Big hands in Atlantic City
I have been playing quite a bit in Atlantic City lately and have been a fortunate winner in some big hands.
The first hand, I was playing $5/10 NL in the Borgata for about 45 minutes. I had built my stake up to $2k from my initial $1500. The table was playing very weak with lots of preflop limping. 5 limpers ahead of me, I have 48s in the cutoff. I limp along and see a flop. The flop is 5s6s8d. UTG bets pot, the limper next to him calls and so do I thinking I have excellent drawing odds for the flush and straight. The turn brings the 7d and completes my str8. UTG and the limper check, so I bet pot of about $300. Both of my opponents call and I am putting one on a flush draw and the other on two pr or a set played weird. A beautiful 7s hits the river to complete the str8 flush for me. UTG checks and the limper now bets $300 into a $1200+ pot. I have to struggle to contain the glow of joy at this development since you always wonder if you can get paid off with monster hands. I think about my play for a while and decide to push all in and pray for the best. Neither player has been particularly aggressive to this point and I wonder if I will get called. UTG instantly folds and the fella next to him instantly ‘calls’ and flips over quads! It takes him about 30 seconds to understand that I have a str8 flush and he loses. He immediately gets up from the table, dials a buddy on his cell phone and says, ‘Call the cops, I just got robbed down here at the Borgata. I can’t believe I just got beat with quads for a $4500 pot…’
At a different table, I was playing a full ring game with 2 really aggressive guys. Directly to my left was an Asian kid that the table nicknamed ‘Turbo’ for his hyper aggressive style. Turbo had just bluffed me out of a $1000 pot with 2nd pr when a flush card hit the turn and I had put him on a flush draw. He was ‘kind’ enough to show me the bluff after the hand, I think hoping to put me on tilt. I never tilt. Get frustrated or mad yes, but never change how I play because of ’tilt’, it is one of my strengths. However the two aggressive guys on my table got me to alter my play since they were both to my left and presented a trapping opportunity for me. I got QQ UTG and decided to limp since I was ‘certain’ that one of the two aggros would raise. Sure enough, Turbo raised to $100, the other aggro called as did another fella and myself. The flop came down AhQhTd. Not perfect, but about what I was hoping for . Turbo checked as did the other aggro. The other fella bet $200 and I smooth called hoping for a raise from Turbo or the other aggro so I could get all my chips in. Turbo calls and the other aggro folds. SO much for that plan. Turbos call had me putting him on KK and the other fella on Ax. The turn brings a Kh and I moan inwardly knowing that it is a bad card. I check, and so do my opponents. Good, neither was on the flush draw, but I am probably behind Turbos set of Ks. A very fortunate Q hits the river giving me quads! Knowing how aggressive Turbo is I decide to put a ‘feeler’ bet of $300 into this $1200 pot figuring that he will raise me if he has what I put him on. Sure enough he instantly fires $900 into the pot. The other fella folds while I think for a minute about what to do. I slowly count my chips down and then announce ‘all in’. Turbo instantly calls and flips over his KK. I show him my quads and the whinging and whining starts immediately.
On a different $5/10 table a day later I have built my stack to around $3k. Two players on the table are very aggressive post flop, betting at any ’scare’ card that completes a flush or str8 draw when it hits the board. They have each cost me several pots where I didn’t have enough of a hand to call down their suspected bluffs. Needless to say I am a little frustrated with each of them. I am also determined to show down a hand if I can just hit something reasonable on a board with them. They each have me covered as well. I limp in ep with 66 and get raised to $50 by one of the aggro players. The other calls, as do I and another player. The flop is 6s8sTd. Bottom set in ep, so I check, looking to check raise and take down the pot. It gets checked to the 2nd aggro who bets $125 into the $250 pot. The half pot bet screams drawing hand to me so I decide to make a huge raise. I raise $600 on top of the $125 bet to destroy his drawing odds. The other players fold and it comes back to aggro 2. He hems and haws for a good 2 minutes and I think he is folding til he finally puts $600 into the pot. I am pretty sure he is on a draw, but I really don’t know which one. A 3s hits the turn. Aggro dude instantly says he is all in. I had already decided that I had to show down a hand with this guy and no scare card was getting me off this hand once I put in the big raise. I instantly call because of the decision I had already made. A beautiful 8 hits the river giving me a FH and aggro dudes starts cursing me ‘You stupid mother fucker!’ and flips over AKs for the nut flush. I take down the $6k pot and a huge amount of discussion ensues as aggro dude leaves the table in frustration. Most of the discussion centered around how badly aggro dude played and how I could call so quickly. Aggro dude really should have pushed or folded on the flop. He has no drawing odds except for implied odds on the flop, but he has two overs and the nut flush draw which is a favorite over a pair. However, it is highly unlikely that I had just a pr when I put in the huge flop raise. He should have put me on a set or a flopped str8. I made my decision about how to play the remainder of the hand based on two things. I knew aggro dude would bet any scare card regardless of whether it made his hand or not. I also knew that if I was wrong and he actually did hit his hand I would have outs. I only had ten outs for a one in five chance to win a pot that was offering me only 1.5 or so to 1. However, given our history, I gave him less than a 30% chance of actually having the hand that he did. So it could be argued that I made a bad call on the turn, but given the history between us, I wasn’t folding a set there regardless.
I was very lucky in all 3 of these hands and I didn’t put them in the blog to show how lucky I have been lately. The interesting thing I discovered was how frustrated that I became when playing with bigger aggros than myself. It gives me insight into how frustrated others must feel when playing me. I have known all along that my aggressive play gets others to make bad calls because they don’t know when I am bluffing or when I actually have a hand. It was interesting that I fell into the same trap when playing other aggros.