Friday Afternoon
Played a 6 hour session Friday afternoon and the action at Borgata was pretty good. The room was hopping as always, and the tables I sat at were pretty action packed and fun.
I won some small pots early, before losing a tiny all-in pot with KQ of diamonds <AJ offsuit on a 91010 with two diamonds board. Nothing too interesting happened until I played my one big pot of the day.
I limped in with 99 in late position, and the button raised to 30. It “felt” like aces or kings but I knew there was a very real possibility of queens, jacks, AK, AQ and at least a couple other hands. He felt strong to me though. Two limpers called the 25 dollars more, as did I and we took the flop 4 handed with $120 in the middle.
The flop came 689 rainbow, a great flop for my hand. I had flopped top set, and although it wasn’t the safest board ever, I could never put my opponents on 107 or 57 with the significant preflop action, and thus figured to have the best hand.
It checked to me and I had a decision to make. The more “standard” play here is probably to check to the preflop raiser and then either check raise the flop or slowplay depending on the action after that. I decided not to for several reasons though. 1) The preflop raiser could have AK or AQ and check behind, there were a few cards that could come that could be bad for my hand. 2) If he checked behind, then the pot would stay small…exactly the opposite of what I want to happen with top set. 3) If he cbet as I suspected he would, I would be telegraphing my hand by my flop action, particularly because there were no flush draws out (which is the only other likely hand to check raise that flop).
All that being said, I think donking into the preflop raiser is good for several reasons. First, and most importantly, it could hopefully induce a raise from the pfr to shut out all the possible draws. That would let me play a big pot on the flop with way the best of it, as it would make it very difficult for the pfr to fold an overpair after raising the flop in such a big pot.
Second of all, if anyone else had a set, they would surely act strongly when the action got back to them. If I bet and the pfr called, they would probably want to raise, and if I bet and the pfr raised that would obviously be even better. I could then get all the money in on the flop or the turn, before a card came off that killed my action or made me fear a higher set.
Overall, it might cost me a small amount the times that the pfr has AK…but nevertheless I think leading is significantly better.
I chose to bet $65 into the $120 pot, and the pfr thought for a decent amount of time and called. At this point I put him firmly on jacks queens kings or aces, with queens and kings being significantly more likely (aces often raises, imo, and I felt he was stronger than jacks).
To my disappointment, the other two players folded.
The turn came a 5 for 5689, and I was concerned it would kill my action. I wasn’t concerned that it had given villain a straight, as I felt strongly he had an overpair. That being said, I still wanted to bet my hand for value, but knew that anything too large might scare him away. I bet $100, and he tank called, which confirmed my read even more.
The river was the safe 3d, changing nothing, and I bet $140 for value, afraid that anything larger would convince him to fold queens. He tanked for a really long time and made the crying call, after which I tabled my set and won the big pot. He didn’t show, but kings or queens seems about right for his hand.
There was really nothing tricky or fancy about how I played it. I flopped a set, knew my opponent had a strong hand as well, so I bet strongly all the way and got paid off. Often in poker, the simple play is best.
After that pot, I played another couple orbits uneventfully before racking up for the night.
I ended up +$418 after 6 hours of play, which brings my running summer total to:
70 hours ——– + $3,126
I’m taking a couple days off, but should be back at it soon and I’ll keep you updated.