-calling a weak draw out of position, twice (note how a checkraise takes down the pot on the flop or turn). Calling a pot sized river bet with a 1 card sucker side straight.
Bah.
The title of this post was some advice my friend gave me in a phone conversation today. We review hands every Friday from the Thursday night cash game the night before. We were talking about the KQ hand from yesterday's post.
I'm not sure if I applied it exactly right, but I had a very similar hand this evening, and when I was raised on the turn, I actually thought about his advice. I also thought about the Baluga theorem (raises on the turn usually mean top pair/overpairs are beat) - there always seems to be conflicting information - in the end I figured the minraise was worth a call with TPTK.
Converting hands till the cows come home
Full Tilt No-Limit Hold'em $0.05/$0.10 - 9 players
BB: $7.26
UTG: $11.33 (Hero)
UTG+1: $10.45
MP: $2.92
MP2: $15.75
HJ: $26.43
CO: $6.10
Button: $5.25
SB: $3.59
Preflop: ($0.15) Hero is UTG with 
(9 players)
Hero raises to $0.40, 2 folds, MP2 calls $0.40, 5 folds
Flop: ($0.95) 
(2 players)
Hero bets $0.40, MP2 calls $0.40
Less than half pot was actually a misclick, would usually go .55 here. That's ok
Turn: ($1.75) (2 players)
Hero bets $1.10, MP2 raises to $2.20, Hero calls $1.10
The weak-tight alarm bells go off. Then I remember my friend's advice. Don't give up on this pot yet! You'll know more on the river.
River: ($6.15) 
(2 players)
Hero checks, MP2 checks
Hero showed , and won ($5.74) with two pair, Aces and Sixes
MP2 showed 
, and lost with two pair, Kings and Sixes
Hero won $5.74
(Rake: $0.41)
Aha, the minraise was "to see where he was at", and he found out with my call. Too bad he couldn't follow through with a big river bet - would have probably laid it down.
This was my biggest pot of a short evening. I played well but took a boat-over-boat beat to lose 60 BB. I was still up 170 on the day, though - a fine day.
My last day of vacation, errands have been run, family has been attended to, my afternoon is free. Sounds like poker time!
I'm about 60% mentally invested into it, though. No reason why, just not feeling it at the moment. But I fire up a Rush table anyway.
129 hands later (only 20 minutes in the Rush world), I'm up 180 big blinds. Top set of aces dodges the all-in flush draw. TT gets 2/3 of a stack on a JKQA board against two pair (bad shove, buddy). A couple other smaller pots as well. Pocket aces 3 times in 129 hands, all of them winners.
Then comes the question into my mind "why play on?". I'm up 2 buy ins, I'm not that into playing right now, and a few other things sound like they might be better (like a glorious, rare afternoon nap perhaps).
Why, indeed.
I got pushed around a couple times tonight in my cash game, and both times I felt like I had the best hand. Both times I was right, by the way.
The first time, a limped pot brought an AQJ board. I was sitting in the big blind with king-jack. Everyone checked, including the button, who had limped into this pot. The turn brought a 5 and a second diamond. I decided to lead out with my jack+straight draw, and the button raised me. The beginner poker player simply folds in this spot, but my range-finding radar was on alert. What was the button representing? This was an aggressive player - so any two broadway would have been a preflop open raise on the button as far as I'm concerned. Or any ace. Or any pair.
So I've ruled out every two pair except for Q5 and J5, which I don't even think he's playing. I've ruled out all pairs of aces, and sets. I've ruled out everything! At least everything that can stand a reraise.
Lastly I consider one other idea - a limped monster. What if he limped with aces and hit top set, or with AK and hit two pair? Would he have checked the flop with the all broadway board? I say no. So now I've ruled out any logical hand for him.
But I folded anyway. It was a small pot and not worth going to war on 3rd pair + gutshot. He shows a king-rag of diamonds. Flush draw. My radar was on.
In the second hand, I raised limpers with KQ, and the board came Q72, the bottom two cards spades. I bet $10 and got raised to $25 from Mr. Hanno - a player who buys in full and likes to swing his chips around. It could be a move. He could have pocket eights and just doesn't believe I hit the queen. The only logical things that beat me right here are the sets, AQ, or slowplayed KK/AA. I rule out KK/AA because I had raised up limpers - a monster hand wouldn't risk flat calling and starting a chain of limper calls behind him.
So once again, my range for being beat was very narrow, but I folded to the bet anyway. I decided AQ logically fit all of this actions and I was about to get outkicked. Don't got broke on one pair and all that. He never told me what he had at the time, but at the end of the night he said "do you really want to know? A flush draw". Again with the flush draws. I folded two winners.
I ended up the night down 15 big blinds. 4 of the nine players who played went home with zero, so having any money at all was a small consolation. I played pretty well except for getting pushed around a bit. But in each case, my brain was working ok and I could see that my opponents were representing a very narrow range of hands. I just need the guts to start acting on those reads now.
I have read that holdem win rates can be boiled down to how well you get paid on the sets you flop, and how much you avoid paying off those who have flopped sets against you.
Sometimes I believe it. I stubbornly played 1600 Rush hands today, bobbing up and down, up and down. I stayed right around the the break even mark all night. Up 50 blinds, then down against a set. Then I would crawl back with stealing, restealing, and a couple medium pots, back to even. But I wasn't hitting the big hands, or I was hitting them but not getting paid off.
In the last dozen hands of the night, I flopped a set of sixes on an all spade board. We got it in. It wasn't a sure thing, but I was up against top pair, no spade redraw (the bad player finally gets his due). Soon after I flopped another set (8s this time), and the river gave me the underboat and the opponent trips. Another big pot.
After bobbing up and down, up and down, 2 sets win me a buy-in. That's about when I felt like 1600 hands was enough for one day.
Play and results don't always coincide. I played very well today for 437 hands and won 9 big blinds. My three big losses were with kings (all in pf vs. queens, 2 outed), aces (cold called a three bet with QT and hit trip queens on the river), and this hand - played aggressively, but against the wrong player:
Feral Cow Poker Hand Converter
Full Tilt No-Limit Hold'em $0.05/$0.10 - 9 players
SB: $7.73
BB: $14.28
UTG: $4.84
UTG+1: $5.70
MP: $10.75
MP2: $14.51
HJ: $7.65
CO: $10.44 (Hero)
Button: $9.74
Preflop: ($0.15) Hero is CO with 
(9 players)
3 folds, MP2 raises to $0.35, HJ calls $0.35, Hero raises to $1.30, 4 folds, HJ calls $0.95
I squeeze, with an actual hand! (still don't squeeze as a bluff very often). The hijack called is 14/14 after only 21 hands. I put him on a pocket pair, mostly.
Flop: ($3.10) 
(2 players)
HJ checks, Hero bets $1.65, HJ calls $1.65
Half pot bet (too small)? Did he hit his set, or is he stubborn with pocket 88-TT?
Turn: ($6.40) 
(2 players)
HJ checks, Hero bets $7.49, and is all in, HJ calls $4.70, and is all in
Great card for me - nut flush draw now, gutshot with a jack. My overcards might be good, too. Maximum pressure with lots of outs to bail me out.
River: ($15.80) 
(2 players)
HJ showed 
, and won ($14.75) with a pair of Queens
Hero showed , and lost with Ace King high
HJ won $14.75
(Rake: $1.05)
Gaaaaaag, player called a preflop three bet with QJo and went to the wall with top pair, crappy kicker. Meaning I had 18 outs on the turn to catch him. Players this bad should be punished for their bad play - hopefully, in some other hand, he was.
Hand #4 of my session, the table folds around to my small blind. I raise up the big with AQo. He 3 bets me. This is a fold in normal situations, but the Rush poker game is very advanced for its limits - tons of preflop 3bet/4bet going on. I decide to call.
The board comes ace high and not coordinated. I checkraise him all in. He calls with ace-king.
Coolered to start the night. My only solace at the time is that my opponent was playing half a stack. My second solace, a few seconds later, was hitting a queen on the river.
I wasn't even happy. I was still irritated about a blind vs. blind AQ-vs.-AK-ace-on-the-flop cooler. But maybe my luck from the evil night before was turning around.
Exactly 2 hands later, in hand #6: I call from the button with pocket 4s and flop quads on a 44A flop. The turn and river come KT, and I stack a guy with queen-jack who hit runner-runner straight. That's two people swearing in their blogs while I'm up a buy-in.
Those are the only grand hands of the night. I can't find a fold with AT on an AA4 board and pay off half a stack with a bad kicker, and I race ace-king with jacks and lose for my only larger losses on the night. I end up +15 big blinds in 773 hands. Nothing to write home about, but better than losing 5 buy-ins.
Suckouts, quads - just another normal night.
I'm not naturally gifted in the mathematics department. I often joke that I got into the computer field because I can't do math in my head. This will always serve as a disadvantage in poker when I'm trying to figure out if a $27 bet into a $41 pot gives me the proper odds to call to an 8 out draw. I can get somewhat close, but it might take me awhile.
The application of combinatorial hand reading is another place where I won't ever be an expert. Knowing that there are x combinations of AK left and y combinations of KQ helping me narrow a player's range might always be beyond my ability to do in my head. Well, there are a few times I can use it to my "advantage", like the hand below.
Feral Cow Poker Hand Converter
Full Tilt No-Limit Hold'em $0.05/$0.10 - 9 players
HJ: $4.04
CO: $12.15
Button: $39.69
SB: $11.85
BB: $4.15
UTG: $19.02
UTG+1: $9.16
MP: $8.22
MP2: $11.44 (Hero)
Preflop: ($0.15) Hero is MP2 with 
(9 players)
3 folds, Hero raises to $0.30, 2 folds, Button calls $0.30, 2 folds
Button was a 3/0 after 33 hands observed. This means I've seen him play one hand, and he limped into that one. Now he's calling a raise with position on me. I weight his range to pocket pairs and Ax.
Flop: ($0.75) 
(2 players)
Hero bets $0.40, Button calls $0.40
I don't like his call - these weak tight stats make me think he's got AK/AQ. He may also have a pocket pair that doesn't believe I have an ace.
Turn: ($1.55) (2 players)
Hero bets $0.60, Button raises to $1.40, Hero calls $0.80
I am bailed out by a third six - I can no longer be outkicked. I have caught up to many of his hands. His raise is kind of "cute" - he's testing to see if I have an ace with his TT-KK, or AK. Of course I consider the brief possibility that he has the fourth six, but every sign points to this being unlikely. Combinatorial analysis tells me it's very rare for him to have it, and his HUD stats also lean far against any kind of 6 in his range. I call the raise and intend on calling the river.
River: ($4.35) 
(2 players)
Hero checks, Button bets $4.35, Hero calls $4.35
Button showed 
, and won ($12.18) with four of a kind, Sixes
Hero mucked
Button won $12.18
(Rake: $0.87)
We do the best we can with our reads. Sometimes we're wrong.
I was wrong a lot today, by the way - my first day of vacation ends up being the worst day of online poker I have ever played in my life. I lost 5 buy ins in an absolute massacre. A night that makes you question whether the highs ever counter balance out the lows. When I win, I'm supposed to win - I work hard to get better and a plus night/week/month is just the payoff of that hard work. When a night like tonight hits, though - man. What a feeling. The "bad" is lower than the "good" is up, I think.
another awful session, where my aces, kings, top set, and nut flush were all no good. Minus 2 buy-ins. I misplayed a hand or two also.
This puts me back at about +2.5BB/100 for the month - not terrible - but I'm not very happy with it considering I moved DOWN in stakes last month. Am I really just a 2BB/100 player? I mean, you can't take out the bad beats and say you would be better without them - everybody deals with their better hands getting cracked.
2BB/100 is not good enough for me. I am not satisfied with my own play. But I already work harder on my game than anyone I know.
Played fine tonight, but I couldn't hit a flop, and my opponents apparently were, so I dribbled away 75 big blinds betting into people that weren't folding.
No biggie.
Found this quote in a Deadspin comments thread yesterday. I hope this person is paid to be a sportswriter - he/she nailed it, and did so in an eloquent fashion. Kudos, "OchentaYcinco":
LeBron is afraid to fail more than he's motivated to be great. He's got more talent for playing basketball than anyone on the planet, yet he's more than happy to subjugate his chance to be uniquely great to defer to his fantastically talented but still less talented new teammates, so that he can get a ring and feel like he's maximized his ability. Fuck that. Guys win rings every year, they're not all LeBron James.
There's a reason Kobe's 4th ring was the most important one for him. It's because it forever voided the argument that he couldn't be singularly great. Kobe wanted to be one of the greatest ever, and whether he is or he isn't, he was willing to go through hell to get into the conversation. LeBron has more than enough ability to be that guy. But he either doesn't care, or he doesn't believe he can. So now he can be Scottie Pippen, but he'll never be Jordan. And it will be for lack of trying
A record-setting turnout for the Thursday night cash game - 13 players on two tables. Each table featured a couple decent players and the rest with big problems in their game. It was time to win some money.
Or lose some. I raised up pocket queens and got a call. My queens stayed an overpair the whole way, and I bet for value the whole way. My $10 river bet was bumped to $20, and I paid off the little trixter who slowplayed his aces all the way to the end. I handled it well, though, and was pretty proud of own mental state afterward. Still lots of work to be done.
Then came several run-ins with PC. PC doesn't think much about what you have - he doesn't think much about what HE has - he just bets. Preflop is pretty straight-forward, but flop, turn, and river are bets. Sometimes the bet size is ridiculous, like $3 into a $23 pot, sometimes it's more in line, but you can be sure there's a bet in there. He's not afraid to raise up a postflop bet, either.
In my first hand I held AK and raised it up, PC called. I whiffed and c-bet, he raised a low board. I gave it up. Next came pocket nines that got 3 callers. I bet a ten high board and he raised again - I gave it up.
The very next hand I got pocket nines back-to-back. This time only two callers, and this time I hit my set on a dangerous 9TQ board, with two spades. Lots of stuff for people to chase. I checked my stack - $80 at the time (80 big blinds). I wasn't folding. I bet big and both players called.
The turn brought in one of the draws- a spade, and I committed myself. When I got shoved over by my neighbor Kevin I figured it was about 50/50 that he had the flush (he gets it in pretty light), and my fears were realized when he flipped 8T of spades. I considered offering to run the river twice, but Kevin isn't an experienced player and I thought it might cause confusion and slow the game down, so instead I kept my mouth shut and prayed for the board to pair. And.... it did! A queen on the river saves my first buy-in and starts Kevin on the road to monkey tilt.
Then I got back into it with PC - pocket jacks this time. I lead out on a ten high, drawless board, and he raised me. Third time he had raised my flop bet in two hours. The first thing that popped into my head was the slowplayed aces I ran into earlier- had PC replicated that trick against me again? Most likely, I thought - he just felt that I was still full of crap as I often am with my flop continuation betting. It felt like stepping off a ledge, but I re-raised him big with my slight overpair, and he folded. I had won a major battle.
An hour later came a minor battle in the same war. Pocket twos from a blind in a limped pot. Flopped set - small flop and turn bets that were called. River paired the second card on the board - a ten. I felt it likely that one of the two players in the hand held a ten, and one was PC. The other was a player would pay off a large bet with trips. If neither did hold a ten, I felt PC would bet anyway, and I would then checkraise him small and he would either fold nothing or reraise trip tens, at which point I would have to go broke. I checked with this plan in mind, but was foiled when they both checked behind with weak-ass showdown-worthy cards. "I have a full house" was the last thing either one of them expected to hear. I pulled a medium-sized pot, but the bigger damage was to PC - knowing I was ready to sandbag him with a big hand and that his bet/bet/bet style might be his own walk off the plank. I think I slowed him down a bit against me.
Our table combined back to nine players as people went home. My cards were pretty much brutal the rest of the night, and the table dynamic was not set up for stealing, so I hunkered down. There were now TWO bet/bet/bet guys at the table, and a couple call/call/call guys to go with them (one particularly awful guy is both a bet/bet/bet guy AND a call/call/call guy, oh to hit a big hand against him!). I enjoyed my stack until the end of the night, when my old friend pocket jacks popped up again (3 times with jacks, no aces or kings. Thanks a lot). I had to step off the ledge one more time - three streets of value against a decent player who I could not put on a hand as he called me down on a nine-high, drawless board. What the hell? My last bet of the night was $20 into a $50 pot. He thought and thought. Out loud, he said "there's no way that's a bluff. It's too small to be a bluff. It has to be a value bet". He was on the right track, but I still couldn't put him on a hand. My best guess was top pair Ace-nine. This player was stuck over $200 and really could have used this last pot. He wanted it bad. He finally tossed in the 4 red chips but didn't look too happy doing so.
I revealed my cards without saying anything. I figured I was ahead but didn't know to what. His head hung one last time as he flipped over pocket tens. Ugh for him, yay for me.
Monster pull for me- 204 big blind profit. I'm liking our home game more and more.
beware the feral cow packs. they hunger.
Full Tilt No-Limit Hold'em $0.05/$0.10 - 9 players
BB: $7.43
UTG: $10.12
UTG+1: $23.16
MP: $17.92
MP2: $11.10
HJ: $7.03
CO: $8.78
Button: $13.79 (Hero)
SB: $4.16
Preflop: ($0.15) Hero is Button with 
(9 players)
6 folds, Hero raises to $0.30, SB calls $0.25, BB folds
Standard button raise with an ace. Small blind defends. He's an unknown - no hands.
Flop: ($0.70) (2 players)
Top pair with no kicker. This is a hand with showdown value, but I obviously don't want to play a big pot with it. If I bet and he checkraises, I would have to fold. Since I want to play a small pot, I choose the flop as my street to check.
SB checks, Hero checks
Turn: ($0.70) 
(2 players)
SB bets $0.30, Hero calls $0.30
Now he's betting. The board has all kinds of draws on it, so he can easily put me on a draw. My plan is to call reasonable bets here and on the river.
River: ($1.30) (2 players)
SB bets $0.60, Hero calls $0.60
Hero showed , and won ($2.34) with two pair, Aces and Queens
SB showed 
, and lost with two pair, Queens and Eights
Hero won $2.34
(Rake: $0.16)
He could have shown ace-seven here and taken it down with a better kicker - fine, it's a small pot and I got to showdown with top pair. My check made him bet twice and I won about 10 blinds. If his bet suddenly got big on the river (like he had queen jack and hit trips), I simply fold and don't give him the value he's looking for.
