I played this sequence of hands at $0.50 / 1.00 NL last night.
The players to my immediate left and immediate right were engaged in a lot of chat in the chat box. On my left was a complete fish, with VPIP=42 and PFR= 5 over 55 hands. Yet somehow he was up more than 2 full buy-ins. On my right was another weak player with VPIP=37 and PFR=13. The chat was a bit annoying, about how the site might be rigged, the poor guy on my left never connecting with enough flops, general whining, but nothing too egregious nor directed at me.
So I am UTG and dealt Tc Td, and raise to $3. Everybody folds to the BB (on my right) who calls.
Flop ($6.50): Qd 9c 6d. One overcard. Villain checks and I decide to check back for pot control
Turn ($6.50): 5s. Villain bets $3. This looks like a pretty weak bet. Perhaps he has a straight draw, diamond draw, top pair or middle pair. 87 just made a straight. He could also have air and be stealing based on my failure to make a c-bet. I think I’m ahead of his range, with only the top pair or better hands causing me trouble. I call.
River ($12.50): Ah. He checks. This is a great bluffing card for me. I could have called with overcards (i.e., AK) or a hand like A9s or A6s. To a fishy player, an ace on the river is a scare card if he doesn’t have one, regardless of whether he is thinking at all about my hand. I bet $9.50, trying to make the same bet as I would with A9.
He quickly calls and shows QJ to win the pot.
Now the fish to my left enters some chat about my failed river bluff and they have a quick back-and-forth general guffaw over my play. I’m steamed a bit about making the bluff and also that it didn’t work.
The very next hand, the same villain is now the SB and I’m the BB. Everybody folds to the villain, who raises to $3. Still steamed, I decide to show him who is the boss and 3-bet to $9 (I only have Jd 3s, but who cares? He’ll fold and wimper back in line.)
He calls.
OK, now I just gotta outplay him.
Flop ($18): Qc 5h 4d. A pretty dry, rainbow flop. I’ve represented strength; time to represent more of it. He checks, and I make a c-bet a bet of $13. He calls again.
Turn ($44): 4h. Now the pot is rather bloated and I only have $53 behind, slightly more than 1x pot. He checks again.
Do I want to risk the rest of my stack on this hand? I have total garbage. The villain is a loose-passive player who could call me down with anything that has even marginal showdown value based on my failed bluff on the immediately previous hand. I’d never be playing this way had that not happened. Aha! I’m on MINI-TILT!
“Dude,” I tell myself. “Calm down. You can out play these ****ers (I’m including the fish on my left in my imaginary conversation just because he is chatty), but you must do it with better cards.”
I check back and we both check the river, another Q that puts 2 pair on the board. He shows TT and takes this pot too. Both players now chat some more, har-har look at that terrible bluff with J3, what a fish! That’s how you play pocket tens. And so on…
I deserved every bit of it.
Year-to-date online results: (- $626)
Month-to-date online results: + $580
