Biggest Pot Yet

Well I continued my losing streak earlier this week. My Aces against Kings allin preflop and a King hits on the flop. I move allin with AQs on a Jxx flop after being reraised with two overcards and a flush draw. He calls with top set. I hit my flush and he fills up on the river.

I play again last night and I'm running well. I'm up $215 at coming to the end of my session. I have one regular on about three of my tables who has been giving me a lot of trouble. He has already taken down one big pot against my with my 88 and an open ended straight draw against his TT.

Holding KK he had raised my c-bet on a dry flop in position. I called and it was checked down with him having nothing. We clashed again with him making the same move. I again called with KK and this time his flop raise was met with a big turn bet. I decided I wasn't willing to call a river bet so opted to fold to the turn bet although felt somewhat tight in folding my overpair.

He is aggressive and has a very good win at showdown rate and indeed win-rate so I rate him as good. We have about 1,000 hands against each other so I suspect he has some knowledge of my basic game.

He raised in early position and I raise to $6. Flop is TT6 rainbow. I bet out for $6.50 and he raises me to $20. With deep stacks I decide to reraise to $45 and hope to take it down there. He flats.

Turn is a blank and he leads into me.. I’m thinking that this is maybe the time to let it go but then think that maybe I’m being shoved around. I’m way ahead or way behind so a call is best I decide. A Queen lands on the river.

He shoves on the river for $59. I convince myself that he has my pegged as weak tight and could be trying to fold my overpair here. I decide that although facing a big bet I have decent pot odds as the pot is so big. I make a crying call and he shows JTo to take down a monster pot of $240.

A harsh lesson learned. Realistically I don’t think I was beating anything other than a pure bluff there. I think my flop raise was fine if I was willing to give it up. Flagging up the fact I had an over-pair and then calling down was terrible. I didn’t have a big enough hand for the pot that was built up in the end. He is aggressive sure and capable of bluffing but is aloso good enough to make sure he had a hand in a big pot where I had virtually announced my own.

In retrospect I needed to adjust my play given the fact that we were both deep stacked. He correctly realized that his implied odds from calling a small blind re-raise of an early position initial raise was pretty good. Much better than it should have been indeed.

He was even gracious enough to apologise for ‘sucking out on me’ which I read as keep playing fish I like you. I ended up losing a few $$ more before quitting and ended $86 up recovering my previous night losses plus a few $$ more.

I plan to have a look through all his hands and see what reads I can pick up from his play as I suspect we may be clashing again.