Never perfect

A 175 big blind profit at the Cleveland Horseshoe, playing $1-$2 last night, most of it coming by flopping a set vs. someone who couldn't fold his overpair.

I'm pleased with my play with the exception of one hand. I called a raise with pocket sevens against a pretty weak player. He was the type to limp in with all sorts of junk, and his raises were all top 5% hands from what I could tell. I figured a raise was pocket tens plus, ace-king, and maybe ace-queen. Everything else would be a limp. One other player called behind me, and we were 3 handed to the flop

I flopped my set with a queen-seven-four board. There were two diamonds. The original raiser lead out. I saw the flush draw but was willing to take a chance on a one street slowplay to see if the third player would come in behind me. He folded, though, so we went heads up to the turn.

An ace came on the turn (no diamond), and my opponent lead out again, for a solid $25. I took a pretty long time to think about this one. What type of hand would my weak opponent be holding now that he's lead out both flop and turn? Tens and Jacks bet the flop, but not necessarily the turn. Kings probably don't like that ace. The only three hands I could put him on decidedly were aces, queens, and ace-queen. I was beating one of these hands and losing to the other two.

I counted combos next. Three unknown aces and three unknown queens make for 9 combos of hands I beat. Those same unknowns make for 6 sets that beat me (three sets of aces and three of queens). I'm ahead of that range. Furthermore, he's going to get all in with all 15 of those hands, so if I just play this hand 100 times, I'll win 60% (9/15) of the time and lose 40%. This is an easy Degree all-in moment, right?

It's even better, though - there's a chance he might even have ace-king. It's a bit more unlikely, because he has to c-bet with nothing into two players, and I wasn't sure this player would do that. But we could maybe account for some fraction of the 12 remaining ace-king combos (let's go with half), and since this is a weak player, he may not fold top pair/top kicker to a raise, either. That makes 15 winning and 6 losing combos of getting all-in. Now we're stacking him 71% of the time, and getting stacked the rest. A no-brainer, no-question, raise and get-it-in moment.

I didn't do it. I called the $25. Poor play. Fear of getting stacked, even after doing the math and knowing the right play. I called turn with the intention of calling the river. The river bricked, and he lead out for a solid $35 bet. I called it again, and I was ahead of ace-king.

I'm sure the decent players at the table wondered why I never raised. I wonder also.